Charter Schools (Application of Official Information and Ombudsmen Acts) Bill

I move, That the Charter Schools (Application of Official Information and Ombudsmen Acts) Bill be now read a first time. Should it be successful, I nominate the Education and Science Committee to consider the bill. I am pleased that my member’s bill has been drawn from the ballot, to highlight the double standard the Government is creating in the education system between charter schools and public schools. A classic divide is now emerging in our education system, which is based on ideology—in fact, it occurred over a cup of tea between ACT and National. It is based on failed charter school models from other countries, like the USA and the UK, which the evidence in itself shows did not work and is not working. Why are we following blindly down this track?

Blind ideology is not the foundation of a good quality public education system. The bill proposes to shift away from offering special treatment to charter schools, and to bring them into line with other schools in our public education system. So what is this special treatment that I am referring to? The fact that charter schools are funded at a different rate to public schools is a shame. The fact that charter schools get bonus payments, even though the terms of their contracts are not publicly visible and neither is their educational performance comparable to the expectations of our public schools—that is also a shame.

Charter schools are able to make a profit. The terms of the agreements of charter schools are not publicly transparent. So my bill will enhance public confidence. My bill will ensure that charter schools are subject to the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act, which they are currently exempt from. The bill will impose greater accountability for the use of taxpayers’ money so that these schools face the same level of scrutiny as any other schools in our public education system, and that is as it should be. The Ombudsman has called the current exemption situation unconstitutional, which calls into question how has the Government allowed publicly funded charter schools to be exempt from public accountability. It is not just about transparency of funding; it is also about transparency of school policies and decisions that impact on our children’s learning environment.

But let us pause for a moment and think about that learning environment and some of the shocking situations that required the Ombudsman to step in. In 2011, when serious bullying accusations were being made in a school in Wellington, an investigation took place. Were it not for the ability of the Ombudsman to gather information that was not readily available from the Education Review Office (ERO) or the Ministry of Education, some of the improvements and recommendations that we now have within the education system would not have been made. It is really important to ensure that the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act exist. These are the pillars of accountability in our public system, and they should apply equally to charter schools.

Let us also pause and have a look at the issue of suspensions, stand downs, and exclusions. The Ombudsman himself said that by not enabling a complaint to the Ombudsman “the absence of independent oversight [in] partnership schools could potentially employ expulsion or exclusion procedures as a means of indirectly circumventing the requirement to accept all students, irrespective of background or ability, who apply for entry [at a charter school].”—ostensibly, a backdoor method of choosing winners. These are really important comments when we think about the practical applications of what this bill is trying to achieve.

Unfortunately, there have already been too many issues with charter schools, which just goes to show how important greater transparency is within the charter school system. Te Pūmanawa o te Wairua in Northland was closed by the ministry after just 2 years of operating. It spent a whole heap of money on buying land—a farm. There were already problems recognised in this school before charter school approval was given, yet the ministry and the Minister and the Government continue to pursue establishing this charter school. Bullying, drug-use claims, and issues around teaching capacity were things that emerged. This is the very reason why we would want to see the pragmatic approach in my bill being implemented.

An Auckland charter school has had complaints made against it by parents and a teacher about behaviour policies, bullying, and a lack of cultural awareness. Like the 2011 example that I raised, this would be the exact reason why you would want to have the Ombudsman and their independent oversight being able to investigate such claims, to assure parents and students that the policies and processes being implemented at a charter school are sound and are fair.

There is also a document that has just been released to show that charter schools’ NCEA results have been massively overinflated, raising concerns on a case by case basis about the robust nature of the statistics and outcomes being reported through these charter schools. I see the member for ACT guffawing over there, but he knows, as many members on the Education and Science Committee know, that this is a tragedy. It should not happen, and it is not the way in which we believe a good education system is founded.

All of these examples demonstrate that we need greater accountability, not just for the taxpayer but for the parents and the students who attend these schools—it is so important. Millions of dollars are going to charter schools—over four times the rate of State schools, yet there is very little accountability for that money. Labour believes that every dollar invested in education should go to supporting the learning outcomes of children, but sadly it is unclear whether it is happening or not. In fact, many charter schools can derive a profit from their operations.

💬 David Seymour: Oh no!

The member says “Oh no!”, so he accepts that a profit is being made by charter schools, yet our public schools still continue to struggle. They are not being funded what they should be funded. A student going to a charter school is paid more than a student going to a public school—how is that right? How is that right? It is not right. Funding for our State schools has been frozen and parents have been asked to contribute more towards their children’s education through voluntary donations.

Coming back to the bill—under Labour, a two-tiered education system creating winners and losers, haves and have-nots, via charter schools will not be supported. But let us get back to the point: greater transparency and accountability in our current education system is absolutely necessary. In fact, reporting on a level playing field would be fantastic, to ensure that we could compare apples with apples. This bill will go a long way towards ensuring that that happens. You cannot have a system where boards can hide their operations, their policies, and their processes when public schools are expected to be accountable to their parent communities and to the Education Act for what they do.

The bill proposes to level the education landscape so that transparency and accountability of charter schools is the same as of any other school in our State sector. It is a simple amendment that I am proposing: it is to ensure that the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act apply equally. It does fill a gap that currently exists that is not covered by ERO or the Ministry of Education. The Ombudsman, when the charter schools were being established, commented on this. He made a number of fine points in his submission to ensure that the select committee and the Government would give greater consideration to the proposal that I am now putting before the House. We have now had the benefit of hindsight. There are local examples that members in this House can point to, to justify why this bill would be a sensible and pragmatic approach to levelling the education landscape and ensuring greater transparency and accountability in reporting and to give parents the assurance that if they had a concern those concerns would be heard fairly with the oversight of an independent body and not under the shroud of a school board that is not as accountable.

So I implore the House to consider the pragmatic approach that I am offering in the bill. It is one that is supported by previous representations of the Ombudsman, and it is one that will ensure, again, greater transparency in the current education offerings that we have between charter schools and public schools. Kia ora.

It is members’ Groundhog Day on the partnership school kura hourua policy. For the third time in this parliamentary term we are debating a bill drawn from the members’ ballot designed by the Labour Party to do nothing more than score cheap political points against partnership schools kura hourua.

First, it was about ensuring that teachers at partnership schools kura hourua were registered with the Education Council, ignorant of the fact that practically every teacher at these schools is registered with the Education Council and that those exceptions allowed under the law are adding extraordinary value to the students, such as a retired air force engineer teaching engineering at Vanguard Military School. What is wrong with that? I will very quickly cover the second bill in the series. It said: “Abolish partnership schools in spite of their success.”

Then we come to this bill tonight, which would apply the Official Information Act (OIA) and the Ombudsmen Act to partnership schools. We have heard again, just like every previous time that one of these anti - partnership school, political stunt bills has come up from the Labour Party, all of the misinformation from the Labour Party members. I have to ask whether they really just do not care enough to find out the details of the debate—or are they actually not up to the task of understanding modern public policy?

There is Nanaia Mahuta trotting out the same line—that partnership schools have failed overseas. What evidence does she have in reference to that? It cannot be from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which has the most comprehensive study of charter schools anywhere in the world and which shows that charter schools outperform public or State schools in the United States. It cannot be from the C. D. Howe Institute in Canada, which shows that charter schools outperform public schools in Alberta. It cannot be from Sweden, where it has been shown that for poorer kids and kids whose parents have less educational attainment, partnership schools—or free schools, as they call them—particularly those that are allowed to make a profit, have better outcomes. It cannot be that. She says it is blind ideology, but if the evidence is all against the argument, then what else does the Labour Party have?

Then we heard it again: the hoary old chestnut from the member that partnership schools are funded at a different rate. Really, I wonder how many times I have to come down to this House and explain the most simple matters of fact about this policy—that every school, whether it be State, whether it be partnership, or whether it be a start-up integrated school, gets additional funding to get it started in its early years, when it is small. To compare a new school with an old school, a start-up school with a developed school, at scale, and to try to represent that as an indication of the type of funding that the school type gets, is, frankly, very, very close to misleading the people watching at home, because it is simply not true.

We have heard that there are bonus payments to partnership schools. The member clearly has not done her homework. Actually, it is the opposite: partnership schools have 1 percent of their payment withheld. They actually have to perform to get all of their payment, which is the opposite of a bonus payment—but there is not much hope of the Labour Party picking up those sorts of details.

It was said that there is not comparable education performance. Well, there is some confusion around the way that we deal with participation-based rates and enrolment-based rates of passing in partnership schools versus State schools. But this was done precisely in order that we would be able to compare on a school-to-school level—something that was not possible with the existing State system.

We heard that you are allowed to make a profit at a partnership school. Yes, the education system is riven with profit. Whether it is the people who build the buildings, or who manufacture the computers, or who supply the textbooks—actually, many people in education make a profit, and what is wrong with that?

I have now finished rebutting the falsehoods that we have heard so far, and it has taken up half my time because there are so many falsehoods in this policy from the Labour Party. But what of this particular bill, which would apply the Official Information Act to partnership schools kura hourua and bring them under the auspices of the Ombudsmen Act for all activities, rather than simply enrolments, expulsions, exclusions, and suspensions—in other words, the process of entries of students and exits of students from the schools? What of this bill?

First of all, it is not necessary. Partnership schools already reveal more information and more performance data than any other type of school in the system. If you want quarterly reports of whether a school’s finances are in shape or whether it is meeting its academic targets, or if you want to be able to see how many exclusions and suspensions and expulsions a school has had in a period of time every quarter, or if you want annual reports with audited financial statements, then you do not need the OIA. All you need to do is go to the partnership schools system of the Ministry of Education website, where we have been proactively releasing all of that information every single quarter, going on for 3 years now. But still the Labour Party members have not twigged. If there was more information that was part of the rigorous performance enforcement contract that these partnership schools have, then the Ministry of Education would have it. And here is news for the Opposition: the Ministry of Education is subject to the Official Information Act.

There is simply no need for this bill, because partnership schools already reveal more information than any other type of school. Was it not telling that the only example Nanaia Mahuta could come up with that she thought might reveal information found under the Official Information Act was to do with expulsions and exclusions and, possibly, enrolments? She said that, potentially, partnership schools would try to filter through their students in order to get better results, and that her bill would fix this by applying the Ombudsmen Act to the expulsions and the exclusions and suspensions of students at partnership schools. Well, not only does Nanaia Mahuta not understand how partnership schools work; she does not understand how her own bill works, because under this bill—

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): A point of order—but I will warn the member that she has to be very careful that she has a point of order and is not just going to debate something.

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: I seek leave to table the Ombudsman’s submission to the Education and Science Committee, in which he himself states that the issue of expulsions and suspensions—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Right—the member will resume her seat. The member does not interrupt a member’s speech in order to attempt to table something. The second point is that it is either currently publicly available as a submission or it is not publicly available, and if it is not publicly available, the member should not be trying to table it.

If that is the true interpretation of the document the member was quoting, then why on earth does her bill say, in clause 7, “delete ‘when performing a standing-down, suspension, exclusion, or expulsion function.’ ” from the Ombudsmen Act? Why would she want to do that, if not for the fact that that particular clause applies the Ombudsmen Act to partnership schools when they are performing those functions?

It is almost impossible to have a debate with these people. Not only do they misunderstand the policy, but they misunderstand their own bill. Beyond that, you just have to ask yourself—well, maybe it would not hurt. Maybe we should apply the Official Information Act to partnership schools, just to be sure—just to be sure that they are totally transparent. Maybe there is some information that could be garnered through an Official Information Act request that we have not already made transparent through all of the disclosure that we do proactively—maybe. Well, the reason that they are not in the bill is that the attitude of the Labour Party and its puppet masters in the teachers’ unions throughout the whole time this policy has—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. The member knows that that term he just used is unparliamentary. He will withdraw it.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I withdraw it. The fact of the matter is that the negativity towards this policy, however it has been motivated, has been so relentless that we know that the only effect of putting these schools under the Official Information Act is that every school—small organisations set up to help kids by innovative educators—would be bombarded with vexatious Official Information Act requests, which even ministerial offices with the force of a department behind them find challenging to process at the best of times and which State schools almost never receive. That is why it is not in the current Act. That is why this bill should not pass.

But I just hope that one day we will live in a New Zealand where eight small schools run by innovative educators can actually be held accountable for their failures, cherished for their successes, and met with an open mind instead of the relentless badgering and negativity that we are seeing from the Labour Party tonight, with the third bill in this parliamentary term designed to sabotage them by political stunt. I proudly oppose this bill and I look forward to voting it down with my parliamentary colleagues later tonight. Thank you.

In all of that noise from David Seymour in passionate defence of partnership schools or charter schools he did not really give a reason why they should not be covered by the Ombudsmen Act or the Official Information Act, except at the very end where he said: “Then people might ask them for information.” That seems to be his objection. On those grounds, I think every Government department would like to see themselves exempted from the Official Information Act as well. But the reality is that if Mr Seymour and the National Government are so proud of what partnership schools are doing, why would they want them exempted from the Official Information Act? Why would they want them exempted from the Ombudsmen Act?

I just want to talk particularly about the Ombudsmen Act for a moment. There is a provision, and it was negotiated at select committee by Tracey Martin, Catherine Delahunty, me, and others, to ensure that part of the Ombudsmen Act would apply to partnership schools, but only part of it, and it was only in so far as it relates to disciplinary decisions, stand downs, suspensions, and so on.

But then I want you to consider the example that the Ombudsman gave us in his submission to the select committee, which went much wider than simply those decisions around stand downs and suspensions. That was of a school, which I am very familiar with, where there were systemic bullying issues. The school failed the students involved, the Ministry of Education failed the students, and so did the Education Review Office. Ultimately, it was the Ombudsman who got to the bottom of that situation, ensured that it was brought to the light of day, and ensured that the problem was dealt with. These were very serious problems, including—I am not going to go into all of the details—the violation of students with a broomstick. All of the official agencies responsible for dealing with those problems failed those students. The Office of the Ombudsmen, the last safeguard, was the agency that finally dealt with it. If that was happening in a partnership school, there would be no final safeguard available for those students.

So if the ACT Party and the National Party are so proud of partnership schools, so confident that they are supplying a higher quality education than every other school in the country, so confident that they are so much more accountable, why would they not want them to be covered by the Ombudsmen Act and by the Official Information Act?

💬 David Seymour: We answered that, “Chippy”.

They have not actually answered it. All they have said is that they think it might be a bit too much work. That seems to be the sum total of David Seymour’s argument. If somehow people were able to complain to the Ombudsman or ask for information under the Official Information Act, then they might actually do so. Would that not be a terrible thing in the world of the National Party and in the world of the ACT Party?

The Ombudsman came to the select committee when this bill was being debated and actually took the very unusual step of presenting before a select committee. The Ombudsman, as an Officer of Parliament, does that very rarely. In fact, it has happened twice, to my knowledge, in the time that I have been an MP. Once was in this case and the other is now, in the case of communities of online learning, the online learning schools, which the Government is also going to exempt from the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act. It is very unusual. The Ombudsman, basically, had to come along to the select committee to defend their very existence. Because if parts of the apparatus of government, and schools are part of the apparatus of government, are going to be exempted from the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act, then the Ombudsman is really coming along to justify their very existence. That is quite an unusual thing. As I think the Ombudsman says, it is a constitutional anomaly because, actually, the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act are parts of our constitutional framework. They are vitally important. They are part of the process of open and transparent government.

I am not going to get into an argument with David Seymour about the performance of partnership schools or otherwise; there are plenty of opportunities for us to do that, and we certainly do. That is a very legitimate thing for any political parties to be doing. I would encourage David Seymour to look not just with rose-tinted glasses at the performance of partnership schools but to actually have a realistic look at them. Actually look at some of the pitfalls and some of the problems that have been encountered, because it has not been all sunshine. There have been some legitimate issues, and rather than turning a blind eye to those, perhaps he would like to deal with them. But, no, he is not going to. But we will debate those at another date, because, actually, the purpose of this bill is quite a narrow one. It is not actually an attack on partnership schools. It is saying that they should simply be accountable to the public, and that they should be subject to the same provisions and protections as State schools are when it comes to public transparency and accountability.

I speak, firstly, about the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results. According to the latest Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, findings relating to New Zealand, New Zealand has been doing very well, actually. The results show that New Zealand has consolidated and improved its place in the top half of the OECD after a fall in rankings in 2012. So in reading, New Zealand has come up from 13 to 10.

Now I am coming to the topic—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Good, good.

—because the point I am trying to say is that we have been trying very hard to raise our educational achievement. We understand very clearly that we need to make sure all young New Zealanders have those kinds of skills and qualifications to enable them to participate in the modern economy. So that is our particular goal.

To do that, we need to invest more; that is one thing. Also, we need to be more innovative, and we need to have more options. Partnership schools are one particular option for some kids; those kids from low-decile areas or from disadvantaged communities. Those kids have not been performing very well in the public schools or State schools. Partnership schools can be one option for those parents and their children. So this is why we believe that partnership schools have their place. Partnership schools and students—all our children—are all unique. They have their own ways of studying and that is why we believe there is a place for partnership schools.

Of course, this particular bill has a concern about the accountability of partnership schools, but we do have safeguards there to make sure that partnership schools are able to deliver quality and to meet a standard. So what are these safeguards, then? Well, firstly, partnership schools must have a sponsor, which must be a governing body, and, also, partnership schools must have a signed contract—a fixed-term contract—with the Crown, which will make sure these schools must deliver specific school-level targets. So if it is unable to deliver its targets, the Minister of Education could simply end the contract and the partnership school needs to be closed. So this is a particular safeguard.

Of course, we have more safeguards. In addition to the right to terminate, the Minister could also intervene to make sure that schools are running properly and also that kids are receiving proper education and welfare. Partnership schools may have more—actually, greater—transparency than State schools because they have to report quarterly, 6 monthly, and annually to the Minister of Education and also to the Partnership Schools Authorisation Board. So this is a more frequent reporting system. And also, partnership schools need to deliver their annual audited financial statement, and these statements can be subject to Official Information Act (OIA) requests. So this is another safeguard.

Also, we say that the partnership schools are not subject to the OIA or the Ombudsmen Act because they are not Crown entities; they are simply non-governmental organisations. Although they have a contract or are partly funded or fully funded by the Government, there are many NGOs that deliver services and that are partly or fully funded by the Government that are not subject to the OIA or the Ombudsmen Act. So if these partnership schools are subject to the OIA or the Ombudsmen Act, then how about the over 5,000 education organisations that are receiving partially, or fully, their funding from the Government? So this bill is not right. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou ko tēnei pō. I would like to just congratulate the member who put up this bill, Nanaia Mahuta. I think that she is a person who has a long tradition of working for communities, understanding the needs of the people she represents, and caring about what happens in the education system. This is a narrow, effective, and just piece of legislation, which should go through. If it does not, it just shows the double standard that she mentioned in her speech. But, really, I found that the previous speakers from the National Party and ACT do not seem to understand the concept of transparency in a modern constitutional educational framework.

The point, my friends, of having the Official Information Act (OIA) and the Ombudsmen Act is so that when things go wrong there is somebody who is a higher, independent voice who can check on behalf of the vulnerable, and maintain democracy and transparency in education. That is why the Ombudsman came and said that the four provisions of the Ombudsmen Act should apply. I know this is a serious issue. I know this bill matters, because I receive many calls from people who are struggling in the State system as well, but at least in the State system they can say to me “Will you write an Official Information Act request to the school about this child of mine, who has experienced abuse?”, or exclusion or something very serious. And, yes, I do that, and, yes, that can be done, because it is State money and it should be held to account.

It is also a State institution that has to respect the human rights of the students. But, for some mad reason, a completely unjustifiable reason, these schools—when it suits them, they are State schools and when it suits the Government, they are not subject to these provisions. I can say, without exposing more detail, that there are people who have contacted me whose children are in charter schools and are experiencing the same kind of vulnerability, and they cannot use the Ombudsman or the OIA, and they want to. They have no redress through the system because Nanaia Mahuta’s bill is not law yet.

It is fine to talk about quarterly reports—I read those quarterly reports—but it has got nothing to do with potential human rights abuses. They do not appear in the innovation jargon of the education sector reports on charters. So why are the Government and the ACT Party so keen to sacrifice the rights of our children? It is extraordinary. The stories that come to me are deeply painful and they tell me that some of the charters are doing no better—in fact, worse—because they are subject to less scrutiny, which means these children, who are supposed to be priority learners and who are supposed to get all this benefit, have no protection under the law. For shame! These children deserve better. As we heard at the select committee today, there are many reasons why we need scrutiny of these charter schools, because we heard today that some charter schools’ results, when they claim 100 percent achievement, turn out under the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand methodology to be 60 percent achievement. It is mickey mouse education if it is reported wrongly.

That is about achievement statistics, but even more significant is when things go wrong. God knows, Whangaruru charter school was a disaster for those students, whom everyone on the Government side seems to have forgotten about—a disaster for those kids—and these parents who approach me and ask for help do not have this natural justice, this redress, that other State schools receiving State funds have. It is just wrong and it is just unfair, and I will be very disappointed if this bill is not supported. We need to protect the rights of our children—the most vulnerable—in all of our schools, not just the public schools, which are open to the OIA and the Ombudsmen Act but, particularly, the privatised, contract-based ones.

Dr Jian Yang, the previous speaker, made an argument about how the contract protects. The contract protects nothing. The contract protects the concept that education is private business that we cannot hold to account. That is shameful. We need to hold all of it to account, and we need to support this excellent bill. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. New Zealand First will support this bill, because in the interim between now and a New Zealand First majority - led Government that will not renew the charter school contracts, we need to have some protection for these students.

I want to take issue—and it is with great disappointment that I do so—that the chair of the Education and Science Committee believed what the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Education said with regard to the fact that charter schools are more accountable than State schools, and they quoted several things. They said it was because there are audited financial accounts. Every State school files an audited financial account every year. They said it was because they have quarterly reports. Every State school is required to file a quarterly roll return. They said it was because they have in their contracts an annual plan or key performance indicators (KPIs). Every State school has an annual plan with KPIs that must be publicly available to its parental body.

It shocks me and disappoints me that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Education and the chair of the Education and Science Committee do not know these things and that they stand and say these things at the same time as they denigrate the State system of this country. It is a shame, and they should be ashamed, that they stand in this House and speak of education when they know so little about it.

With regard to why New Zealand First will support the overview of the Ombudsman and the application of the Official Information Act, Mr Hipkins referred to the negotiations that took place in the last Parliament, in the 50th Parliament, when Nikki Kaye—no, it was not. It was Cam Calder who was the chair of the Education and Science Committee, when the Government had cocked up a—or stuffed up. I beg your pardon. The Government had stuffed up the search and seizure part of an education amendment bill, and it required a majority vote to get the bill out of the House so that it did not have to do something like 53 Supplementary Order Papers to actually fix what was a complete stuff-up around those search and seizure regulations in the Education Act 1989.

So I negotiated with Cam Calder, supported by the other members of the Opposition, and I was able to get section 158E, which gave oversight of the Ombudsman around the discipline process for expulsion and exclusion. So at least parents, if their children were excluded from a charter school—which is required, supposedly, to have an open-door policy, like any State school—it could not push them out the back door.

What we did not foresee, of course, was that the charter schools would not use the expulsion method, they would not use the exclusion or expulsion method—they have decided to dissuade. Charter schools—at least two of them—have decided to dissuade parents, when they come inside the front door, to not stay inside their school. They have decided that it would be better to use methods that are abhorrent inside the State education system, particularly for students who have high needs or special needs—the very students whom supposedly this was supposed to support. They have decided to put pressure on their parents to remove them.

It might be that the State decides that that is voting with your feet, but I can tell you that considering that those are taxpayers and it is their dollars that are funding these organisations that are using this method of dissuasion so that it cannot be recorded and the parents have no opportunity to complain to the Ombudsman—we cannot allow this to stand. If this bill fails, can I suggest to the parents whom I am talking to, who contact members of the Opposition—I suggest you go public if you have no other way. If this Government will not give you the opportunity to use the system that was put in place to protect you and to protect your children, I suggest you go to the media.

I suggest that Mr Seymour should be made to stand up in this House with a glossy brochure of one charter school, and then have to hold up a newspaper article about another charter school, that outlines how these parents are being treated because Mr Seymour refuses to give them an option by which to complain. Mr Seymour refuses to allow them to have the right to complain as they do inside a State system. We are not sure what Mr Seymour is afraid of, but we know that Mr Seymour is afraid.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Hon Nanaia Mahuta’s member’s bill today, the Charter Schools (Application of Official Information and Ombudsmen Acts) Bill. Tracey Martin is always very passionate when it comes to education bills. I do know that she is passionate, because I sit on the Education and Science Committee with her. However, I would like to perhaps make a note to the member that nobody on this side of the House, as she characterises us, would like to see children being abused, or being bullied, or that we actually stand for that in any system, whether it is actually in a partnership school or in a public school. I think we actually oppose that, and we are aghast at the idea that children are being abused in any system, and we want to protect them.

I think there are a lot of times when Tracey and I agree, because both of us are parents and we have raised children and we want to make sure that our children are in the best possible care when they are at school and that they are receiving the best possible outcome. We might differ in the way that it might actually be delivered, but I think the fact that we care that they get the best possible outcome is something we agree on. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary has actually pointed out, in my memory I think this is the third time that the Labour Party has brought a bill like this to the House. I think the first one was in fact the Hon Phil Goff’s and the second one was Chris Hipkins’, and today it is the member for Hauraki-Waikato’s bill. I oppose this bill, obviously.

The Opposition today, speaking on the way that the schools operate, claims that by making them liable directly to the Official Information Act (OIA) it will make them more accountable for their use of public funds. What this shows is that the Opposition really does not understand that partnership schools are more accountable. I know that some people on the other side have actually said that they are less accountable; I believe that they are more accountable. There is a contract in place and, if they do not perform, the contract is actually ended and they cannot operate as a partnership school any more.

Partnership schools already report, as my learned colleague to my right, the chair of the Education and Science Committee, Dr Jian Yang, has actually said. They report quarterly, 6-monthly, and yearly to the Minister as well as the Partnership Schools Authorisation Board. If anything crops up, I would think that the Minister or this board would actually not sit there and accept the fact that there are things going wrong, like the abuse of children or bullying of children—that it would not actually go unnoticed. In terms of requiring a private entity like partnership schools to be accountable to the OIA—subject to the duties of the Crown—it would be wrong to require a private organisation to respond to an OIA request. There are over 5,000 education groups that receive Government funding but do not have OIA requirements, such as industry training groups, early childhood education providers, and the like. It would be vexatious and an absolute waste of school administration time to make all of these organisations accountable to the OIA.

Some of these organisations do not have enough funding to hire lots of administration staff who can actually do this. In addition to the Crown, they are reporting to the ministry. Frankly, it would actually hinder the fantastic work that they are already doing. I think it was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary who mentioned the Vanguard Military School and the engineering department. It was always very fascinating to hear them report in their annual report on the successes that they are actually achieving for these children who are underprivileged and who actually come from lower-income families. As someone who comes from an ethnic community that speaks a different language, sometimes I wish we had a partnership school that would teach languages, because we do lack language teachers in our schools. The only way that they can actually teach—perhaps it may be the only way—is in a partnership school. I oppose this bill and I am with my colleagues on this side. I think it is a bad idea.

I am very pleased to take a call on this legislation. When the charter schools were first proposed, they were well regarded by the education sector—by those who are experts in education—as simply a means by which some private organisations would access significant amounts of public money with less oversight and with a great deal of less control over the standards of education than you would expect. It was a policy that was proposed by ACT, which has very, very small support in this country. So there was a lot of concern about what charter schools would actually deliver.

The first lot of charter schools were put in place, and all of the concerns about the failure of oversight, the excessive amounts of money that were going to charter schools compared with public schools, and the failure of those charter schools—all were met. All of those concerns were actually met. In fact, the charter schools experiment on our children has proven to be a failure, repeatedly. One of the major concerns I have about the charter school experiment—failed experiment—is the fact that concerns about Māori education were used as an excuse, but, in fact, it was an abuse of those concerns about Māori education. As a result, charter schools that involved Māori communities failed because the system itself, the concept, is so repugnant to good education in this country.

So I welcome this bill. Although we, unfortunately, still have this failed policy, repugnant policy, of charter schools in New Zealand, this bill at least tries to bring those schools under some greater public scrutiny. It is absolutely essential, that increased scrutiny, because of the extra amount of money that these schools are getting because of the freedom that the neo-liberals on the other side of the House have given to the private organisations that are taking that public money. So, therefore—

💬 David Seymour: This is like a high school essay.

Well, Mr Seymour, you were the one who claimed that we should not be using ideology, if I remember rightly, in a public session I had with you recently. I would argue that it is your ideology. It is the neo-liberal ideology that has put in place this policy and it has, therefore, been an experiment on our children, whose education is critical—[Interruption]; thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker—particularly Māori education. So this is why I welcome this bill, to at least provide greater oversight for these charter schools, which are taking so much money and performing such a terrible experiment. At least it would give members of the public, parents, and others who are involved in the education sector the ability to investigate the decisions that are being made by charter schools, abuse in the schools, and bullying in the schools. I mean, there is a whole range of issues.

Let us be aware, too, that one of the reasons why these schools have been—because they are schools. They are not NGOs. They are not private organisations. They are actually schools, at their hearts, so they need to be treated like schools. There is a real concern that there are kids in these schooling institutions where there is not sufficient public oversight over the quality of their education, what is happening with their pastoral care inside those centres, and what is happening with the financial management of these schools.

When these schools close down—like they have, because there has been a number that have closed because it is such a scandalous policy—it is not Mr Seymour who suffers as a result of that school closure. It is not National that suffers as a result of that school closure. It is the kids. It is the kids, who have been experimented on. Even so far as their schools have failed, the fact that these school institutions are not subject to the Official Information Act means that we do not have the real information about why they failed and what could be done to protect those kids in the future.

So I fully support this legislation. Thank you very much.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. I am speaking against the Charter Schools (Application of Official Information and Ombudsmen Acts) Bill for several reasons. First, I just want to reflect on the fact that—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can I ask the member to resume his seat, and I will get him to start again. Ms Delahunty and Mr Seymour, can you quieten your discussion down or sit next to each other, but—[Interruption] Well, I was going to suggest you go outside, but that could cause all sorts of problems. We will start Mr Foster-Bell’s speech again.

Well, sir, I do not know whether you were inviting them to have a fight or what. But, look, in restarting my speech, I want to reflect on what Metiria Turei, the previous speaker, was talking about, because it strikes me that it was a rehearsal of the ideological arguments against charters schools per se, rather than a discussion around the application of the Official Information Act (OIA) and Ombudsmen Act to charter schools. This is obviously an area that we take some interest in on the Government Administration Committee, where I usually sit. We dealt with the Official Information Act in so far as it applies to the parliamentary under-secretaries bill that came through this House recently, and which the Government did support through so that Mr Seymour, the only current parliamentary under-secretary of State, is now subject to the Official Information Act.

I pointed out at the time that Mr Seymour discussed at quite some length what proactive steps he takes to make available information that is of interest to the public, particularly in the range of portfolios. He has some wonderful portfolios—the most tremendous portfolios. He has got small business. He is, obviously, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Education.

So this bill, I would argue, is unnecessary. Mr Seymour, in so far as he has parliamentary responsibility for charter schools, is subject to the Official Information Act. But I think it would create something of an unfortunate precedent to make what are non-State institutions subject to the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act. The Ministry of Education does collect significant data from charter schools—or, as we prefer to call them, partnership schools—and this information is of course subject to the OIA, and the actions of the Ministry of Education are subject to review by the Ombudsman.

The member who spoke previously did touch at length on the issue of bullying, harassment, and those issues in schools, and this is something I personally feel very passionate about. It is not only in the private, the independent, and the State-integrated education systems where bullying exists. It is also, unfortunately, and tragically, throughout our public education system. There are many schools that are wonderful examples of good practice in this area, but there are public schools, sadly, that we can point to where bullying of children for all sorts of reasons, be it their religious background, their ethnic background, or their sexuality, is pervasive. This is something I feel very strongly on, and I do not think the application of the Official Information Act or the Ombudsmen Act to a charter school will help a single child in that area. If I did, I would be crossing the floor and I would be voting for this bill.

The kinds of measures that will help those children who are subject to that kind of bullying are directions and encouragement and prioritisation by the Education Review Office to add homophobic bullying, or bullying in the widest possible sense, to the list of items that it reviews when it goes into schools. Currently, it looks at the safety of buildings and it looks at educational attainment achieved by students. It looks at many other things, and I would be very much in favour of the Education Review Office taking a greater level of interest in, or giving a higher priority to, homophobic bullying, in particular, but bullying more widely.

But I think this bill, as has been proposed, does not actually do anything to contribute to the greater safety of our students in schools, and, let us face it, under the current excellent and outstanding Minister of Education, the Hon Hekia Parata, our schools are being well run, and being better run all the time. This has been reflected in the Programme for International Student Assessment results that we have seen—

💬 Tracey Martin: Not a teacher involved.

—where New Zealand has climbed up the international league tables. Mrs Martin may be unable to comprehend the league tables that we have recently seen. But this bill, as far as I see it, does nothing to improve the quality of education enjoyed by New Zealand children, which has gone up under the John Key - led Government and under the leadership of the Hon Hekia Parata, who will probably be remembered as one of the finest, if not the finest, Ministers of Education that this country has ever seen.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

You may have picked up a theme here, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a bill that I see as an ideological, knee-jerk reaction to charter schools—emphasis on the “jerk” when it comes to “knee-jerk”. I think it is something that this House should reject as unnecessary and something that does nothing for the quality of education in New Zealand.

Let us forget the arguments about the merits, or not, of charter schools. That has already been well fleshed out within this debate. Let us look at the issue that this bill actually looks at.

The question I want to ask both the ACT Party and the National Party is: what is wrong with sunlight? What is wrong with sunlight? Why is it that these two parties do not want that torch to shine on those charter schools, which they set up over a cup of tea during the 2011 election? I do not think I have heard a decent answer.

Melissa Lee, in her contribution on this bill, said that there already is accountability—that charter schools are accountable to a Minister, and also that there is some accountability around an oversight board—but Melissa Lee forgets the ultimate accountability that we have in this Parliament, and that is to the public. It is the public who put us here. It is the public who vote Governments in. Governments make decisions as to whether they establish charter schools. They are the ones that, in their Budgets, are putting money towards funding charter schools, and yet with the ACT Party and the National Party, charter schools seem to be exempt from scrutiny, not by the Minister and by an oversight group, but by the New Zealand public, who do not have the ability to have a look into those organisations, whereas they would with nearly any other Government-funded entity, because the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act do not apply to this piece of legislation.

We want to know why. Why does the ACT Party, which wants this Government to be held accountable for every dollar that it spends—if you follow the logic of ACT, it does not want any taxpayer money spent. So why does it not want to have the scrutiny of the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act applied to charter schools, which are organisations that the ACT Party—

💬 Clayton Mitchell: It’s not a party. You’ve got to have more than one person to have a party.

—I think it was more than a party of one at that stage—set up in its little sweetheart deal in the 2011 election?

💬 Hon Member: The tape.

I am not sure whether that level of detail was discussed when John Banks and John Key had that cup of tea. I do not recall it in the teapot tapes. They said other things during that negotiation—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will come back to the bill.

—and whether or not this level of scrutiny was mentioned in that discussion, I do not know. From memory, I do not recall it being part of the transcript.

But why does the ACT Party, which says that we should have open and honest Government, not want to have open and honest governance and insight, and that sunlight, when it comes to charter schools? I do not know. I do not know. It is a mystery to me why someone like Mr Seymour, who talks about his liberal values and who talks about making sure we have accountability when Government money is spent, does not want to have this accountability for charter schools.

It is a mystery, because this goes against what I believe Mr Seymour’s ideological bent is. I am not questioning—he is entitled to his beliefs. But in this case, in a big way and in a fundamental way, he is going against those beliefs by saying “Well, there is Government expenditure here, but, in this case, we will not have any public scrutiny.” Well, on this side of the House we think having an organisation like a charter school, which does get taxpayer money to operate, does need more scrutiny than that of a Minister who has helped to set it up and an oversight board that may not have the ability to look at everything, and it does need the scrutiny from those people who put us here. They are the people who trusted those guys on that side of the room to be in charge of the purse strings—to spend the money that they go out to work hard every day to earn and that they give and entrust to this House.

I sound like David Seymour, but why is it that Mr Seymour does not want any of those schools that his Government and his party set up to have the accountability of the Official Information Act? That is a rather large question, which Mr Seymour has failed to answer during this debate. He has failed to answer it during this whole debate around charter schools, and it is his Achilles heel when it comes to charter schools.

I want to thank all the members who participated in the debate, and, to some extent, to apologise to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the broad berth with which I launched into this really narrowly defined bill. I want to respond to some of the comments that were raised through the debate.

In the first instance, clause 7, in the way in which it amends Schedule 1 of the Ombudsmen Act, is designed to do exactly what the member Paul Foster-Bell referred to, which is to address the issue of bullying and to ensure that the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act can have oversight on issues such as that, some of which I have referred to in my opening statements. When the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, David Seymour, identified that he could not understand why that is in the bill, he obviously did not understand that the select committee process amended the bill to ensure that suspensions would be included, but bullying would not and the financial operations of charter schools would not. In the first instance, that is a response there.

There were also statements made by Government members that the bill will not improve the quality of education. Well, it was not designed to, actually. It was designed to ensure that greater transparency and accountability could be gained through opening access to the oversight roles of the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act. That in itself will give parents and students the assurance that they can ask questions when they need to, gather information when they have to, and that it will cover areas that, currently, the Education Review Office and the Ministry of Education do not cover.

This has been a wide-ranging debate. I hoped that the pragmatic, limited nature of the suggested amendment would ensure that charter schools would be treated equally to public schools—and why not? When we see that the range of per-student funding ranges from $9,000 to $40,000 in a charter school, and, on average, $7,000 in a public and State-integrated school—there is the level of difference. It is really important to ensure that, when people are looking at comparing apples with apples, you see the stark difference of investment in charter schools, and, therefore, some of the outcomes there, and, also, what is needing to be done within the public education system.

I do not want to take up too much more time in responding. It is a limited amendment that is being proposed. It is one that is well endorsed and supported by the Ombudsman. I was being a little bit trite in trying to seek leave, and referred to the submission of the Ombudsman to the Education Amendment Bill, which was made in January 2013. But if anyone has time to read it in conjunction with the amendment proposed in my bill, they will see that it is absolutely congruent with what the Ombudsman had suggested. It does not depart from the intent there. Thank you for the opportunity to put this bill to the House to be considered. I recommend that it be supported.