Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

This is a very good day for the teaching profession in New Zealand. This Government has a clear vision for teaching and the profession in New Zealand. It is a vision of a profession that is high-quality, that is highly trusted, and that is highly respected—one that enables our children and young people to thrive and that supports them in doing so. To achieve this vision, we know that the teachers and the Government need to work together in partnership. We know that teaching is a collaborative process, and therefore we need to recognise that in the way the profession is regulated.

This bill is yet another step in our quest to build on that partnership. The council’s purpose, as defined by law, is to ensure safe and high-quality leadership, teaching, and learning for children and young people in early childhood education, in primary schools, in intermediate schools, and in secondary schools. The council has a role to raise the status of the teaching profession and ensure that quality teaching is a guarantee for young New Zealanders.

In my view, the name of the council should reflect that very purpose. This was something that the profession itself expressed very strongly when the former National Government established the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. Overwhelmingly, the profession that is regulated by the council wanted to see the name “teaching” reflected in the name of the organisation, and this bill delivers on that. We have listened to the profession. We know that they want to be recognised as the teaching profession, and therefore we will be ensuring that the name of the Education Council is changed to the Teaching Council to reflect that.

To some extent, the Education Council was somewhat misleading, because the Education Council does not regulate all of the educators. It does not regulate many, many parts of the education workforce. It does regulate the teaching profession. That is its job, and that is the title that should be used, so we will change that name. The council has a role to raise the status of the profession, and, as I mentioned, we need to work in partnership with teachers, but teachers also need to play their part in that vision being realised by being positive ambassadors for their profession and supporting the vision of teaching as a positive, rewarding, and valued career choice. It is much more difficult to get teachers to buy into that when they don’t have any say or democratic control over that organisation. It is one of the few professions that we do that to, and we’re going to change that with this bill.

When the Education Council was created, the then National Government made the decision that the Minister would appoint all nine members to the governing body of the council. We don’t do that for nurses, lawyers, doctors, or many other professions, and, in fact, I can recall a debate in this Parliament when the then Labour Government was regulating real estate agents and the then National Opposition went to great lengths to ensure that real estate agents had the ability to elect their own representatives. I think it says everything about that former Government’s priorities that they were willing to die in a ditch to ensure real estate agents get to elect their representatives but not teachers. This bill changes that, and for the better.

This bill changes the composition of the Education Council from its existing nine members to a total of 13 members. Seven of those will be elected. The majority of them will be elected by the professions. We have designated positions for primary and secondary and early childhood educators, a position each for the teachers, and a position each for the leadership of those professions—so principals or leaders in early childhood education—and we have a position set aside for teacher educators, because, again, they are an integral part of the partnership that goes into building a high-quality, highly trusted, and highly respected profession. The balance of the membership—the six remaining members—will be appointed by the Minister. That is important because we want to ensure that we get a diversity of representation and a diversity of views on the council. By allowing the Minister to appoint the balance of the members, we allow for any representational deficits that might come out of the election to be remedied, and we do give the Government some ability to still have an interest in what is the partnership. But we are recognising, in the make-up of the council—seven elected representatives; six from Government—that the balance should tip in favour of the profession, in favour of the democratic representation of the members who are being regulated by this bill.

It’s important to remember that this organisation has the ability to levy members—effectively, to tax teachers. At the moment, the Education Council, as it is now known, is going through a consultation process on what their fees should be, and they are proposing a significant increase in the registration fees for the teaching profession. What remedy do teachers have if they disagree with that? At the moment, they have none, because they have no say over who governs them. Under this bill, if they are dissatisfied with the decisions made by their representatives, they will be able to replace, through a democratic election, more than half of the council. So, in many ways, this is about allowing the council to have the respect and mana within the profession it regulates to do the job that it is there to do effectively. How can the body build the status of the profession if it does not have the support of that profession? And we know that that is currently the case.

The council has done some very good work, and I want to pay tribute to the current members of the council and to Graham Stoop, who is the current leader of the organisational side of the council. They have gone to great lengths to build the trust and confidence of the profession, and they have done some good first steps. For example, the work that they have done around changing the registered teacher criteria is, I think, a positive development. I think the work that they are doing now around looking at the quality and value of initial teacher education and how we can ensure teachers are better prepared for the classroom when they finish their initial teacher training—those are things that the council should take a leadership role in, they are taking a leadership role in, and their ability to do so will be strengthened if the profession itself feels a greater sense of ownership over the work of that council.

An election is not too much to ask for the teaching profession. It is not going to be the be all and end all of this work. This is a first step—it’s actually not even a first step; we’ve already taken steps prior to this, but it is another step on what will be a long journey towards building the status of the teaching profession.

I want to make just a word of caution to members on the other side who, in previous debates on this matter, have accused members on this side of the House of being union lackeys, among other things, and talking about our union mates, as Nikki Kaye has done in the past. I want to remind the aspiring Leader of the Opposition, who already seems to have assumed the position, that, to them, they may be our “union mates”; to us, they are teachers, and no Government can achieve what it is setting out to achieve in the education system without having teachers on side.

Teachers are the people who work with young people, who work with children every day to help them realise their dreams and aspirations. We stand side by side with teachers, we back the profession, and we’re willing to trust and respect this profession in a way that the previous Government were never willing to do.

I am very pleased to stand and speak to this piece of legislation. The first thing I’d like to say is I actually agree with the last comments of the Minister, whereby he talked about the value of the profession, and I think many members in this House will remember fondly the impact that their teachers have made in their life, but where we want to disagree with the member is that we also respect history, and I want that member to go back and read the workforce advisory report and the report around the convicted sex offender that led to the changes that the previous Government made around the Education Council. I went back and had two reads, actually, of the report, and I want to quote some things back to that member, because what he could’ve done—what he could have done—is come to the Opposition and had a conversation in terms of the composition of the council. We did not have that from the Minister. We didn’t have that reflection on history.

I want to remind him of who was on that workforce advisory group—John Morris, Pauline Winter—and that report was very powerful in terms of what it said and the reason that we had the change to a composition, skills-based body. It was really clear: now is the time for industrial advocacy organisations to back the support for the establishment of an independent body capable of self-regulation and self-review. That’s why we ended up in the situation where we created this independent body so that we could have and resolve—there were significant financial issues. There were issues around regulation. There were issues around review. That report goes through these significant issues.

That’s why we made the changes, and what the Minister could’ve done is come to the Opposition and said, “Let’s have that conversation, in terms of elected members versus a composition of a skills-based approach.” But we didn’t have that. So what we now have is a Minister that spends several minutes talking about the name change of this organisation, and this is his priority rather than recognising that the whole reason the body was created was to reflect that significant piece of work done by John Morris and people like Pauline Winter.

The second point I want to make today is that this is a case where it’s typical Labour Party. We are seeing an increase of this body to 13 members. I do want to acknowledge, though, that the member has kept the fact that there is not going to be all of the body elected. That is a positive move. I do want to acknowledge the fact that the member has also ensured that this body retains its statutory independence.

But I want also to take a moment to say: why would the member fix something that is not broken? We have had to bail out the Teachers Council, under the previous Government. We’ve had to make these changes. But I want to acknowledge Graham Stoop, and the member did acknowledge the existing Education Council. They are doing a fantastic job. They have proceeded in terms of the code of ethics and responsibility.

That work has happened. In fact, I just had a look at a number of their reports. They’ve submitted on a range of pieces of Government policy. They have had, I think, over 2,000 submissions. They’re doing incredible work, and they’re doing incredible work because they are focused on what is good leadership, what is good governance, and what is also good education policy. Again, they are born out of a significant piece of work that says the previous Teachers Council got into financial difficulty, didn’t have the ability to self-regulate, to properly self-review, and that’s how we ended up with this body.

We on this side do not believe the Government has made the case for this new composition via elected members. We think there was a significant piece of work done, including involving what was a convicted sex offender, to lead to the changes for the Education Council that we now have. We do not see the case in terms of spending more, when you’ve got precious education funds, on expanding the body to 13. We also think that the existing Education Council have proved that they are doing a stellar job by the engagement that they’ve had.

Finally, I do want to address again comments by the Minister. He’s made the point that they are consulting around fees, in terms of teachers. The point that I would make to the Minister, which he does understand—and if he was listening, he would acknowledge it—is that the previous Government has had to bail out the Teachers Council. That is one of the reasons why we are in this situation, and the reason why we now have this situation where teachers’ fees may be going up is that the last Government had to put in a significant amount of funding. I think that when we go out there and we talk, as we all do on the hustings, to nurses and to doctors, we should have a little bit of equality here. We should have a body that is able to fund itself, and that is part of the reason why we ended up making the governance changes, moving to a skills- and competency-based type of model. And I do think, finally, that it is incredibly telling that this is the piece of legislation that we have from the Minister first up off the bat.

We don’t have clarity around national standards. We don’t have clarity around what’s happening with the decile system. We have a whole group of children in partnership schools that have not a frickin’ clue about what their futures are. Instead, the Minister spends several minutes talking about the name change of a particular bill. In my view—and I will go back to the beginning of his speech if we want to talk about education priorities—it’s this side of the House that cares about some of our most disadvantaged kids in partnership schools. It’s this side of the House that cares about having financial viability. It’s this side of the House that wants an Education Council that has skills- and competency-based members. And to have the Minister, as his first piece of legislation, be dealing with this rather than some of the bigger issues in education is, I think, disappointing.

Finally, I do just want to acknowledge all of the teachers in New Zealand and also make the point that this isn’t about this side of the House not valuing input. In fact, actually the previous Minister, through the appointments process, had significant engagement, as I understand it, to ensure that we had a number of registered teachers on this Education Council. So I want to acknowledge what the previous Minister has done in that regard. Thank you.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I am absolutely excited and delighted to be speaking on this bill here today. In fact, I was just so excited all day that this was coming up because, as an educator of 28 years’ experience and having seen the lowest morale in the profession that I have ever seen over the past few years, this is the most important part of education at the moment. If we have a low morale in our workforce, then we have the biggest problem that we have. And we are addressing that as a Government here today, and that is why it is so exciting to be here and be speaking on this bill here today.

Along with the education amendment legislation that was set up, teachers have had to go through a lot in the last few years. They have had a lot taken from them, but they have persisted because they have believed in their profession and they have believed that they are always putting the learner at the centre and they believed in kids. But that has become harder and harder and harder. And, as a principal, the lowest point that I ever saw teachers get to was when the Education Council was set up under the Education Amendment Act 2015, a couple of years ago. It was a real kick to teachers. It was where teachers said, “The Government doesn’t care about us. We don’t matter to them anymore.”, and we felt low. As a teaching profession, we felt lower than low.

This was a punitive approach and seen as a punitive approach to control us as a teaching profession. But as any behavioural psychologist will advise, a punitive approach never brings out the best in anybody. In fact, it actually brings out the worst. Was that what we were after, as a country? I think not. Teachers want the best. I go back to it. Teachers want the best for their students. They want to always put the students at the centre. Teachers saw the establishment of the Education Council as a sign that the Government did not trust the teaching profession to have any role in governing itself, that the Government, at that time, saw the teaching profession as being inferior to other professions, who had a say in their governing bodies: professions such as doctors, lawyers, and nurses.

Why were teachers not afforded that same responsibility at the time? Every single teacher—every single teacher—can tell stories of how they have to defend their profession to people outside of teaching. One thing that we’ve always had going for us is that we knew the Government of the day, no matter what political stripes that Government had, always had the teachers’ back, until the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) was introduced, and that’s why morale got so low.

One such story that happened to me was quite some time ago—many years ago, in fact, near the beginning of my career. I was talking to a National MP at the time, who told me that he did not want his sons to become teachers. When I inquired why, thinking it was probably because of the safety around males in teaching, which is something that we were addressing at that time as well, he said “No, it’s because teaching’s not seen to be a good enough profession.” My answer to him at the time was “I love what I do. I am passionate about teaching. And you know what?”, I said to that person, “I can do what you’re doing. And you know what else? You can change that perception. You can do something about that.” Well, guess what? I’m doing what he’s doing and I am here today, and that’s why I’m so excited. Because we are not only taking a step to give democratic rights back to our teachers once again, we are actually taking a step to change the status of teaching here today. This is a step in the right direction to change the status for the better for our teaching profession.

Today, the Government has made a statement with this bill. Today, we say teachers matter. Today, this Government takes a step in raising that status and in letting the teaching profession know that we will work with them, not against them. Today, we let our teachers know that we trust them as professionals. We’ve heard our Minister, the Minister of Education, talk about partnership and working as partners with our teachers. Well, we are here today saying that we want to work as partners. We trust and respect the knowledge, but with that comes the aspect that in any good partnership you need to trust and respect the knowledge and skills that each member of the partnership brings. Teachers must trust us. We are going to pledge that you will be able to trust us. The teachers will be able to trust us, and we will trust the teachers.

But there comes a warning with the building of that partnership, and I have said this before. When we have such partnerships, there will be challenging times, because we would challenge each other and there will be times when we feel uncomfortable. But that is great, because any teacher will also tell any one of us in this room that the uncomfortable times bring out the best in our students, bring out the best in our learning. And the uncomfortable times in any partnership will bring out the best in our teaching profession and the best in this Government. I am looking forward to the journey that is ahead of us.

I can remember a quote a few years ago from Dr Jean Mitaera at a conference that I was at: “What we plant today [is] their harvest tomorrow.” What we are planting today is our children and future learners’ harvest tomorrow. Raising the status of the professions and the steps that we are taking today is how we are making things better and harvesting good learning outcomes for our children tomorrow. We are putting the learning needs of our children and our students firmly back into the centre.

Thirty-two years ago this week, I walked through the gates of Christchurch Teachers’ College. Four years after that, I graduated with my Bachelor of Education and my diploma in teaching, and I have been proud from that moment to call myself a teacher. No matter what journey I took in education, I have been incredibly proud to stand up and say, “I am a teacher.” The last few years have been difficult. They were the most difficult of my career because, suddenly, I didn’t feel valued.

I was proud to be a teacher. Today, I am exceptionally, exceptionally proud to be part of this Government, which is putting teachers back at the centre, and I am exceptionally proud that we are taking a journey from this moment to say that our teachers matter because we are putting trust and faith back in our teaching profession. We are going to reap the harvest with our learners and see better outcomes for our children. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s my pleasure to speak on this bill, which we won’t be supporting, but I listened with great interest to the speech of the previous speaker—Jan Tinetti—who talked about teachers being at the centre. I presume she meant the centre of the education system. I always thought it was the pupils who might also be at the centre of the education system, which is what we’re supposed to be focusing on, and growing them.

It sort of makes me reflect on this bill, which really is, to be honest, scraping the barrel somewhat. I came in and I went to have a look at this first piece of legislation from the new Minister of Education. I was expecting a rather thick, well-thought-out piece of legislation that the Government had produced, and I found this sort of three-page affair that looks like it’s been written on the back of an envelope prior to the election. It’s a member’s bill that has been found—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Good things come in small packages, Paul. You should know that.

Yes, and it’s true. We don’t measure the quality of our legislation by the kilo, and this really takes that to the nth degree. So we have this—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: It’ll be one more piece of legislation than you’ve managed to pass.

No, that’s not true. Actually, I’ve had a number that have been passed. But anyway, you’re trying to divert me from what is a simple question where we have this little piece of legislation that’s been thrown together by an Opposition member. Really, he thought, “Well, what could I repeal that the National Government has done, and put it in a member’s bill?”, and he thought, “Oh yes, we can focus on rearranging the appointment process for the Teachers Council, because that’s a major issue.” And yeah, I’m sure it’s an issue of great interest to some people, but it’s probably not the No. 1 education issue confronting, certainly, parents of children who are starting school this week and they are very focused on very great outcomes. But that’s what we’ve got.

That is what we’ve been delivered here as a new Government bill—a member’s bill that’s been scraped from that, brought into the Government’s legislation, and presented as one of the things that they’re working on in their 100-day plan. It shows, to me, a Government that isn’t very well prepared for office. They have spent nine years in the wilderness in Opposition pointlessly and have arrived with very little in their bag in terms of detailed research about what they can be doing to deal with the big issues of the education sector, which are around continuing to raise achievement.

Obviously, everybody’s focused on getting back to school at the moment, and the question that keeps coming back to me from the community is: “Well, hang on a moment. I don’t remember people marching in the streets wanting to get rid of national standards, but they’ve gone.” We’ve heard these fine speeches about the partnership with teachers and the partnership and trust that this Government is going to develop, yet we didn’t get any sense of that partnership or that communication with the people who are at the school over whether or not they wanted to do away with national standards. It was just a fiat from high from this new—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Can you come back to the bill, please.

Sorry. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, I will, but I was really referring to the—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Or come to the bill.

Well, there’s not much in the bill to talk about, really. I mean, it’s a very short piece of legislation that rearranges the appointment process for the Teachers Council and renames it, and that is the extent of it. So, at a time when we’ve got the new Government spending $2.8 billion on free education—and we’ve heard today that there are actually no new students coming as a result of it—this is what we’re talking about. We’re rearranging the appointment process for the teacher’s council and renaming it.

I personally think that’s a bit of a metaphor for this Government. They’ve arrived here, they haven’t been spending their years in Opposition thinking up some clear ideas of how they would advance New Zealanders’ education and keep on raising those standards so that New Zealand children coming through the system are well prepared and continue to be well prepared to engage in an ever-increasingly competitive world.

The final thought I wanted to make was that the one part of the speech where I did absolutely agree with the Minister was the fact that we all want and incredibly value our teachers. I am a son of a teacher—a son of a maths teacher of 20 years. We know the passion and commitment they all make to their profession, and we want the very best for all teachers so that they do a great job of educating our children. So I reject any suggestion that the previous Government didn’t have the interests of teachers at heart. We certainly did, and we want the very best for the profession and for the profession to succeed in the interests of everybody in this country.

So at the start of the school year, I want to wish them all the very best for what we believe will be a highly productive year, and I just wish the Government was a little bit better prepared on coming into Government to tackle some of the big issues, rather than some of the perhaps second-order issues as dealt with by this bill. Thank you very much.

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. I think it’s very telling that Paul Goldsmith, the previous speaker, talked about “thick but not very well thought out”, and I’ve got to say I agree with him with regard to the speech he just gave. What it showed was a lack of understanding about what this bill is really about.

What happened with the previous Government was—and I think it’s very interesting that the Hon Nikki Kaye talked about the fact that the last Government “bailed out” the Teachers Council. What that meant was that the Teachers Council previously—before the changes that were made by the past National Government—was under so much pressure when it came to nominating and electing individuals for more responsibility, the profession was so abused, distressed, and pressured that they couldn’t feel that they could do that. So what did the previous National Government decide to do? They took away democracy altogether. That’s what we at street level call throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

What the current Minister has done is to say that we will support and come up with a medium. So what we’re going to do, apart from removing some of the pressures—e.g., reporting on national standards that were neither national nor standard—is make sure that we do a review of NCEA so that our secondary school teachers are actually able to concentrate on teaching and learning and not on tick-boxes; work with the profession to remove some of the administrative pressures, so that they can feel free to stand for election and they have the time to think about representing their profession on bodies such as this; and, at the same time, make sure that the Minister can appoint for those specific areas where we need nuances.

Because if you look at the bill, what the bill has done is said there are several elected positions that hit the mainstream areas of education. But I have delegations, for example, around children in care. I would like to lobby the Minister of Education to make sure that one of the representatives on the Teachers Council would be somebody who understands what are the educational needs of children in care. I also have delegations as an Associate Minister of Education around children who have disabilities or other challenges inside of education, and there is a space for the Minister in the six people that the Minister would appoint to that body to actually be able to have a representative there so that voice can be heard.

Let’s be clear—teachers pay for this body. I think there’s an old saying that he who pays saves, or something like that, right? Right, so teachers pay for this body. At the end of the day, under the legislation that the previous Government passed they were going to have not only no representation on the Education Council, they were going to have increased delivery of things that had previously been done by the Ministry of Education through the Education Council, and teachers were going to have to pay for it but with no elected representation. What this Government believes is that it is appropriate for this profession to be trusted as other professions are trusted to elect their own members to their own council. If they’re paying they should be able to put a percentage of the representatives on to that body.

The New Zealand public has consistently said that teachers are among the most trusted of the public servants—because that’s who teachers are. When you cap public servants what happens is policemen and nurses and doctors in hospitals and teachers are part of those under that pressure. Teachers are among our most trusted public servants, except by the previous Government. The previous Government decided that they were not a trustworthy profession to elect their own body. So instead of working with the profession and saying, “How can we make it easier for you to have this democratic body?”, they threw it out. This Government does not believe that is appropriate, so we will change and pass this piece of legislation.

New Zealand First has an issue with this bill. This bill was originally drawn as a member’s bill from the ballot. It perfectly matches what New Zealand First campaigned on, what the Green Party campaigned on, and what the Labour Party campaigned on, except for the name. The Minister of Education understands that and it’s a conversation, a topic, that has been discussed. At the moment it is the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill 2017. We will lobby, and we understand we can work constructively with the Minister of Education, to amend the title of this bill to “Education (Teachers Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill 2017”—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Oh, that’ll make a big difference. Oh that will make a huge difference.

—to better reflect what is the appropriate description of our nation. And Mr Tim Macindoe is going to decide that that is the pivotal point of the bill that he’s now going to discuss going forward. But that’s OK—that’s OK.

I do want to acknowledge Graham Stoop. I want to acknowledge Graham Stoop. I want to acknowledge the Education Council that was put in place by the last Minister of Education. They stoically held back the previous Minister of Education and the direction of travel she wanted to go in. They stoically resisted any attempts of dictatorial behaviour by consulting with the profession to try and create what was the shift from a code of conduct to a code of ethics. Again, another way that the previous National Government dismissed what are professionals, what are grown-ups, what are people who are highly trained. If we intend to lift the status of this profession then all parties in this House must recognise the high quality, high level of training, and the professionalism of this institutional body and the people that they represent. The National Party over the previous nine years destroyed that level of trust between the profession and this House. This Government intends to replace it.

The one thing that I would say about the Education Council is that I think it’s very, very, unfortunate that a member of them decided to go and try and open some charter schools. I think of the good work that was made by Graham Stoop and other members of that council—when a member of that council betrayed the trust of the profession by deciding that those who were participating in what is a world-leading education system could not be trusted alone and that they were going to go off and create a charter school. I think that was disappointing. I think it was unfortunate for that particular person, who is actually of high quality.

So at the end of the day New Zealand First will support this bill. We will support it because we’ve always supported it. We have supported the recognition of the teaching profession as a profession—as a profession. The number of times I’ve sat in an Education and Science Committee where a National Party member has told me that actually anybody can teach. The number of times I have heard that—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Rubbish. What rubbish. I sat on the committee with you. I never heard that.

If I had 10c for every time I had heard that, then I would be a rich woman today, Mr Macindoe. And actually I’ve heard another member of that select committee at the time I was sitting on it tell me that it doesn’t matter what school you went to, it’s the colour of the tie you have on. So therefore, I think what we’ve got is, this is a Government that has decided that we refuse to just dish off democracy because it might be easier. We refuse to just chuck off democracy because a dictatorship is easier to do and possibly cheaper. We believe in this profession. We believe in actually working with our teachers. We believe that through a collaborative environment, a collegial environment—which is a very education word—through a collegial environment, we will do better for our children. So New Zealand First will support this bill. We support the Minister and—

💬 Simeon Brown: Yap, yap, yap.

—we support, Mr Brown, the teachers of New Zealand, and they should know it. This Government campaigned on it, this Government is delivering for it, and that Opposition tried to crush them.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill, and, of course, I rise in opposition to it.

But before I do launch in to the substantive part of my speech I do want to thank the members of the Education and Workforce Committee for the privilege of electing me to be the chair. We can debate the hows and whys of how that came about but I take that role extremely seriously. I am quite prepared to facilitate an environment which is a safe environment to discuss ideas. That’s what politics is all about, especially in the education space.

I’m not sure what that previous speaker was getting at but I know that the members on this side certainly do value teachers. I have some of the best teachers in New Zealand based in my electorate. I’m talking about the Peter Hopgoods, the Stan Tiatias, the Katie Pennicotts that have received awards for throwing deficit learning out the window and making sure that the kids in their schools have every opportunity to achieve their hopes and dreams through a magnificent platform of education.

So, look, I’m not sure what that previous speaker was getting at but, certainly, we value education, and, as the chairperson of the Education and Workforce Committee, I take the ideas based in this portfolio very, very seriously. To the new members, again, “collegial”—it’s an important word. We are doing work on the select committee creating that safe environment to talk about it, but also there will be contention. I think this is one of these bills that does create tension. The reason for that is because we have seen so much change with this new incoming Government in the education space that I believe that this bill—albeit somewhat small and albeit that it seems to, on the face of it, prima facie, simply change the make-up of the Teaching Council—I think, given the changes that are going on, has more wide-reaching ramifications and needs to be considered.

So if you look at some of the changes that this Government has already brought in, in my opinion quite hastily and without consideration—you’re talking about the abolition of national standards, without any fixed ideas about what it is going to be replaced with. You can debate the pros and cons of the free tertiary fees—you can debate that, depending on where you are—and the abolition of charter schools. We have to look at the cornerstone of what keeps the teaching profession on a level peg and what maintains that standard. The cornerstone of that is this Teaching Council. So at the very same time as these wide-ranging, sweeping changes throughout the education portfolio, we are now looking at changing the teaching council and the make-up of that.

We need to look quite critically at these changes. I don’t want to come from an ideology. I want to really debate the merits of how our kids are going to be given that platform to achieve. But if you’re going to start making changes to this council at this very time—sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker; I used the word “you” and I saw your eyebrows raise. If you’re going to change the make-up of this council at this stage, I think it is reckless, because we need to keep things consistent. As a parent, I want to know that things in the education system are kept consistent for the time being, until we know what we are getting.

As a parent, while I value what teachers provide—my goodness; some of them are saints, absolutely—I need to know that my children will go to school and be able to compete on a global stage. The only way we can understand that is if we know exactly how they are achieving. And yes, Minister, there will be some teachers that can adequately explain that and will have the experience to give feedback in an appropriate manner, but without national standards, of course, we won’t be able to know where those children pitch, for example in New Zealand and then the world.

This council is the very cornerstone of what maintains standards in the New Zealand education system. We are changing that at the very time that things are changing with this new Government in the education space. I think this bill is going to need some very rigorous analysis at the select committee. I think that the other initiatives that this Government has raised are going to need some scrutiny. But, like I say, while I value the profession of teachers and the work that they do in preparing our young people for the future, certainly this Government needs to be held to account. As part of that, the teaching profession also needs to be held to account to achieve whatever standards are put in place through this vehicle. We need to scrutinise this further. Thank you.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I am absolutely pleased to rise in support of this bill, for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, and stoked to be kicking off the year—

💬 Simeon Brown: Stoked.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —with this being my first time to speak in the House in 2018. Simeon, you can watch out for my bill tomorrow.

This is a good, common-sense bill, and we’re stoked to be supporting it as the Green Party. I would like to commend my colleague the Hon Chris Hipkins, obviously the Minister of Education, who has shown himself to be incredibly effective and collaborative with all of us, these three parties who do make up the Government.

I find this bill to be incredibly timely. My little brother started his first week at intermediate school this past week. A few months ago, I spoke in my maiden speech about the utter privilege I have to help improve this system that he is navigating, as the Greens education spokesperson. I feel that weight very much today. But I must say, this is one example of those improvements.

As I’ve said before, this is a pretty straightforward piece of legislation. I don’t see it as a bad thing that it is light, but, indeed, I believe that it is very weighty in terms of the reforms and the kinds of shifts that this will deliver for teachers and for the teaching profession. Basically, the Green Party believes that teachers should have a leadership majority in their own professional body. I’d very much like to acknowledge, as well, the very personal speech delivered by my colleague Jan Tinetti, who, I would like to state, I believe is the only teacher who has so far stood to address the contents of this bill.

The changes heralded in under the previous National Government in 2015 were against all of the advice and protests by the sector, interestingly enough. It created a bit of an anomaly, as far as professional bodies go. We have nurses, doctors, lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents, all of whom elect their own representatives, and it only makes sense that teachers—should we value them as the people who are teaching our youth, the citizens and leaders of tomorrow—should have that same right too.

This actually also serves to politicise the council—those changes that were made under the previous National Government in 2015—as noted by the New Zealand Educational Institute, one of those unions that the Opposition seems to fear so much. At the time, they issued a press release asking how can it be independent when all of its governance is elected by a politician.

We also had the previous Minister of Education, the Hon Nikki Kaye, stating that these appointments to this council should be based on skills and competency. In her opposition, she stated exactly this. I would ask what is inconsistent here in this proposal that teachers elect their own representatives. Does the National Party not trust teachers? Well, to provide at least the Green Party’s stance on that question, we do. We believe that showing that trust looks like restoring the democracy that was eroded in 2015 by that last National Government. It is presently possible, actually, as well, under section 380 of the current Act, as inserted by the previous National Government, that four out of nine members of the council are non-teachers. That should be something that those in this House should be wary of. When we are talking about a body that deals with the teaching profession, surely they should understand the nuances and the day to day of that teaching profession.

The changes that we are moving towards will see that six members are appointed by the Minister, but the majority—seven of them—will be elected by the teaching profession themselves. They will be from the primary, secondary, and early childhood education sectors, which are all crucial in representation. I would, however, mention that the purpose of the Teaching Council, as noted in the general policy statement in the explanatory note of the bill, is “to ensure safe and high quality leadership, teaching, and learning for children and young people in early childhood, primary, secondary, and senior … schooling in English medium and Māori medium settings through raising the status of the profession.”

The Green Party would just like to note, on that point, that there is no guarantee of Māori representation on that council in the bill’s current form. So we’d very much like to see something like that raised in the select committee. And I do look forward to working with my colleagues, including the chair of that select committee, Sarah Dowie, through those issues.

I’ve always found it quite fascinating that there is a different skill set required in getting elected versus doing the job that one is elected to do. I think it’s quite pronounced here in this House. We go around campaigning, and our skill set that is required there is to talk, to shake hands, and to convince people that we are capable of doing the theatre in here.

But then we are elected, and, sure, we do that theatre, but we’re also expected, obviously, to do all of that backroom work—that invisible work—and I’d say that many of us, before we come in here, are not quite aware of what that looks like.

So there’s a massive inconsistency there, and I’d say, as was mentioned previously by one of the National Party members yelling at me across the House, that teachers have a thorough understanding of their profession and the skill set required to get elected, and demonstrating that, versus doing the job on the Teaching Council of Aotearoa—potentially Aotearoa New Zealand—is very similar.

So, fundamentally, this is a partnership between the Government and teachers, and it is about recognising the value of teachers in our society and affording them the very common-sense, straightforward ability to elect their own representatives on this Teaching Council. For that reason, the Green Party is very happy to support and commend the bill to the House.

Kia orana, Madam Assistant Speaker, and a very happy New Year to you and to all members, many of whom are looking tanned and, I hope, are feeling rested after a wonderful holiday. Could I say to Chlöe Swarbrick, I’m very pleased to hear her acknowledging the merits of the teaching profession as a former secondary teacher. I was also pleased to hear her acknowledge that, currently, on the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, the majority of members are teachers, so I’m not sure quite what problem she thinks that she is going to solve.

I must admit, I came to work this morning not particularly looking forward to putting on a suit, because, as we’ve all sweltered over recent weeks, the idea of a suit and tie wasn’t very appealing, but here we are in a rather nice, air conditioned building, and I’m actually quite enjoying the temperature. In fact, after listening to Government speakers for the last hour or so, I think I’m going to sleep very well for the first time all year tonight, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Members opposite will recall, no doubt to their embarrassment and shame, that before Christmas, in this supposedly really important 100 days of action, they spent almost every day in this House filibustering on bills that they’d inherited from the previous National Government that were totally non-controversial, that everybody supported, and that we were quite happy to see go through quite quickly. But oh no, they slowed them down because they had absolutely nothing of their own to introduce.

And here we are, as they come towards this supposed milestone, the completion of their 100 days of office, and they have, in their desperation, dug down into the bottom of the barrel to find a former member’s bill, which is called, what, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill. But, wait, we’ve just heard from Mrs Martin that the really exciting addition is going to be putting “New Zealand” on at the end of that title. That’s really going to be important.

I cannot believe that this Government, in its 100 days of action, is still, here in the new year, incapable of coming up with something that is really of significant moment. If this bill is the highlight of their 100 days of action, they are in deep trouble. As the Hon Paul Goldsmith alluded to, they are doing it only because it was a member’s bill that was already drafted, and they had nothing else ready to go.

So let me ask my colleagues: was this topic a big issue on the campaign trail last year?

💬 Simeon Brown: No.

No, I didn’t think it was. Do our constituents raise it at our local events or when we bump into them at the supermarket or at our meetings in our electorates?

💬 Simeon Brown: No.

No? No, they don’t. More importantly, will this bill help the new Government to fund their extravagant policies and to improve the quality of teaching in New Zealand?

💬 Simeon Brown: No.

No, it won’t. That’s what the Act it will replace was designed to do, and it’s worth remembering that the previous Government allocated serious money for that purpose. There was a very genuine and significant commitment.

Or is this just another sop to their union backers, this time especially from the NZEI Te Riu Roa, who write their education policies and are demanding payback for all their effort from the campaign trail last year? Yes, of course that’s what this is about. So the highlight of the Government’s 100 days of action will be passing the Statutes Amendment Bill and, now, changing the name of the Education Council to the Teaching Council. Wow, hold the front page, what an amazing record!

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: As opposed to the pumpkin?

Ha, ha! Yes, well, at least my pumpkin was doing something purposeful. At least my pumpkin was growing, Mr Hipkins, and now I know—here we have an admission from the Minister of Education that he joined with Jamie Strange. They were both out there in the dead of night with their knives and their sickles, severing the stem of my pumpkin, and I’m distraught and I’m devastated. Mr Hipkins, I’ll be back, I tell you what. There’s more where that came from.

The Hon Nikki Kaye, in leading off the National Party’s position on this bill, made the very serious point that the original Teachers Council was not achieving what it should have been. That is why we in the previous National Government made the changes that we did. I was on the Education and Science Committee when we considered that bill, and I want to say to Mrs Martin, who made a fatuous, ridiculous claim before, that I’ve never, never heard anybody argue that anybody can teach. I’ve never heard that view expressed—not once.

I am very happy to acknowledge the fact that we have an excellent teaching profession in this country, and I agree with Jan Tinetti that the vast majority of teachers I know and with whom I’ve been proud to be associated have always felt a great deal of pride in their profession and pride in their work and, in particular, get absolute joy out of nurturing young people into doing the very best they can and becoming fine young people. That’s what makes teaching so rewarding, and so I don’t think there’s any distinction or difference of opinion about that, depending on which side of the House you’re on.

But all this bill does is reverse necessary changes that the previous Government made to ensure that the council had more scope to invest in leadership as well as teaching, and some of the initiatives that were introduced under the Hon Anne Tolley and then the Hon Hekia Parata and carried on by the Hon Nikki Kaye were making a very significant difference. They were not demeaning, as has been inferred by some of the speakers opposite; instead, they were saying this is such an important job, such an important profession, that we need to ensure that we do everything we can to lift the standard of teaching to the highest it can be, because the children of this country deserve nothing less.

That’s why I was very proud and pleased to be able to support it. Through our original plan, $200 million was set aside for development programmes that would have been transferred from the Ministry of Education to the Education Council. So it was a very significant commitment by the previous Government. It was over three years; it would have been starting this year.

We oppose this bill that the new Government is introducing, adapted from a member’s bill, because it reverts to an old model that hadn’t been working well rather than a skills and core competencies approach to lift the quality of teaching. I lament that, and I urge the Government to reconsider.

I understand this is a split call. Marja Lubeck—five minutes.

Tēnā koe. I’m rising to take a call on the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill. As a brand new backbench MP with no first-hand experience in education, I didn’t have much knowledge to the background or context of this bill, but I have to say that reading up on all of the history, I’ve learnt a lot in a very short amount of time. It’s a real privilege to speak to this bill, as I understand, from all the readings and from the previous—some very passionate—speeches, how important this bill exactly is.

It also makes it clear to me how out of touch the other side of the House is in trying to diminish the importance of this bill, because, clearly, it is very important. So no, it may not be a very lengthy document, as has been pointed out, and, at first glance, it would seem to be only about three points—the name of the bill, the number of reps, and how they are elected—but, more importantly, it gives teachers back the right to choose their own representatives from amongst their own peers, thereby restoring trust, respect, and democracy. To try and trifle with that—to make it sound somehow less important—is just astonishing to me.

In New Zealand, there are many professions that have their own governing bodies. Lawyers are one of them. The New Zealand Law Society, for example, was established about 150 years ago, in 1869. Teachers had to wait a lot longer to get their profession recognised, which is quite ironic because, as has been pointed out by Tracey Martin already, teachers are, arguably, a more trusted profession than lawyers are.

The year I immigrated to New Zealand—1989—was the year the Teacher Registration Board was established, and that became the New Zealand Teachers Council. The council reps were elected by their peers. This showed evidence of independence from Government bodies and provided for a degree of self-management. But then, in 2015, that big change happened that Jan Tinetti talked about, and the name of the Teachers Council changed to the Education Council. It made it smaller and it made it completely Government appointed. That change to that governing body gave teachers substantially less control over their own profession and undermined the teaching quality. It made it very clear, from the speeches we’ve heard, how devastating that change actually was, on top of a lot of the other changes they had to deal with.

While the teachers contribute 90 percent of the Education Council’s funding, they actually, under the current Act, have no say on the election of reps on their governing body. I would imagine that that change at the time signalled that the Government was reluctant to surrender power when it came to standard setting and accountability processes and, pretty much, that the Government didn’t trust the members of the teaching profession to be able to put aside any self-interest and ensure that they would promote the public interest. It must have been really disempowering to those who are part of that profession and seen as a way to control it.

In the current Act, as has been pointed out, there are no elections, and all nine positions are being appointed by the Minister of Education. To me, it just doesn’t make any sense to have the teaching profession represented by a governing body where a large number—up to four out of nine—could be non-teachers. It is also undemocratic that the teaching profession is not able to elect its own representatives, and it actually seems completely inconsistent with the democratic processes we champion in New Zealand as a democratic country.

It was only in 2009 that nurses were able to elect members of the Nursing Council, and the rationale at the time, I quote, was “to give nurses a greater say in decisions affecting scope of practice, competence, and safety.” That should be exactly the same for teachers. This is about the people that we entrust our children to and who are preparing them for the future, the people who are making sure that the next generation can be the best they can be. So we should stop treating the teachers like children, and trust them by creating the conditions to get the best out of them.

This bill does exactly that. This bill gives teachers a direct vote on membership of the council. It restores trust. It restores democracy. And yes, perhaps the message of this bill does fit on the back of an envelope, but it actually says, “We trust you, unlike the previous Government.” Therefore, I support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

The increase in council membership—a 45 percent increase, to be precise—will of course have an increased cost attached to it, but I’m not going to talk about that tonight. I’m going to talk about how seven of those 13 spots will now be elected. If the Government has a problem with ministerial appointments, why aren’t all of the 13 new positions going to be elected? Why keep still nearly half as ministerial appointments? Why not go the full distance?

If it’s about lessening ministerial influence, then why allow the Minister to appoint the chairperson? The Minister of Education said in question time in the House today that he wanted to restore democracy. Well, why not let democracy take place amongst the council itself, and let them elect their own chair? And why is there no representation from the New Zealand School Trustees Association? Want to cover the bases? Then, where is the parent rep on this body?

It has been the Minister’s reputation to date that the right people be appointed and pushed for next-level performance. The Minister, of course, has been, and is, responsible and accountable, and there has been a very tight safeguard regime in place to prevent cronyism in the current council make-up. It is interesting, is it not—especially in light of what’s been said on the other side of the House—that 66 percent of the current council make-up are teachers. Sixty-six percent, currently, are teachers. That doesn’t sound like cronyism to me. In fact, it’s definitely not punitive control, as one speaker on the other side of the House said tonight.

So where is the need for change? Does the Government think that the current council isn’t professional enough, doesn’t know the profession, or doesn’t have enough depth?

Would it be of interest to the Government to know that on the current council, some of the make-up of that body right now includes a professor at Auckland University who is a member of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority brainstorming trust. There’s one who is a Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award recipient for Māori development in education. Another is head of an audit division at BDO. Another is someone shortlisted for the overall New Zealander of the Year Award for her services to education. Does that not sound like expertise? Does that not sound like expertise enough?

We do not need to shake up things again. The expertise is there.

I understand this is split call. Jo Luxton—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m absolutely thrilled to stand and take a call on the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill. What we have before us here in this bill is a sign that this Government is prepared to listen—that this Government is prepared to listen to those most affected. This Government recognises that it is time to raise the status of the teaching profession in line with all other professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, and allow them to determine how their profession is led.

This bill seeks to change the name, composition, and appointment of all members to the Education Council. It seeks to rename the Education Council to Teaching Council, which, to me, immediately gives mana—and rightly so—to teachers in Aotearoa. The purpose of the Teaching Council is to ensure that we have safe and high-quality leadership, teaching, and learning happening for our tamariki in all levels of education—early childhood, primary, secondary, and senior secondary schooling. At the moment, the council is made up of nine members, all appointed by the Minister of Education. Now compare that with other professions, such as the nursing profession. Their council members are elected by nurses themselves. Teachers I have spoken to have described the time when it was changed to allow the Minister to appoint all members of the council as a real slap in the face. It basically told them they were not capable of managing their own council. This bill recognises teachers as professionals, and the fact that teachers have an understanding of what is happening at the chalkface.

When I spoke with Sarah Davis, a secondary school principal at Timaru Girls’ High School, she told me that she had been infuriated by the fact that the current Education Council had been appointed without members of the teaching profession having any say. This is a body of which there is no choice but to be a member if a teacher wishes to maintain their registration, and this body has significant influence in the sector. Her concerns are also around the fact that these people are making decisions around the profession without necessarily having any real knowledge of the profession at all. Sarah believes that this bill will allow the teachers to have an opportunity to have a greater say in things, and it will provide a voice within the relevant teaching sector. The council used to have teaching representation on it, and it makes no sense as to why it changed to the model we have today. In her view, this bill is long overdue, and is on track and exactly how it should be.

This bill restores democracy to, and is a big step towards restoring trust and confidence in, the profession. New Zealanders place a high value on democracy. We have the opportunity to vote and elect a party or parties to represent us in Government, but teachers don’t have that opportunity, and that is simply wrong.

This bill means something more for the sector that I have been strongly involved in, and have been in for over 20 years now: early childhood. The fact that there will be representation of an early childhood teacher and a leader from early childhood finally—finally—acknowledges early childhood teachers and the fundamental role they play in educating our young tamariki, and it shows that early childhood teachers are seen as professionals in their own right. It acknowledges the importance of quality in the early childhood sector rather than the emphasis placed on quantity by the previous Government, who clearly don’t value early childhood teachers or the sector, as we saw when they froze funding for several years.

This is one of the first and vital steps that show this Government sees early childhood teachers as professionals. One of the next steps will be the return of the 100 percent funding to centres who have 100 percent qualified staff. It is only fair and it is only right that early childhood teachers are seen as teaching professionals. For too long, I believe, early childhood teachers have been undervalued, almost seen as the poor cousin to primary school teachers. Many of my early childhood teachers have struggled with the way they are perceived, and morale at times can be very low. I couldn’t honestly say how many times I have been called a glorified babysitter or chief nappy changer or heard, “Gee, I wish I had a job where I could sit around and do nothing but play all day.” How derogatory are comments like that?

I studied hard for three years to gain a qualification and be a professional early childhood education teacher and it is heartbreaking to have comments like that thrown in your face when we work so hard to educate our tamariki. So to have the opportunity to elect their own representatives to the Teaching Council, early childhood teachers are valued as the professionals they are. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s good to be back. Spare a thought for the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins. Nine long years ago, sitting in a dusty hall in Wainuiōmata, a Labour electorate committee—almost entirely consisting of teachers—made him a member of Parliament by selecting him in a safe Labour seat. Nine long years ago, thinking, “What will he do to make the education system for New Zealand children better?” And he gets there. He gets the limousine up to Government House and he’s made a Minister by the Governor-General. He has the power. And what does he do? What does he do? He allows teachers to elect their own professional body. Well, seven of them. Seven of the 13—not all of them. But he allows the teachers, not the students—this has nothing to do with students; this is all to do with teachers. He allows the teachers to elect their own professional body. What an achievement for Chris Hipkins after nine years of waiting to make a difference in Government!

But I digress. It is actually a serious matter here. People in the Epsom electorate, board of trustees chairs, principals, and parents tell me every day that they are approaching this 2018 school year with great trepidation, because schools do not have enough teachers. They tell me it has become almost impossible for somebody on a teacher’s starting salary—or even near the top of the scale—to live in central Auckland and actually get to work, with either housing costs or commute costs, in an economical way, and the result is shortages of teachers and the result is the principal has to go in and teach a few classes. They have to take four classes, split them up, and reconstitute them into five—there’s Michael Wood. He knows. He represents a central Auckland electorate. It’s a pity he hasn’t been heard in caucus, because he should have been raising this issue.

What is the Government doing about this? What is the Labour Party doing about this problem? They’ve seriously tried to argue that more people will enter the teaching profession if they can actually elect people on to the Education Council—but wait, there’s more—it’s going to be renamed the Teaching Council. That is going to turbocharge the teaching profession! That is going to make education better for all New Zealand children—or not.

What they should have done is taken the billion dollars that they’re going to be spending every year, rewarding those kids who do do well in our education system—they should have taken that billion bucks a year for free tertiary education for those kids who do do well, those ones who tend to be from decile 10 schools, those ones who tend to be overwhelmingly white and Asian, the ones that I represent in Epsom; they should have taken the money away from giving them a benefit of free tertiary education and actually put the money into paying good teachers well.

You can spend as much time as you like saying you can elect your own council and we’ll rename your council, but what this Government could have done tonight, what Chris Hipkins could have done after his years and years of waiting to finally hold the ring, is seriously improve the payment of teachers, not patronise them; show them they’re valued with cold hard cash instead of giving that money to the most privileged people in New Zealand: those who are already accessing a tertiary education.

That’s what this bill should have been about tonight. It should have been about alleviating the very real and tangible teacher shortage that we have in central Auckland by paying teachers properly, instead of trying to buy them off by simply changing the name and the constitution of an organisation that, I would guess, doesn’t figure too greatly in most people’s decision to enter or stay in the teaching profession compared with the chronic problem of underpayment.

That’s what a Government could have done, but, sadly, we’re going to have this trivial change, a sop to teachers, ignoring the needs of students, ignoring the real needs of the education system, patronising teachers with a small, artificial change to their arrangement—

I apologise. Your time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and happy New Year. I’m pleased to rise to contribute to this debate, the first reading of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill. Can I just acknowledge some of the passionate speakers from across the floor here. I listened intently and I respect their views and there was a lot of passion. I had hoped to come back this year to that level of passion in education bills that were perhaps talking about what is going to be replacing NCEA, perhaps the decile system, and, definitely, what we’re going to do with charter schools.

Because when it comes to passion, well, I could stand here and go on for a very long time about charter schools. I won’t, but I would just like to say that in my electorate this week, I’ve got Vanguard Military School students coming back for the new year at school. The new recruits are coming back. Some of them are getting up at 5.30 in the morning to travel on a train and two buses to get to school in their immaculate uniforms. They’re proud of their school, they’re proud of their achievements, but they are terrified about what is going to happen to them next year when their schools are due to be closed. I wish that we were standing here having some positive news about those charter schools or what’s replacing NCEA. Instead, what we get is this Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill.

This is a case of the Government saying, “Out with the old and in with the older.”, and, unfortunately, in this case the older is a flawed model that was found wanting by an advisory group and by a review. This bill seeks to bring back the Teachers Council of 2002, a council that in 2010 was described by the Education Workforce Advisory Group as lacking “capability and the capacity to carry out its functions and it was not best placed to carry out its functions. It had no ability to self-regulate, to self-review, and it was not the best body to serve teachers.”

We need to remind ourselves of why these changes took place. Not only were there serious difficulties with the Teachers Council, but there were financial irregularities as well, requiring the previous Government to bail them out. A subsequent review saw changes of membership of the council. It was identified that there was a need for highly competent people with skills, knowledge, and experience to lift the quality of teaching and leadership. At this point, I would just like to point out to Ms Luxton, who was so passionately talking about the need for early childhood education people on that board, that Clare Wells, who’s on the board, has been the chief executive of New Zealand Kindergarten. So actually there are people who are on this board currently who have the skills, the experience, and the knowledge to run a council that is actually achieving things for teachers. So we moved away from that older model that was an elected member approach to a skills and competence approach, and, as Nikki Kaye said, the council are doing a stellar job.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Ah, the democratic model. Careful—you don’t want democracy to get in the way of a good dictatorship.

Democracy—much like the waka-jumping bill that we’ve had earlier. This current bill is a giant leap backwards. It is forgetting the learnings of the past, ignoring the findings of the review, and this bill seeks to undermine the importance of skills, knowledge, and experience to put us back in a place in time where we had no confidence in the Teachers Council. Mr Hipkins’ proposal to continue to appoint just six members to create better representation simply isn’t good enough.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.