Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Science Committee to consider the bill. I do not want to gloat about it, but this is the second of my three members’ bills that are before Parliament at this very moment, and it is actually not about luck; it is entirely skill-based, of course.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Manipulation of the biscuit tin.

Yes, it is. It is based on the merit of the member’s bill that is in the ballot. It is interesting though, tonight, the range of members’ bills that we have seen, and I think the standard of debate has greatly improved this evening compared with some other evenings. So I commend the Government members to continue along that path.

The point of this bill is to replace the code of conduct that is in section 387 of the Education Act and replace it with a new code of ethics—that is, to restore the primacy of a code of ethics for the teaching profession, which is something that I think everyone in this House would understand and feel very strongly about. This bill has been in the ballot for some time. It was drawn on a Thursday, and the very next day—literally, the day after—the Education Council released the draft of the code that it is required to prepare, called Our Code, Our Standards. I cannot claim credit and say that having the member’s bill drawn on Thursday drove the Education Council to produce its draft code on the Friday, but the timing—the coincidence—was extraordinary.

The Education Council code has been very well received, and I want to commend the council, not just for the framing of the code but also for the way that it is engaging, and the people who need to be the most highly regarded in that are, of course, our teachers. This bill runs parallel to that code but, more importantly, it also futureproofs it, and I will come back to that point later.

There has been quite a lot of debate about the way we engage with teachers, the regard we have, and I suppose the confidence we have in them to be a self-regulating profession. In my view, we should view teachers from a high-status, high-trust basis, and that has not always been the case in the last few years. In fact, the lack of that respect for teachers really was part of the driver for the creation of this bill.

Teachers have made it very clear that they do not want a punitive code of conduct. They have the same values-based thinking as our medical practitioners in terms of errors being part of a constant improvement movement, rather than punitive, but they also made it very clear that they wanted an aspirational code of ethics. The draft code that the Education Council has released has satisfied the legislative mandate that it has been given without it being punitive, and I think that is something that has been very carefully considered by it. That is not something that it could just rush into; it needed to balance that up very carefully.

At the moment the Minister of Education appoints 100 percent of the members of the Education Council, so while praising the current council for the work that it has done, there is, sadly, no guarantee that a future Minister—in fact, we are going to have a new Minister within a matter of weeks—might not make appointments to the Education Council that have a completely different frame of thinking and who actually might say that the punitive approach is the way to keep teachers on their mettle and to sharpen their act. You know, we have heard that sort of language before, and it is not the language I support.

So this is really looking to the future and saying that it is bad that this bill was not drawn months ago, but it is actually good that we can now look at the framing of this bill alongside the draft code that the Education Council has put out and ask how we make sure that the huge support that that draft code has engendered is the basis of future documents. So that is really the basis of this. That is why this bill, despite the draft code being put out, is still relevant.

I suppose all of us have had instances—particularly those who are electorate MPs—where a school or teachers have got into difficulty, and often members of the public have very strong views about what should happen there. Of course we must hold teachers accountable. Of course we have to value their educational judgment. But, as I said before, the high-status, high-trust model is one that has worked for many years for us and has given us a teaching profession that is internationally well regarded.

I hope that the majority of members in this House—as they did with Steffan Browning’s bill just prior to this—are able to support this bill to go to a committee. I would love this bill to be considered alongside the debate that is taking place on the draft education code, Our Code, Our Standards, so that we can look at what teachers, particularly, have said, what the education sector as a whole has said, and what the Education Council says needs improving—if anything—in the legislative framework, so that we can all be confident as a Parliament that we are giving our education sector the best possible frame to work in. That is the way to drive high-quality education, that is the way to drive confidence in our education profession, and that is the way to get the best-possible outcomes for our students throughout the country.

I have just about completed drafting another bill, and because it is nearly the end of April, we have not got long to go before the election. I would like to increase my chances of getting another bill drawn by now sitting down and making sure that we have a number of bills drawn from the ballot in the near future.

This is a bill that goes backwards and it seeks to reverse two key changes that were made by the Education Amendment Act in early 2015. It proposes to change the name of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, or EDUCANZ, to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa and also to revert to a teachers’ code of ethics rather than a code of conduct.

The National-led Government has made a consistent effort to modernise our education system. We are determined to give education providers, parents, and families more options so that our young New Zealanders are able to succeed in an increasingly complex digital and global world. So that is our consistent effort, and our focus is students and we are determined to make sure that students can achieve. So that is our focus and that is our aim.

It is against this background that the National-led Government has made numerous changes, basically to make sure that our education system is modernised. This includes the current Education (Update) Amendment Bill, which we will consider further tomorrow morning. In early 2015 we passed the Education Amendment Act and also changed the New Zealand Teachers Council to Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. We did this for some good reasons. Firstly, the New Zealand Teachers Council was not well positioned to do a good job. The Education Workforce Advisory Group and a subsequent review committee both found that the previous New Zealand Teachers Council was not “structured, governed, and positioned … [to] effectively set and enforce clear standards for entry, progression and professional accountability with the full support of the profession.”

A ministerial advisory group commissioned to provide recommendations on the reforms of the New Zealand Teachers Council did recommend that the name of the new professional body should be the Teaching Council of New Zealand. However, we believed that it was important to have a significantly different name, because we would like to walk out of the shadow of a body that did not perform, and we would like to have a fresh start. So this is the first point.

Secondly, teaching and learning involves not only teachers but also educators and teaching leaders and also students—most importantly, students. So students have to be our focus. It is our responsibility to make sure that students do achieve, and the name of Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reflects that kind of thinking.

Thirdly, the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand reflects the bicultural nature of our teaching. That is another important point.

The name proposed in this bill was actually used in 1996 by a voluntary, independent, and teacher-run body, but that body lasted for just 2 years. It failed for all sorts of reasons. Most importantly, it did not see the differences among all the education providers. So it is not a good idea to associate a new professional body with a failed body. The name can also be misleading, because it does not reflect our efforts to focus on students’ achievement in the modern environment.

With regard to the code of conduct provisions, the old code of ethics was problematic and the new code of conduct is necessary. This is based on the findings of three separate expert advisory groups, including the 2010 Education Workforce Advisory Group, the 2012 ministerial inquiry into the employment of a convicted sex offender in the education sector, and the 2012 report about the review of the New Zealand Teachers Council. All three reports pointed out the problems with this code of ethics. The code of ethics was not comprehensive, was not binding, was unable to resolve the issue of the employment of convicted sex offenders, and it was also hard to use by employers to make assessments of professional conduct. So for all these reasons it was necessary to replace the code of ethics with a new, upgraded code of conduct.

We do need to learn the lesson and move on. As I said earlier, we are focusing on students and their achievement. We all know that quality teaching and learning is particularly important in raising the achievements of our students, but to have that quality of learning and teaching, we need to have strong trust in the profession by the general public, by the families, and by the students—the learners. So how do we do that? A code of conduct, in that sense, is essential.

As we know now, the member’s bill is now redundant because we now have a draft code of conduct and also what we call professional standards. That draft code has gone through a range of thorough professional consultation—a lot of very thorough consultation in the sector, including teachers, education providers, and also leaders. It is currently out for public consultation. So, in a sense, this bill itself is indeed redundant. It is important to note that the draft code did not come from nowhere, but builds on the existing 2003 teachers’ code of ethics. It is an upgraded and updated code of conduct. So this is not a new set of new standards; these are just based on the existing standards and they make sure that we make it more updated and modernised.

I need to emphasise that this bill demonstrates that Labour has run out of ideas. It is simply recycling failed bills. That is what it is doing. Instead, the National-led Government has been making a consistent effort to modernise our education system. We have made so many changes—the communities of online learning, or COOLs, and a code, which we are talking about now. There are so many changes, and we are now simply trying to make sure that our education system, after so many years, can finally catch up with the changes in the world.

For that reason I would like to thank our very capable Minister of Education, the Hon Hekia Parata. She has been working tirelessly in the education sector and meeting so much resistance from the Opposition. Yet we are pushing forward and we are pleased to see—

💬 Simon O’Connor: A great leap forward.

Yes, a great leap forward. We are very pleased to say that we are indeed delivering and achieving, and we are very confident that New Zealanders will see a very different, very modernised, and very, very advanced education system in New Zealand, and all the public and all the parents will cheer for us. Thank you.

There is not a single person in the country who would be reassured to know that the previous speaker, Jian Yang, is the chairperson of the Education and Science Committee, who demonstrates very clearly for the House the perils of reading the research team’s notes without making any effort to understand what they actually say or the issue that is being debated. Perhaps if he had, he would understand the contradiction that is inherent in saying that the code of ethics was rubbish, that it was inadequate, and then saying that the new code of conduct is based on that code of ethics—contradicting himself all the way through. He might then also know that the students and other education workers whom he has spoken about are not regulated by this professional body. Why should it be named after them when it is designed exclusively to regulate the teaching profession? Why would it not have a name that reflects the fact that it regulates the teaching profession?

I think the member should perhaps have taken a little bit of time to read the bill that he is commenting on and to do a little bit of background research, and then perhaps he would not sound like he has such a lack of knowledge. [Interruption] But I am pleased to see that the two amigos over there have stopped their plotting long enough to pay a little bit of attention to the debate. They can get back to plotting about how they get rid of Bill English a little bit later on, but for now, I am pleased that they are engaged in this particular debate in the House.

The Labour Party believes in a high-status, high-trust teaching profession, something the National Party has a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with. The teaching profession told us through the course of the hearings on that particular legislation, the Education Amendment Act 2015, that the code of conduct was seen as punitive. It was seen as taking away teachers’ voice, teachers’ control over their own profession, and the code of ethics was seen as aspirational and something that they would like to sign up to and be part of. I want to say that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has done a pretty good job of sidestepping the legislative mandate that it was provided by the Government and actually taking a broader view. Note that it does not use the phrase “code of conduct” in the discussion document it has released, because it is obviously just as uncomfortable about the change from a code of ethics to a code of conduct as the teaching profession is, as well it should be, because the education council—it should be called the “Teaching Council”—is supposed to be the regulatory professional body for the teaching profession, and the teaching profession should have ownership over it.

This bill by my colleague Ruth Dyson is an excellent bill. I could not have written it better if I had written it myself. This excellent piece of legislation will give the teaching profession some certainty that a future council appointed by the Minister of Education—note that under the current arrangements the Minister appoints all of the members of the council, so at any moment she, or whoever the new Minister is, could sack the council and appoint a different council that could impose a much more punitive code of conduct on the teaching profession, which would not support it. This bill will ensure that that does not happen. It would give back to the teaching profession and the teaching community some ownership over the teaching profession and the way it is regulated.

We heard a lot from the profession itself during the hearings. As I said, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), which represents primary and intermediate teachers throughout the country, was concerned that the introduction of the code of conduct could gag the freedom of teachers and principals to critique poor policy. We know that that is something that the current Government would dearly love to do, because it hates it when teachers and principals stand up and point out all of the flaws in the policy that it is implementing. When they stand up and they point out that the changes that are being implemented by this Government are not good for kids’ education, the Government hates it. It does not want to have teachers being able to do that, so it would love to gag the teaching profession. I think that is a legitimate concern by the NZEI that would be overcome by this bill by my colleague Ruth Dyson.

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association pointed out that teachers have a strong sense of ownership over the code of ethics, something that would be taken away from them if the code of conduct was implemented in the way the Government wants it to be implemented. I want to say again that I congratulate the council for effectively sidestepping the directive that was given to it by the current Government and adopting a code—note, not a code of conduct but a code—that is much more aspirational and wider than that. Teachers want to have high professional standards, they want to have high ethical standards, and this code of conduct as envisaged by the National Government is unnecessarily restrictive and demeaning. I think that this bill, which takes a much more aspirational approach, a much more empowering approach, an approach that puts much more trust and confidence in the professionalism of teachers, would be an enormous step in the right direction.

I rise in opposition to this bill for two reasons. Firstly, it will achieve absolutely nothing. It is absolute jiggery-pokery, and if this is all the Labour Party can suggest in terms of reformation of the education sector, then we know we are on the right track. Secondly, this member’s bill rehashes a Labour Party Supplementary Order Paper 22 to the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) from 2014, which was before the House. We opposed it then and we are opposing it again now. The ironic thing is that the Labour Party put forward a member’s bill that is actually redundant because of what has happened since Ruth Dyson put the bill in the biscuit tin. She had the opportunity to pull it out and save herself some embarrassment. She decided not to, let it sit in there and linger, collecting crumbs, and then what she did when she saw that the professional code of ethics was released was she did not say: “Oh, right, maybe I am on the wrong track. Maybe the profession is actually right behind this. They are right behind this, and they support the approach that the Government is taking.” So she kept it in there, and the Labour Party once again embarrassed itself.

I think the name proposed by Ms Dyson was previously used in 1996 by an independent voluntary teacher-run professional body. The ironic thing about that is the organisation folded after 2 years due to lack of support from the teachers themselves. Why would the Labour Party, which claims to be a supporter of the teaching body, put forward something that is not even supported by the teachers’ bodies themselves? I think the funny thing about this is that the Labour Party, which used to be the party for the teachers, the party for education—that is long gone. Under Hekia Parata’s superb leadership in the education sector, bringing together a ministerial cross-sector forum, reforming the Education Act, conducting a fundamental review of education funding, initiating in her first couple of weeks as Minister of Education the ministerial inquiry into sex offenders in schools—that was one of the toughest things that this Government has done, in the first couple of weeks of the second term of Government, to take on quite a controversial issue and deliver a result. The inquiry by former Ombudsman Mel Smith and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Education Review Office and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs Dr Judith Aitken ultimately recommended that the first thing that the Government should do is implement a code of conduct. Well, we have done that.

This is what this bill sets out to try to cross right through and it has no fundamental value-add to what this Government has done over the last 6 years. Ruth Dyson clearly has not paid any attention to what her sector’s requests are in this space. She clearly has not paid any attention whatsoever to what has happened in the education sector under the leadership of the Hon Hekia Parata. The bill adds no substance. It is absolute jiggery-pokery. Labour knew that this bill became completely redundant as soon as the draft code of conduct was released, but refused to withdraw it, wasting Parliament’s time and wasting taxpayers’ dollars.

It is ironic, given we are doing a funding review of the education sector at the moment, which aspires to have a clearer line of sight of the value of taxpayers’ dollars in education. The Labour Party opposes that. It opposes this. It opposes what we have done in the code of conduct. Quite apart from the politics and setting aside that this is a National Government initiative, what this bill does, actually, is it is a complete and utter insult to very highly respected people in the sector. Mel Smith, former Ombudsman, recommended this as part of his review of the ministerial inquiry into sex offenders in schools. Dr Judith Aitken, former CEO of the Education Review Office, and Dr Graham Stoop, who is the former CEO of the Education Review Office and current CEO of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand—they are all recommending the steps the Government is taking.

What Ruth Dyson fails to understand is that this is not about politics. This is about, fundamentally, experts in the sector recommending some changes that will help enhance the sector and help protect the teaching profession and vulnerable children, but what she does is try to take a pot-shot at the Government and a pot-shot at the Minister of Education. This bill is an utter disgrace and an utter waste of taxpayers’ dollars. That is why I oppose this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora koutou katoa o tēnei pō. I am really pleased to support this bill. If you listen to the last speaker, Todd Barclay, it is a little bit like a parallel universe—the “Age of Aquarius”, the “summer of love”—whereby the teaching profession has actually had a great run with Hekia Parata. It has all been just beautiful! The flower children of the Government have embraced the teaching profession! It has been, you know, hand in hand through a field of daisies!

Unfortunately, I have been here the whole time, I have sat through all these bills, and I have listened to every submission on them. I support this bill because the conversation about the status of teachers is really important. We are now in a low-trust environment between the education profession and the Government. So when the Government put up Education Amendment Bill (No 2), I think it was, it talked about changing “ethics” to “conduct”. In that low-trust environment, broken by the debacle of national standards, the absurdity of charter schools, and a number of other under-funding initiatives that have destroyed trust, there was no appetite from the teaching profession to see a change that would lead from being recognised as professionals with ethics to being people who need to be controlled by a code of conduct.

Despite the fact that the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (EDUCANZ) has a greater relationship with the sector than the Government does and has created a draft code without mentioning the word “conduct”—because it knows, even though the Government has not grasped this concept, that that was offensive—it would be good to get this bill to the select committee to have the conversation about the status of the teaching profession.

Ironically, one of EDUCANZ’s new functions is to lift the status of the profession while, at the very same moment, the Government, by saying that the profession needs a controlling code of conduct and not a code of ethics, has undermined what was already a fragile and shaky relationship. So it is a bit like the partner who is in denial that there is any problem: “Oh, no, we’ve got a great relationship. Everything’s fantastic.” Meanwhile the house is falling apart. Meanwhile the other partner is struggling to have a voice.

In this bill, we have a chance to have that voice discuss what it wants, and far from being something that Ruth Dyson made up, it is actually what the teaching profession wants to talk about, because there is a difference between ethics and behaviour. Conduct relates to behaviour; ethics relates to standards and relates to professionalism. The teaching profession, much like the medical profession, is highly involved in very, very ethical decisions every single day, about working with young people and about using their professional judgment around developing the minds of the future of this country. So those ethics were what that code of ethics was about. That was a recognition of the status of the profession.

One way that we lift the status of the profession, which is the supposed function of EDUCANZ, is to recognise that that is what it is and that this workforce—these public servants—should never be shut down, because educators are the critics and conscience of society. Not only at university but in every situation, we need our educators to be free to say what they think, particularly about education but, in fact, about anything—any social issue in society—because educators are the practitioners who reflect. This code of ethics bill is about recognising the reflective nature of the practitioners who operate at that level. So I am sorry, but the previous speaker from the Government is just completely wrong about this.

One of the other reasons I am really passionate about the code of ethics is that it creates an obligation under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the commitment to Māori as tangata whenua. That, for the Green Party, is a pretty critical thing as well, and so we are pleased to see that this is highlighted in Ruth Dyson’s bill, as she has also highlighted the issue about not silencing people as the critics and conscience of society.

So we do not need punitive measures; we need a debate about how to lift the status of the most vital profession that works with our young people every day, and so the Green Party would like to see this go forward. We are pleased to support the bill, and we feel sorry that the “summer of love” fantasy does not really exist between the sector and Government, but when there is a change of Government, at least we will get to reality and we can start improving things from there. So bring it on. Thank you very much.

My head is reeling. It has been a very long time since I have heard this side of the House described as the “summer of love” territory. But anyway, the purpose of this particular bill has been aptly described by a previous speaker, the chair of the Education and Science Committee, as “going backwards”. I would have to say that it is not even “back to the future”; it is simply going straight ahead backwards.

The changes that the member wishes to bring into play in this bill simply only make sense to me if the member has been listening to only one particular group.

💬 Tracey Martin: Oh, here we go. Let’s pick on the teachers.

It is not the schools that I know Tracey Martin visits on a regular basis. She is very good at visiting schools. She has good connections into schools.

💬 Tracey Martin: Oh, don’t be too nice, Jo!

This is a compliment, Ms Martin, and you should take it as such. You are one of the good ones who talks to schools, not to just the union. In fact, that is what happens on this side of the House. We visit schools. So let me tell you what schools have been saying to me lately and what conversations we have been having. Because there is one thing that comes through every single time, and it is the child at the centre of it and the child’s education. It is not all about what we call their professional body. In fact, they have not raised it at all. What they wanted to know was that there would be teachers on that body, and there are, irrespective of who appoints them.

The Education Council came before the select committee just recently, and, yes, as the previous member on her feet from the Green Party, Catherine Delahunty, said, they are charged with lifting the status of the profession—but the profession lets itself down so jolly often that that certainly has not helped. When I go into schools, the school teachers and principals want to talk to me about children and behaviour that is challenging the teaching profession, because they are really tough to deal with. They want to talk to me about the communities of learning (COLs), and I would like to mention the COLs to the House. We have got to an amazing milestone, with more than half a million students operating in schools, where we have got a phenomenal number—1,100 teachers and principals appointed to new positions in communities of learning. It is not a small amount of money we are investing in improving the education of the children at the centre of this.

To me, it reminds me of a musical we did at school where one of the songs was called “What’s in a Name?” It was Dracula Spectacula, I have to say. Here we are debating the very name of this organisation. When it comes to a code, we have heard from the Education Council that there has been huge collaboration in the way the code has been put together. The sector has been very engaged in it. Actually, the sector obviously gets it. It is not in what you call it; it is what is in it. It is what is in the education. It is what is in the profession that means that it delivers status to itself. That, I think, is what we should be thinking about.

The conversations that are happening on that side of the House are clearly very different to what we are listening to. A conversation with the union will be a very different conversation from a conversation with school principals and with school teachers. Getting into the schools and asking not what is the matter with them but what matters to them—and what they tell me is that the children are at the centre of what matters to them. It is not the name of something. They want to know that the teaching profession is valued—I get that—and great teachers are the best assets we can have in our children’s lives, other than amazing parents. So put the two together and children will succeed. But we need to, as a Government, be doing all we can to make sure there are more and more and more great teachers in our schools, and fantastic principals, and that they are sharing their skills around so that there are more and more fantastic schools delivering for our students. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to my feet on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill, and I do so because—and I just want to say that I think the speaker who sat down just before is a loss to Cabinet. I think that it is unfair that Jo Goodhew was dismissed. That lady managed to get to her feet and speak about a subject she does not have a lot of knowledge about, with great enthusiasm. And that is what you want in a politician—honestly. There are a lot of them over there who do not know anything about education who do constantly try to add some value, but Ms Goodhew at least rose and gave it some panache. So I think that woman is a loss, and the National Party should reconsider its list on the Opposition side of the House after 23 September.

This document is the code of ethics we are discussing. This document is the code of conduct. I may be the only person in the whole of the place who has actually got both of them and read both of them at the same time.

💬 Todd Muller: At the same time!

Because I am a woman, and a woman can do many things at the same time, Mr Muller. The reason why it is important, Ms Goodhew, is the difference between—these are not names; these are descriptions. This document is a code of ethics. This says you are a professional, ethical person, and these are the ethics by which we will judge you. This document is a code of conduct. “Conduct” is how you behave, and we will dictate to you how you will behave. I think it is really interesting that this is a profession that is overwhelmingly staffed by women and we have removed the fact that they are professionals with ethics and have decided that we are going to tell them how to behave. I think it smacks of the paternalism of the National Party. It is very, very interesting that this profession, which is overwhelmingly female, has been told by this Government: “We don’t trust you to be ethical; we’re going to tell you how to behave.”

Then we start to get into what is actually in this document. The Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has done a sterling job of avoiding what the Government has asked it to do. I hope that through this conversation, the council are not all dismissed by the Minister of Education, who has the power to dismiss them tomorrow. She has the power to dismiss them tomorrow if she believes they have intentionally gone out of their way and made this code of conduct too close to ethics.

But I will tell you this: inside this code, we can see Hekia Parata’s hand and the hand of this Government. People will know exactly what I am talking about here. One of the indicators that you are not fulfilling the code of conduct that this Government says you must fulfil is refusing to pronounce their names correctly or learn how to—including the important names that they whakapapa to, such as their whānau, hapū, iwi, tapu, marae, waka, or maunga. This is the Government that took away Te Kotahitanga. This is the Government that has allowed the resource teachers of Māori to almost disappear. There are no supports for the delivery of Te Reo Māori among our teaching staff in our mainstream English-medium schools. If this is not fulfilled, the teacher could be dismissed. This is how prescriptive this document is. This is why it is an issue.

If we are going to expand and improve on the code of ethics, then expand and improve on the code of ethics. Do not start putting little pieces here and there that put a chilling effect on our educators. The first thing every dictator does is start to attack the educators. This Government has acted more and more like a dictator over the last 9 years. This bill should go forward. Hopefully, it might get to the Education and Science Committee and then, maybe, if we remove one of the National Party members, we can actually have an even conversation about what we will do in education.

I rise to speak against the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill. Tracey Martin, it is very important to get people’s names right. I am Todd Muller, not Todd Müller. It is really important to get this stuff right.

I just want to ask the question: where on earth did this come from? I can imagine the Labour Party war room—the education war room. Chris Hipkins is the chair, we have got Ruth Dyson there, we have got Sue Moroney and the others, and they are reflecting on how they can put a chink in the National Party armour.

💬 Todd Barclay: The A-team!

Yes, the A-team—the education A-team.

“How can we put a chink in the education armour of the National Government?”

“I know! We’ll attack national standards.”

“Oh, no, that’s not going to work, because that’s actually very popular if you ask any parent, if you ask the kids.”

I had a conversation about this just last week. It is actually a popular policy.

“Oh, no, we can’t deal with that one.”

“I know! Let’s attack communities of learning.”

“Oh, no, 1,400 schools have signed up to that.”

That was probably updated by Sue; she would have popped that into the war room conversation.

“A total of 1,400 schools and half a million students are involved now. Oh, we can’t use that as the attack line.”

“What about the Education Amendment Bill?”

“Oh, well, we’ll have a go on that.”

But yet again, the way the Government spoke to that legislation so comprehensively yesterday and talked about how it will fundamentally change the education sector moving forward, they realised that they do not have an opportunity to hit us with that. And so Ruth Dyson says: “I have an idea. I know what can really put the Government on its heels. Why don’t we change the name of the Education Council back to the Teaching Council?”. “Brilliant,” says Chris Hipkins. “Absolutely brilliant. Let’s put that up as a member’s bill. Based on Ruth’s luck, that might actually get picked.”

So here we are. So emboldened by that, she decided to add a bit of depth to it—

💬 Todd Barclay: A bit of spice.

Yes, a bit of spice. She looked to revert to a teachers’ code of ethics as opposed to the code of conduct. To echo the deputy chair of the Education and Science Committee, is that the best you have got? When you are trying to find an angle as an Opposition MP, to be able to articulate a different vision in terms of the education provision in this country, if that is the best you have got, to be able to stand up and say: “Mr Speaker, I want a change of name back to the Teachers Council. We do not want the Education Council of Aotearoa. Let’s change the name back to the Teachers Council.”—with respect, that is not the level of contribution—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for interrupting, but I am going to ask the member sitting beside the member currently speaking to stop interjecting in a way that draws the Chair into the debate. He may be pretending to be nice but he sounds sarcastic.

That is so unlike him. Let us turn more deliberately to the components of this particular member’s bill, which has had so much thought go into it.

We have already heard from so many of the speakers on this side that this Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand was actually a carefully considered name. It was chosen to represent a more refocused organisation that would, arguably, take some of the best of what was there previously and put it together with a refreshed mandate to talk to the whole sector and its particular interests, not just the teachers. That was well received. A number of stakeholders were involved in that, and it was well received.

So when you look at that, you say: “Why on earth are we wasting parliamentary time to have a conversation about reverting back to a model that was proven to be a failure, that had so many negative consequences, that has been adopted as being successful over the last few months and genuinely reflects the ambitions of the broader sector and not just a single component in it?”.

And, of course, the second component, which we have already heard and which was even acknowledged by Ruth Dyson as largely redundant, is that we already have this document out in the sector for consultation. Yet again we have to waste the Parliament’s time reflecting on a particular view that it would be useful to go back to yesteryear and create a model that has already been so comprehensively thrown out. This is a waste of time. I do hope that the House will see sense and reject it when we vote on it shortly.

I rise to support this member’s bill , which is about restoring a code of ethics for the teaching profession. There are several reasons why the Greens are supporting the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill. One of them is that it is a chance for this House to start rebuilding some trust with the teaching profession in this country, trust that has been so comprehensively undermined by the actions of this Government , first in overriding the core principle of education—that learning should be to the needs of the child—by introducing the concept of national standards, which, basically, eliminated the individual needs of every student from the focus of the classroom; also, in terms of the introduction of the charter schools, and now the further privatisation and almost eradication of decent education in the communities of learning venture.

We heard from a previous speaker, Jo Goodhew, who said that they moved to a code of conduct because teachers have let themselves down so jolly badly. She is suggesting that we have only been listening to unions. It is true that I have not been listening to Hekia Parata when it comes to good educational guidance, and I have not been listening to people in the Koru lounge. However, we in the Green Party have been listening to the hundreds of teachers from schools all around this country who came to the Education and Science Committee when the bill that got rid of the code of ethics came before Parliament, who said they did not want that change. That is where this bill came from: it came from listening to teachers. It is completely disingenuous to say that unions are pushing that line in opposition to teachers. That is simply just not true.

We have also heard from members on that side who said that we want to go backwards to old thinking around ethics and that the new modern thinking is the code of conduct. Well, actually, that is just rubbish. The new modern thinking is saying that good decision-making happens within safe frameworks. The more an institution is bound by strict rules—and this is regardless of what the institution is—then the more room there is for error and the less judgment is developed. We need our teachers to be working in environments where they develop judgment, because there are no rights and wrongs in good teaching. There is relationship and there is development, and moving to a code of conduct moves us away from the framework that will support safe practice.

I do support the previous comments made by Tracey Martin , noting the fact that it is a profession that is mostly women and that this Government—which has been characterised, I think fairly, as paternalistic—is moving towards telling women how to behave, rather than trusting them to have their own ethics. I do think that there is a significant point in that. She gave the example that in the code of conduct there is very specific provision about practice around Te Tiriti obligations, whereas the code of ethics has in it a set of principles that include a commitment to learners, whānau, society, and the profession, and confirms obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and a commitment to Māori as tangata whenua.

Anyone, I would suggest, as Pākehā, who is engaged with Te Tiriti knows that you cannot lock that down in your learning into a sense of right or wrong. It absolutely is something that has to be developed in relationship and partnership with mana whenua. When you move away from ethics and from creating a framework for developing that understanding, you lose that relationship and you lose the opportunity for growing understanding, and you end up, more likely, with resentment and poor practice. We are pleased to support this bill.

Peseta—no, sorry, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, the Hon Trevor Mallard. I am going to take a short call on this bill. We have heard a lot of debate tonight around semantics, around words, around the purpose of education. For me, the education system is about our kids, those who are in the learning institution. It should be centred on their well-being, their learning, and their development. It should not be centred on semantics, code of conduct, ethics, and the like.

It is about trust and integrity, and that is what our teaching profession actually stands for. I would say a substantial majority of those teachers who are out there live up to those expectations that the New Zealand public has of them to deliver teaching services day in and day out. This bill does not do that. The two things this bill sets out to do is to turn back the clock on the name around the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, and it also wants to revert to a code of ethics versus a code of conduct.

Can I just talk, firstly, on that first change around the change of name? It is the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand because it is about the bicultural nature of the system. But it is also about education, not just teachers. Education incorporates all those who contribute to the system—just as there is a medical association that is not the doctors’ association; just as there are professional bodies that do not focus on just one part of a system. So I think it is appropriately named now, and I do not think we need to revert back to the previous name, which this bill is advocating for.

In terms of codes of ethics and codes of conduct, well, we have been down the code of ethics route, and it has proved to come up short. But what we want to and what we can expect from our teachers is that they behave—we have talked about behaviour tonight—that their conduct, that the ethics that we expect of them as parents and as New Zealanders are second to none, because, as one speaker has already said, apart from parenting, I think teaching is one of the most important roles in our society. That is why we need stringent codes of conduct. That is why we need high standards in how they behave, not just to each other but to the kids whom they are teaching on a day-to-day basis. So it is important to get that code of conduct right, and that is why it is out for consultation right now. I think we are going to get a good level of feedback, not just from teachers but from all those in the teaching profession—it is a profession. Those standards are high, and we expect the feedback to reflect the views of the whole profession, not just teachers.

I am not going to get into union bashing or saying who listens to whom. I think we should listen to anyone and everyone in our society who has an opinion to offer about how the education system should run.

When you look at codes of conduct in other professions, we know that they are in place in the nursing profession, they are in place in real estate, and there are various other codes that deal with midwives, police—and there is nothing wrong with having a code of conduct in the education space. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. We can argue here black and blue about whether it should be a code of ethics or code of conduct. For me, it is about having high expectations around their behaviour and around their integrity in terms of the education profession. So it is there in other professions, and I think it should also be here in New Zealand.

We also know that there is a code of conduct in education systems that we look to, very similar systems like in Australia, the UK, and Canada, for example. So why can we not have that here? I put it to you. I think we are heading in the right direction in terms of the education reforms that the Hon Hekia Parata has put in place, and I think this bill is a step backwards. That is why, certainly, I will not support this bill.

Can I just note the member Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga’s more considered contribution to this debate than that of his colleagues—it was appreciated. His colleagues demonstrated arrogance and a disregard and a lack of understanding of the proposal in this bill that I find really frustrating. It does not take long to read a member’s bill. They are very rarely large or complex. We do not have the advantage of Government departments or agencies to write them; we write them ourselves.

One of the members, Todd Muller, suggested that my bill was a waste of time. This is the member who supported his colleagues writing outstanding contributions to the parliamentary process such as allowing airport companies to advertise lost books from the cafe at the airport in different ways, or Matt Doocey’s bill, which gave companies the right to ask their shareholders by letter or email whether they wanted a hard copy of the annual report. That is the rubbish that those members supported to waste the time of Parliament, and they have the arrogance and the audacity to say that this bill is a waste of time. At least the member who just resumed his seat acknowledged the integrity and the professionalism of teachers. That is actually what this bill is about.

National has got a track record in regard to its relations with teachers. I remember when the National Government removed the registration of teachers. What did it do at the same time? It introduced a mandatory registration for vets. That is what that Government did. You do not have to be registered to be a teacher, but you do have to be registered to be a vet. How does that show respect towards a profession?

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Teachers don’t operate on children, to be fair.

Come and join this side if you are so supportive of our debate, the Hon Simon Bridges. You would be welcome, briefly.

Todd Muller also demonstrated his ignorance of the process that the Education Council is going through. I should not pick on just him—Todd Barclay and other National contributors did it as well, including, sadly, the chair of the Education and Science Committee.

My bill was put in the ballot as a response to the punitive measures introduced by the Minister of Education, coupled with her disregard for teachers and the recognition of their profession in the name of their regulatory body, formerly known as the Teachers Council. It is not something you need to die in a ditch for, but if those members had the courage of their convictions and the confidence of the quality of their debate, they would test that at a committee. They would support this bill to go to a committee, and say: “Let’s hear from the public. Let’s hear from the professionals. Let’s hear from parents and the broader education sector and see what their view is.” But they are not able to do that. They do not have any courage of their convictions. They just have poorly written research notes—probably written by Mr Bishop, actually, judging by the quality of them—that they just read out. There is no understanding—[Interruption] All right. Perhaps they were not that bad. I apologise for that insult to the researcher who did write the notes.

So the Education (Teachers’ Code of Ethics) Amendment Bill recognises the value and the integrity of teachers as professionals. It goes to that high-regard, high-trust relationship that I talked about earlier. It is an aspirational code, an aspirational set of principles, rather than a punitive one. It has a commitment to learners, to families, to society, and to the profession.

The timing of this was that it was in the ballot until the day before the Education Council released its draft code. My bill came out first, and then the Education Council released its draft code. I am supportive of the code. I think it looks good. There is no guarantee that a future Minister will appoint to the council people who are as supportive of the profession as the current make-up of it allows. We could end up with a punitive regime for the code for teachers in the future. This bill would futureproof against that, and ensures that we retain the integrity of the profession and retain the confidence of the public.