Education (Update) Amendment Bill

I think they have been covered, and therefore, there being no members going for calls, we will now move on to the next theme, which is the establishment of and types of schools—comprising clauses 98 to 116 and 144.

I will just say to members that one of the disadvantages of having a former Minister in the Chair is that he does recognise a lot of it, and this theme is not that complicated, there is not that much change, and it is a bit of codification. So it is probably a bit of—

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Narrow.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, it should not take quite as long.

I am speaking to clauses 98 to 116 and clause 144, which refer to the integration legislation, and, specifically, I want to talk about the absorption of the integration legislation. I want to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper 294. What that tries to do, under clause 144, is to put back into new section 442(2): “Subject to subsection (1), no prospective student may be refused enrolment at a State integrated school on the grounds of—(a) religion, race, or socio-economic background; or (b) lack of willingness of the parent to make financial contributions to the school.”

We did ask at the Education and Science Committee why this was being removed. It was fuzzy, I am sorry. It was fuzzy from the officials as to why we needed—if everything else was being absorbed, why this was being removed. If I can just go into the reasons, how the removal of this clause can actually affect what is going on inside State integrated schools, once they are absorbed inside the Education Act 1989 is shown, for example, in the case recently when my offices were contacted by a student who was forbidden to go to chapel because their parent had not paid a particular bill. The integrated schools are going to become—they are State schools. They are State integrated schools.

No other State school can actually demand that things be paid for the delivery of the curriculum. If going to chapel is part of your timetable, if going to chapel is part of the everyday life of the school, then why would a school be able to stop that student from participating in that particular school-wide activity due to the inability or unwillingness of a parent to pay a fee? So the question, actually, to the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is: why has that been removed, and will she support Supplementary Order Paper 294 to reinstate it?

There was another—well, actually, I will probably leave it at that. If the Minister is able to answer that question—why has there been the removal of new section 442(2), and if State integrated schools are going to be treated the same as every other State school when it comes to the capacity to provide free, high-quality education, then why will they be allowed to refuse enrolment based on religion, race, or socio-economic background?

We recognise that there are protections for their special character in every other clause inside this absorption. Every student who goes there knows that if they go to a Catholic school or a Hindi school or a Te Reo Māori Christian Catholic school, that is the special character of the school. But the schools should not be able to refuse enrolment based on religion, race, or socio-economic background. So if the Minister could answer, please, why that clause was removed in the first place.

While the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is thinking about it, I would just like to support Supplementary Order Paper 294 by Tracey Martin. I will just cover some very short points, because I know that repetition is not welcome in this debate. The reason that I raised the issue of including the rights of the child and various other UN conventions in the first theme is that they protect us from discrimination, and this is a discriminatory clause.

It could be argued that private schools have the right to refuse children on these grounds; I do not know whether they do. But State-integrated schools that receive State money in increasing amounts—and that is part of what we are dealing with integrated schools at the moment—should not have this power. So I just want to make that point, and that is why we need some tests in the legislation, we need the conventions, and we also need to put this clause back in so that it is fair.

It is just blatantly unfair. It is potentially an abuse of human rights, and you cannot discriminate—sorry, you would never do so, Mr Chair. The Government should never enshrine this kind of discrimination against the human rights of students because of race, economic status—these things are just unacceptable. It does not do the integrated schools any favours that they came and asked for this to take place, and that it is in the legislation. It does not do them any favours. It actually makes us all look bad, and it should not be allowed.

Tracey Martin, and then the Minister.

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but there is another question. It is around new section 153(1B) inserted by clause 106(1), new section 154(2B) inserted by clause 107(2), and so on—“the Minister’s absolute discretion.” It is in the insertion of new section 154(2B): “A decision to close a school under subsection (2) is in the Minister’s absolute discretion.”

I just wonder whether the Minister in the chair, Hekia Parata—along with answering the question around why new section 442(2), which was to be inserted by clause 144, was removed—could speak to these “absolute discretion” clauses and say whether they are an extension of the conversation that was had at the Education and Science Committee and through regulatory impact statements about removing the requirement for the Minister to consult again. When I say “again”, if I can just outline, when there is a suggestion that a school should close—let us take Redcliffs School, for example—due to an act of God, that is fine, but the ministry has to go and consult around the options for that school. Then the ministry comes back to the Minister, and it might make a recommendation that that school should close.

At the moment, before this piece of legislation goes through, if the Minister makes a decision that the school will close, there is a requirement to go back to the community now that the community knows that that is the actual decision made—not one of a line of options; the actual decision made—and for that Minister to re-consult the community. That is what happened at Redcliffs School.

What I am trying to get to is whether these clauses, new section 153(1B) and new section 154(2B), which say “Minister’s absolute discretion”, are reinforcing—and I think it might be somewhere else in the bill—that there is no longer a requirement for the Minister to go back to communities like the Redcliffs School community, but once the ministry has outlined all the options and it goes away and tells the Minister what it thinks the Minister should do, the Minister makes a decision and that is it. If Minister Parata could please address those two questions, I would be most grateful.

I will just answer the questions that have been asked in the last wee while. The first thing is in respect of clause 144. The answer to that is that the Human Rights Act covers far more than this clause, and that is why the bill has referred to the Human Rights Act instead of inserting a definition that is much narrower in this bill. That is the first thing.

The second is that schools cannot refuse enrolment based on religion, because the Human Rights Act protects that. The third question is in terms of consultation. Does absolute discretion remove consultation? No. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate, which we are conducting in a different way to what we have done before. So I hope I will be on theme in asking Minister Parata, under clause 99, in particular—I have not had the opportunity to sit on the Education and Science Committee, so I just want some reassurance around the repealing of the definition of “correspondence school”. Also, in clause 105, we are repealing section 152 of the Education Act 1989, which outlines the role of The Correspondence School. I just want some reassurance that this is not disestablishing a feature of our current education system—a feature that is particularly important to people in rural and isolated areas. I am certain that this is not a stalking horse for getting rid of a very important part of our education features, but I would like some reassurance from the Minister about why the definition is being removed and why the section of the Act that currently relates to correspondence schools is being repealed by the amendment bill that we are debating today.

Further, may I also request from the Minister some discussion about new section 156, “Designated character schools”, in clause 109? I just want to convey an issue that is currently being debated in the Waikato area, and I seek some reassurance that this is not a way that a Minister could use their discretion to address this particular situation. It is the situation of agreements that have been reached about school transport for pupils from outlying areas who are wanting to attend schools of special character. I want some assurance that this particular provision about the Minister’s discretion in designating which schools are character schools and which are not is not going to be used to deny those students education support in getting transport from outer areas to those schools of special character, because certainly that is a debate that is alive and well in the Waikato region at the moment and is of some concern. Those parents want certainty that the agreement that was established by the education department to allow school transport to be available for those children to travel from outer areas into Hamilton to special character schools will remain.

So those are two areas that I would just like some reassurance on from the Minister. The Correspondence School—will it remain? I believe it probably has a different name now, but do the features of that for people in rural and isolated areas still remain? Also, of course, it is sometimes a factor that is used in alternative education. So that is another group of particularly vulnerable students, and I want an assurance that that service is going to remain available to them. The other area is the issue associated with the designation of character schools—to ensure that it will not be used to, I guess, allow the Ministry of Education to cut costs in terms of school transport options.

I call Chris Hipkins.

Mr Chairman, you anticipated that I was about to stand before I had even made it all the way to my feet, so I thank you—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I could read the member’s mind.

I thank you for that. I could not let this particular provision pass without making a brief comment. I had some trepidation when I discovered that the Minister of Education was proposing to incorporate integrated schools into the Education Act 1989. I remember having a conversation with Brother Pat Lynch about this many years ago where he described the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act as like the integrated schools’ equivalent of the Treaty of Waitangi. He was at the time vehemently opposed to any change to that, so I have been keeping in regular contact with the proprietors of integrated schools as this legislation has progressed, to ensure that they are comfortable with where we have got to. They are indeed comfortable with the changes that are being proposed now, although they did have some suggestions along the way.

It is important to note that that Act is being removed and incorporated into the main Education Act on the basis that there are not any substantive policy changes unless they have been specifically agreed to. There is actually a contract, if you like, between the integrated schools and the Minister and the ministry around that. We have worked through the Education and Science Committee, and, I guess, through our back-channel processes, to ensure that the changes are consistent with the heads of agreement that were reached. I have been advised that they are, and on that basis the Labour Party is comfortable with supporting this.

I think it is worth noting in the Committee that the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act had its origins in the third Labour Government, under Norman Kirk, and Norman Kirk described it as unfinished business when it was introduced. The Labour Party has always been, I think, quite proud of the bringing into the system of the schools, because the Catholic schools would have all collapsed financially had this Act not been passed in the first place. So I am satisfied that we have kept faith with the original intent of that Act in incorporating it into the main Education Act.

I stand to give three assurances. The first is that Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu is not disappearing. It is appearing in different parts of the bill with a modernised section, fully consulted with te kura. In terms of special character designation, this is not intended to do anything other than simplify the process of designation, and speaks not at all to any of the entitlements that then go along with having become a designated special character school.

As to the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act and its incorporation into this bill, again, I can assure the Committee that that was fully discussed in detail with the proprietors, and reflects the agreement reached with them.

I thank all of those bodies for the work that we have done to get to this stage. Thank you.

New clause 38A, Part 2, clauses 117 to 143 and 145(1) and (2), and schedule 3