Education Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

This Government is committed to championing a high-quality public education system that provides all New Zealanders with learning opportunities so that they can discover and develop their full potential throughout their lives, engage fully in society, and lead rewarding and fulfilling lives. We believe in an education system that brings out the best in everybody, and that means we need an education system that is as diverse as the learners that it has to cater for. Our goal is to ensure that children and young people and students are resilient, creative, adaptable, have great communication and interpersonal skills, and are prepared to work collaboratively as well as independently. The Education Amendment Bill makes a number of key amendments to the Education Act 1989 in support of this vision.

In particular, the bill proposes to improve the governance of tertiary education institutions by restoring guaranteed places for staff and student representatives on their councils. It will allow the Minister of Education, when establishing new State schools, to approve an alternative constitution for the first board of trustees. It includes a new offence provision in the Education Act that will deter students from making false declarations about their eligibility for fees-free tertiary education, and it will strengthen the quality of schooling and education by removing the provisions relating to national standards and partnership schools from the legislation. This bill also makes improvements to the new strategic planning and reporting framework to ensure that it is workable for schools and kura. The bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Act, including some corrections to the Education (Update) Amendment Act, which was passed by the last Government.

I turn first to the restoring of staff and student representation on tertiary education institutions. This bill restores the requirement for guaranteed staff and student places on the councils of tertiary education providers, meaning that all universities, polytechnics, and wānanga will be required to have staff and student representatives as full members of their council. This delivers on our pre-election commitments made across the governing parties to ensure that staff and student representatives have a meaningful voice in the way their institutions are governed, and it rolls back one of the more Draconian measures implemented by the previous Government to remove that right. Because polytechnics have a smaller total council size, the bill increases the maximum number of their council members from eight to 10 to allow for the additional staff and student places. I’m aware that the polytechnics themselves would prefer to have their governance arrangements aligned with those of the universities, and that is something that we are willing to consider during the select committee process, and I’m sure that they will be making submissions.

In terms of the alternative constitutions for school boards of trustees, the bill includes a provision allowing the Minister, when establishing a new State school, to approve an alternative constitution for the first board of trustees. In the case of existing partnership schools, which I’ll be talking about in a moment, this will mean that the sponsors could see greater flexibility in the governance model should they apply to establish a State school. For example, a sponsor of an existing partnership school, or charter school, could have a strong presence on the board and an influence over the school’s character and values.

The bill introduces a new offence provision to support fees-free tertiary education. The Government’s taken major steps to break down financial barriers to post-school education and training by implementing our “first year free” fees-free tertiary education policy just prior to Christmas, meaning that around 80,000 people are now eligible for fees-free post-school education and training. To support the success of this policy, the Government requires those who are not easily verifiable—i.e., they don’t have a National Student Number, for example—to make a declaration that they’re eligible to access the fees-free system. The bill proposes a new offence for students who make false representation about their eligibility for fees-free education, including a criminal conviction and a fine of up to $5,000. This brings it broadly into line with other similar offences in the Act. I note that those who supply false information when applying for a student loan or allowance, for example, are currently subject to a potential fine of $2,000. This is actually a much larger fine, although the financial rewards of the potential misdemeanour are roughly the same. It’s also important to know that this does not prevent the police investigating fraud and prosecuting for fraud, where the penalties could be significantly higher.

What this, effectively, does is it provides a more instant remedy, and it also means that students who are applying no longer need to get a JP to witness their declaration. It brings it into line with other recent changes the Parliament has made, including removing the requirement for passport applications to be signed by a justice of the peace. So it’s about making the process run more efficiently, it’s about ensuring that there is a more instant penalty regime for those who violate the trust that’s being placed in them, and it does not close down more serious options should there be intent to rip off the system.

The bill removes national standards. This Government has made it very clear that we are committed to ensuring that parents have better information about how their children are progressing in schools. National standards were neither national nor standard. They involved an enormous amount of work for no educational gain. Nine years after the previous Government introduced them, there was no discernible improvement in student achievement as a result of them, despite the enormous amount of time and energy that had to go into filling in forms to comply with national standards. This Government is firmly committed to more teaching, less testing, and that is what this does—this bill delivers it. It also frees schools up from the red tape they were wrapped in by the previous Government and allows them to focus on the whole curriculum to ensure that they are giving every young person the opportunities they deserve.

The bill provides for the removal of charter schools from the New Zealand education system. This fulfils a clear commitment made by Labour, by New Zealand First, and by the Green Party from the moment the charter school model was first mooted. The bill does include transitional provisions, which means that the repeal of this legislation will not affect existing charter schools that are currently in operation. This bill has no impact on them at all. In parallel with this legislative process, we are having conversations with those existing charter schools about how they might come into the public education system, and there are a range of options for that on the table.

I think it’s unfortunate that some members of this House have been encouraging schools not to take part in that negotiation process. They would prefer that those schools closed rather than continued to educate young people. They would rather turn those young people into—well, make them into—footballs for their political purposes rather than acting in the best interests of those young New Zealanders. I am aware, from the feedback that I’ve had so far, that the operators of the existing charter schools have largely ignored those urgings from the members opposite and are engaging in good faith about how they can continue to deliver education for young New Zealanders, and I encourage them to keep doing that. When we said that we were going to negotiate with them in good faith, that is exactly what we meant, and we are going to live up to that commitment.

Finally, a couple of quick points: the bill makes improvements to the strategic planning and reporting framework for schools. Last year’s Education (Update) Amendment Bill introduced new planning and reporting frameworks for State and State-integrated schools that were due to commence on 1 January next year. This bill sets that back for a further year to allow more time for the implementation of the new system. It also aligns the school’s strategic planning process with the election process for boards of trustees. It seems to me that if we’re going to have a three-yearly cycle for school boards of trustees, then we should also have a three-yearly cycle for their strategic plans so that the democratic process can take its proper course, and this bill allows for that.

This bill supports a number of the Government’s priorities for education. It signals a move towards a new system of reporting that provides a richer and more comprehensive picture of student progress and achievement. It emphasises the Government’s focus on investing and backing our State and public education system. It reaffirms the important role of staff and students in the institutional decision-making processes of our tertiary institutions. It supports the successful implementation of our fees-free policy for post-secondary education. Alongside delivering on the key priorities for education throughout the education system, it also makes improvements to the strategic and planning reporting framework for schools and corrects a number of other minor and technical errors. I commend the bill to the House.

Firstly, can I acknowledge you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I was on the side line of the Coast to Coast after I had completed the mountain run, and I saw this person running through, so can I acknowledge your achievements in the Coast to Coast. Well done.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): And to you, Nikki.

Look, the National Party is opposing this bill, and we’re opposing it for a range of reasons. I think my message to the Government is they may be quite surprised at how many people end up submitting on this bill. The number of parents that are writing to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education regarding the removal of national standards is phenomenal. I’m getting messages. I’ve had messages via ministerial advisers saying they’re dealing with this correspondence. So we will be fighting, on this side of the House, to oppose the Government’s move—although they’ve already done it through the National Administration Guidelines; this is, effectively, tidying it up—to get rid of national standards. There are a whole lot of schools out there, and we heard it at the Education and Workforce Committee, that are also opposing the Government’s efforts. In fact, the Ministry of Education said in the select committee that out of all of the communities of learning that have national standards in their achievement challenges, none of them have got rid of national standards at the moment. None of them, out of about 70 or 80—that is significant.

The reason that we supported national standards, but also the reason that we support a shift to progression, is we fundamentally believe that parents have a right to know how their children are doing, but, more than that, they deserve to have confidence in the quality of information. In order to have confidence in the quality of information, we don’t think you can have a laissez-faire system. You have to have the ability to report to the ministry so that they can get a nationwide picture of achievement. Now, what the Government has done is they have scrapped, effectively, national standards without enabling us to have that quality picture of achievement across the country.

What does that mean for some of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged kids? Well, here’s what it means, and here’s what the ministry, I know, is saying to Ministers: the ability to target numeracy and literacy programmes, as a result of that, is severely diminished. So what does this mean for the people in Kelvin Davis’ electorate? What it means is less ability to lift young Māori achievement.

Look, we know that under the last Government we saw significant shifts in achievement for young Māori and Pasifika students. We went, for year 12 NCEA level 2 achievement by Māori students, up from 51 percent to nearly 75 percent. We went, in terms of year 12 NCEA level 2 achievement for Pasifika students, up from 50 percent to 79 percent. On this side of the House we are not going to take lectures about achievement from members opposite. So we will be opposing this bill on the ground that all New Zealand parents deserve to know how their children are doing, not only in reading, writing, and maths but across the curriculum, and they deserve, as well, to have quality information.

But also New Zealand schools and New Zealand principals deserve to have confidence in that system of reporting, and the message that I’m getting from many principals is that they do support a shift to progression; however, they think that the way that the Government, and this Minister, has done it has been absolutely shambolic. He put through the National Administration Guidelines. He didn’t even talk to a whole lot of principals and parents, and we’ve seen this in the polls around parents. Something like 85 percent of parents were not on board with that decision, and we see it in the correspondence going to Ministers. So that is a major reason that we will be opposing this bill.

The second area of the bill that, again, we’re really opposed to is around partnership schools. I’ve given speeches in this House and, as I said before, I protested on the weekend. I know that there are members opposite, including Kelvin Davis, who threatened to resign if these partnership schools were closed. The reality is—here are the facts.

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: So when they’re all open next year, what are you going to do?

The facts are that what this legislation and what the ministry is doing—and they confirmed this at select committee so members can yell all they want, but they actually can’t deny these facts—is that the partnership schools are being given these options: mutually terminate, terminate, or see out your contract. The model is gone. That means that those partnership schools close. Now I completely accept—I completely accept—there is a parallel discussion going on as to whether they can open in some shape or form. But the point is this—

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: Oh, so you did read the memo.

No, the point is this: it’s severalfold. Firstly, they’re not broken. That’s why we don’t support this legislation. In fact, many of them are doing an extraordinary job. We have seen recently Vanguard Military School’s achievement results: huge shifts for young people who’ve had pretty difficult lives. These partnership schools have been doing really well, and if members opposite don’t believe us, then just listen to some of Willie Jackson’s previous interviews on this matter or listen to Kelvin Davis’ previous comments on this matter. They’re total lions in Opposition and mice in Government.

The next point that I would make is that, separate to them not being broken, the reality is, when you talk to many of these schools, what they want is a certainty about the future. They can’t get certainty from this Government, because they’ve got a Minister that goes out there and makes premature statements, which have caused legal consequences for the Crown, that his preference is for them to all close. Now, this kind of behaviour not only has legal consequences; there are Treaty of Waitangi issues. It is a complete and utter shambles. This legislation should not be coming through the House without resolving a number of these issues.

Finally, I come back to the irony of this. The absolute irony of this is that these schools are making the most fundamental difference to young people, some of which have had severe mental health issues, some of which have had really difficult backgrounds. The model is working; we oppose this legislation around scrapping partnership schools. We’ll be fighting hard to enable the schools to transition into some other shape or form but also to get basic certainty about their future—they deserve that. But also, in an education budget where every single dollar counts, we heard from the Ministry of Education this week that the taxpayer may be up for up to $15 million for pure ideology—pure ideology. Imagine how many young people could have assistance in areas like special education—but the reality is that this Government is purely ideological, and that’s why we’ve got this up to $15,000 bill.

The other aspect of this bill that we do oppose, again, is the provisions around fees-free. Again, this is another example whereby the Government’s priorities are very mucked up. We know that they have committed $2.8 billion to the fees free policy. I’ve got principals and I’ve got early child care providers saying that is an extraordinary amount of money to target to, potentially, some people who don’t need that, and that’s another irony in terms of this Government.

So, on this side of the House, there are some very common themes around the Government’s education agenda: ideological, a lot of waste, not helping some of our most vulnerable children, a reduction in quality in standards. We have a very good track record in terms of achievement. It’s not perfect, but we will be opposing this bill on the grounds that not only are parents not behind the move to get rid of national standards but also it’s going to lead to a reduction in education quality and also we’re going to see some of our most disadvantaged New Zealanders not doing as well as a result of the scrapping of partnership schools and getting rid of national standards. This is a bad bill and we will be opposing it.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, that was a waste of breath. The member Nikki Kaye may as well have not even started speaking. Let me tell you now that in 2008 I was first elected to Parliament, and in 2009 the first thing that the National Government of the time did was implement national standards, on the premise that this was going to be groundbreaking stuff that was going to lift achievement across the country. It was going to be the best thing since sliced bread. This made me laugh when they then implemented charter schools, and did charter schools have to implement national standards? No way. Charter schools don’t have to implement national standards, and it makes you wonder why, if national standards were so good, were so successful, their blue riband project, charter schools didn’t have to actually implement national standards.

National standards—I remember standing in the House at the time saying this: when you set a bar and you say that every child has to reach that bar, that national standard, what happens to those children that don’t actually meet that bar? They actually get demoralised. Then, if you’ve got a whole classroom full of kids, say 30 students in the class, and their achievement levels are very, very low, but the teacher actually lifts them, but still just can’t quite get them over the bar, is that teacher a successful teacher or not? They haven’t met the national standards, but they’ve lifted them significantly. Is that teacher successful or not?

💬 Hon Member: Not under national standards.

Not under national standards. Under national standards that teacher and that school are failing. However, if the teacher is lucky enough to get a class where the children happen to be doing very well, and it takes only a little adjustment to get over the national standard, then that teacher is seen to be a successful teacher. That school’s seen to be a successful school.

The reality is, I say, that the teacher who has listed the low-level children and moved them a long way is a much better, much more successful teacher than the teacher who, just by dint of standing in front of—being lucky enough to have—a group of children in their class who just happen to be below the national standard—and they fall over the national standard not as a result of the teacher but in spite of the teacher. I say, actually, that the first teacher is the better teacher, and that school is the better school. But that’s not how this group over here sees it. I remember saying at the time that we would be much better off—if you’ve got to set a standard at all, then you make sure you set a standard that measures the success of every individual child over the course of the school year. That would be a better standard. But, unfortunately, we had national standards as they are now.

I forget how many tens of millions of dollars it cost to implement national standards, but it was tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars. We actually had a system that we could have used that would have cost us nothing to implement, and that is the curriculum levels. You could already measure where a child was performing against the curriculum levels, and you could measure their progress against those curriculum levels. Now, each curriculum level had three sub-levels, and I was told by an adviser at the time that it’s reasonable to expect a child to move two curriculum sub-levels over the course of a year, and that that would be acceptable achievement. We could have had something decent, but we didn’t need to spend the tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars.

Then we get to charter schools themselves—and the model is going. I remember in the election campaign, and it’s well documented, that I said that I would resign if any of those schools—the two schools up in the Far North—were closed. Now, I could say that as the member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau, safe in the knowledge, with my educational background, that there were alternatives that would be able to be implemented, because we can close the model but the schools don’t have to close.

Now, here’s the test. All those people over there who are saying I need to resign—

💬 David Seymour: You do.

—and I’ll take David Seymour there—if those schools’ doors are open on day one of next year, if those same teachers are teaching in that school, if those same children are there wearing the same uniforms, will that member resign? Will any of these members resign if the school is still operating, albeit under a different model?

💬 Erica Stanford: What about the other charter schools in your electorate?

No, it won’t be a charter school. Will that member over there who’s spouting off—will she resign? Yes or no? Put up or shut up. Put up or shut up. You don’t have any moral mandate—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! Do not bring the Speaker into the debate.

My apologies, Madam Assistant Speaker. But those people over there do not have any moral mandate to call for my resignation if they’re not prepared to resign themselves if those schools—the doors are open, the same teachers are there, and the same children are sitting in front of them. They—silence now, isn’t there? Silence now.

💬 Erica Stanford: Go to Vanguard.

💬 David Seymour: Point of order, Madam Speaker.

So—oh, “Go to Vanguard.”

💬 Erica Stanford: Why won’t you? You’ve never been.

No, I haven’t been, and why would I go to a school where I don’t support the model? There you go.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise—point of order, David Seymour.

💬 David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the member’s speech, but I just wanted him to know that if he’s happy to yield some time, I’ll happily answer the question.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That’s not a valid point of order.

OK, so there’s been—

💬 Hon David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to confirm that I heard the Minister say he would not go to a school that he did not like the model of. Is that true?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That’s not a valid point of order. Please sit down.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Look, there are hundreds of schools across the Tai Tokerau, and what the members over there forget is that when you are a Māori member of Parliament in an electorate seat, not only do I have my electorate but in the Tai Tokerau there’s 10 other electorates. If they think it’s a hard job getting around the schools in their electorate, well then, they need to realise that it’s actually 10 times harder for a member of Parliament in a Māori electorate.

But they’re asking, why don’t I go and visit Vanguard Military School? Look, I’ve had my Associate Minister delegation since 5 December. Since 5 December, there were about 10 school days towards the end of the year. Now, anybody who has any knowledge of the education system knows it’s not a good idea for some boffin from Wellington to go to a school at the end of the year, because that’s when you’re having teacher-parent interviews, that’s when the teachers are doing reports, and that’s when the school production’s on. Those people over there don’t understand those pressures because they have never ever been in the education system. Now they’re saying, “Oh, why haven’t I gone to the three”, or whatever number of fingers they’re holding up. They forget that there are hundreds of schools in my electorate, because it’s 10 times the size of their electorate.

Then there’s been all the misinformation. There’s the scaremongering, there’s the misinformation, and there’s members going around and ringing up saying, “The sky’s going to fall in if these schools close.” Look, there’s nothing to stop those same schools delivering what they are delivering now. It’s just a different model, and that’s really what they’re scared about. They’re scared that these schools are going to be successful despite the fact that they won’t be called charter schools. That’s what they’re scared of. They’re scared of our success.

Now we need to look at what the difference is. Oh no—actually, no, sorry. I’m just going to go through some of the propaganda that’s been promulgated in the media and supported by these guys. I see in today’s paper that the Villa Education Trust school was complaining about “Davis’ visits to another charter school.” Sorry; since I’ve been the Associate Minister, I haven’t visited any other charter schools. So that’s fallacy number one. Then it says that “Davis had been in negotiations with”—I haven’t been in negotiations. All I did was, when they rang me up, talk them through the information that the excellent Minister of Education has proactively released. I talked them through it, and as soon as you talk them through that information, then all their concerns sort of dim down and die away, because they’re actually getting the facts.

But, of course, they want to make out like there’s some big conspiracy—that there’s favouritism amongst the charter schools. Well, actually, I’ve reached out to the Villa Education Trust and I got in touch with their academic manager last night, and I said, “Look, give your boss”—whatever his name is—“my phone number. He can ring my office.”, but, no, there’s been no contact. Although I asked him to give my office a ring, there’s been no contact. Now, I think that that person is, again, scared that they can be successful without the charter school model. That’s what their real fear is. That’s what their real fear is. They’re buying into the misinformation and the scaremongering of the members opposite, and then they are coming up themselves—

I apologise to the member. His time has expired.

Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill that, I’m sad to say, we will be opposing.

💬 David Seymour: What do you mean “sad”? You should be proud that you’re opposing it.

Well, I am proud to oppose it—you’re quite right. It does include various nefarious elements to it. I must say, I’ve been out and about talking to a lot of New Zealanders, like we all do in the course of this job, and I’m bound to say I have never come across anybody who thought the most important thing that the nation needs is to do away with charter schools. This dreadful idea that there could be people doing things differently in our education system, innovating, and trying different ways of dealing with longstanding problems about trying to deal with getting a better education for the most marginal kids in our country. I’ve never had anybody come up to me and say, “We must stop this dreadful experiment.” But, anyway, that seems to be the great priority of this Government. I’ve also never had anybody come up to me and say, “We must get rid of these dreadful national standards also.”

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Well, you definitely don’t get out.

Well, funnily enough—

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: They’re appalling. Have you got kids at school at the moment?

I’ve got four kids, at four different schools in the electorate, and I speak to parents all the time, and the one thing—the one thing—that the parents want to know, and I as a parent want to know, is how my child is progressing.

💬 Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Talk to your teachers.

We talk to the teachers. That’s a good place to start—talking to the teachers, and it’s always useful just to have a simple, easy-to-understand nationwide measure of progress, and that’s what we’ve done. But anyway, so there we are.

But I’d like to just concentrate a little bit on the tertiary education changes here, because we’ve had a very interesting few months of this Government. It was, of course, terrified of the prospect of wealthier families having a $1,000 tax cut, so they did away with that, and instead gave those same wealthy families $6,000 worth of free education. So, I couldn’t understand the coherency of that thinking, but here we have the free-fees policy. I was at the opening of a university building yesterday and the Prime Minister was rather sheepish in the way that she referred to the free fees, and then quickly apologised to everybody else who had paid their fees recently and didn’t have access to this. But that’s just the way things go, if you’re chopping and changing your fundamental policies in a nature like this. Anyway, we have $2.8 billion invested in the tertiary changes over the next four years, a lot of it in free fees. It was supposed to remove barriers to tertiary education and training. Well, let’s see if it has removed any barriers. All the indications so far are that there are no extra students at all coming as a result of the free fees. So we’re paying $2.8 billion to get what we’re already getting, which is a number of people going to tertiary education—not very good value for money.

But then, of course, the question is who is eligible for these free fees. The idea is that it should be your first year of tertiary education—well, that’s easy to understand if you come straight from school. But much more than half of the total number of—they think—80,000 students who will be eligible for this will have to somehow prove that this is indeed their first year of tertiary education. Now, anybody living in Auckland knows that, you know, many, many thousands of people have come to this country fresh and may have done training overseas. We have no way of knowing whether they have or have not. The records don’t go back far in New Zealand, so we don’t have any way of knowing whether people have studied earlier or not. If they are of my age and in the 1980s they studied for a couple years we’ve got no way of knowing. So it relies on an honesty box system. With $2.8 billion worth of spending you would think the Government would think very carefully about how they organise this, and they haven’t. They’ve rushed it through in this madcap way that they go about the Government.

So we have this expensive new system in place and there is a real concern that there could be a number of people rorting the system. The current rule in place is that you have to sign a statutory declaration that you are indeed studying for the first time, and this has pretty robust penalties. Earlier, when this matter was raised, the Minister assured us that there are tough provisions in place. If you go against your statutory declaration you’re in big trouble—up to three years’ imprisonment—but this bill waters that down substantially. It says, actually, if you make a declaration saying that this is indeed your first year of tertiary training but it turns out that it isn’t, well, you’re up for a fine of up to $5,000. Now, it’s interesting, some of those students may be studying maths and you wouldn’t have to be too smart to work out that if you’re getting a tertiary education with the fees of $6,000 or $7,000 or $8,000 for free, if you possibly got caught, the thought of having a fine of $5,000 might not necessarily be all that strong a deterrent. But that’s the way it is.

We heard from the Minister saying, “Oh, well.” His main defence seemed to be that if people cheat on their student allowances they face a fine of only $2,000. Well, that doesn’t seem a very strong argument to me at all. I actually just checked the legislation and it’s absolute nonsense. If you receive an allowance on the base of a false declaration, you’re up for 12 months’ imprisonment if you get caught for doing that and a fine of $5,000. So I’m not quite sure where he’s coming from on that—only to say, this is just more evidence of one of the most colossal areas of spending announced by this Government, which has soaked up a very large amount of the extra money available for Governments to spend on a whole range of things, from mental health through to every other topic under the sun. They’ve decided to spend it on this area. So far, we haven’t seen any increase in students. Time will tell—but we do know that there is plenty of opportunity for rorting of the system and this bill actually makes it easier. So, on that basis, we’re opposed to it.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the Education Amendment Bill, and for the first time in the years that I’ve been in this Parliament it’s a pleasure to rise to speak on an Education Amendment Bill. I want to be very clear. Yes, you can hear out there on the radio. Those listening on the radio and those watching the live stream—what you can hear is the National Party freaking out. What’s very interesting about this piece of legislation—I want to make this 100 percent clear—is this legislation does not close a single charter school. [Interruption] No, no. You see, there’s the problem. Mr Seymour’s just gone apoplectic because he doesn’t seem to understand this, either. This piece of legislation does not close a single charter school. What it does do is it removes the capacity for any more to be opened. So this doesn’t shut anything, but it means no more can be opened. First fact, right?

Second fact: the levers that are currently able to be used by the current Minister of Education around charter schools and their futures were put into place by the National Government and Hekia Parata. We have changed no legislation. We have not introduced any other tool by which these schools can be managed. I go to talk about Whangaruru school. The very instrument that is at the disposal of the current Minister of Education, which was used by the previous Minister of Education Hekia Parata to close that school, was put into place and voted on by the ACT Party and the National Party. So I just want to be 100 percent clear, when we’re in this conversation, who put in place the tools to close charter schools, and it was David Seymour of the ACT Party and Hekia Parata of the National Party.

Now let’s have a conversation about wasting money, shall we—

💬 David Seymour: Good on you.

—listen up, matey, because it was your party—$4.8 million of taxpayers’ money given by the National Government to the Whangaruru trust, Ngā Parirau Mātauranga Charitable Trust, who now owns a farm. They now own a farm. How many times did the National Government Minister of Education Hekia Parata stand up and say, “We are working through opportunities to bring back that taxpayer-purchased asset underneath the State umbrella.”—how many times? And I challenge any member over there to provide me with any evidence that that was ever done. I challenge any member over there to provide me with any evidence that the previous Government sought to repatriate that farm and that four-point-something million dollars, Mr Seymour.

I want to talk also about the fact that somehow people think that when this bill passes, there’s no opportunity for Vanguard Military School, for example, or no opportunity for Villa Education Trust schools. I’d just like to mention that I’ve visited Vanguard.

💬 Erica Stanford: It’s just a gun to their head.

Are you suggesting that I shoot myself? Is that what you’re suggesting, madam?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! Don’t bring me into the debate.

Sorry, madam. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There was a hand signal of a gun to the head by one of the new members of the National Party.

💬 Erica Stanford: I clearly said, “It’s a gun to their head. It’s not a negotiation.” I would never say such a thing.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Can you confirm that there was a gesture made?

💬 Erica Stanford: I withdraw and apologise, if that’s what she believed that it was, but it wasn’t.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Does the member feel she warrants an apology? [Interruption] Yes, please. I recommend the member withdraw and apologise.

I’ll take the member at her word.

💬 Erica Stanford: I withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. So let’s just be clear. It’s been suggested that none of the things provided by charter schools, for example—and the two schools that are constantly talked about are Villa Education Trust schools—those I have visited; I have visited Alwyn Poole at his school—and Vanguard Military School. Vanguard I have visited. I’ve visited Nick and the other students at Vanguard Military School. I’ve visited the kura up in Whangarei, because, unlike the suggestion from the members of the Opposition, it’s not ideology. It’s about students. It’s about students. It’s about models.

I just want to point out that what I have here are pictures. This is to educate not only the public but the members of the Opposition. These are all the trades academies. These are all the serviced academies—military serviced academies—available in State schools across New Zealand. This is the mapping. That model is available in the State system, and has been since the Education Act 1989 was first introduced. There are 23 trades academies, where students can actually go and be funded from year 11 to year 13 to not only get NCEA credits but also get level 1, level 2, and level 3 inside trade qualifications. There are 28 services academies—28 services academies—that have a military ethos. And so there is no need to panic for those parents who believe that a military-style, services-style model will not be available for their students. We hope, we wish—we are in conversations with Vanguard, because we want Vanguard to work with us to transition these students with that model, grow that model, and learn from that model, as they are there.

I have delegations around alternative schools. That model is already available and has been available for some time. Unfortunately, this legislation, the ability to open charter schools, was put in place by an ignorant Government—an ignorant Government that did not know what was available already inside the State system; an ignorant Government that had marketed themselves on bulk funding back in the 1990s, and finally found a partnership with the ACT Party to, by stealth, bring bulk funding back into the education system of New Zealand.

I will just start to close on national standards. I have recently been in conversations with a particular political party that were rather in-depth. What I found very interesting was that during some of those conversations, and since then publicly, a member of that political party has talked about how there was recognition that they needed to move to progressions. They recognised that national standards and a line in the sand were not working and were not appropriate, and that they needed to move to progressions. The Hon Nikki Kaye mentioned it in this House during her speech just earlier today.

In 2009 the New Zealand curriculum—I believe it was Lockwood Smith. I understand it was Lockwood Smith who did all the work on the New Zealand curriculum—a proud National Party member and a man who understood education and worked with the sector to create The New Zealand Curriculum and the progressions that are inside that document. They are progressions that parents understand because they mirror in some ways the growth progressions that they already know with regard to their children’s growth at Plunket. We were talking academic growth of children in a similar way that we were talking about physical growth of children. Nobody expects every child to be at the same height, on the same day, at the same time. That’s why even the Hon Nikki Kaye talked earlier today in her contribution about knowing that they needed to shift to progressions. So it’s very difficult for the members of the Opposition to stand, knowing that they were about to change their policy anyway.

National standards have been removed. They’ve been removed. The administration burden that has been on schools has been taken away. And we have had nothing but comment after comment after comment from parents, from teachers, from students about the removal of national standards.

💬 Simeon Brown: I’m yet to receive one.

What I find really interesting is when the Opposition says they are “yet to”. The unfortunate thing is people can see those that there’s no point having that conversation with, so they don’t bother to actually reach out and have that conversation with certain members of the National Party, but Minister Kaye already acknowledged that there was a need to move to progressions. So we will be working with the sector. We will be having the nationwide conversation to actually talk with the New Zealand parents, the sector—anybody, even the members of the Opposition, can participate, if they like—about setting the criteria of what is success in this country, and we will take education forward. But we will not continue to burden either the sector or our children with an arbitrary line in the sand that everybody needs to try to jump over.

Some have been teachers that are sitting over that side, and some know exactly what I’m talking about. Some know about those students. Some know about those students that require more, that require the confidence of knowing that they are good at something, that they moved from there to there. Some on that side of the House who have been teachers also know that progression takes place at different speeds for some children, or you might get great progression in one year, it flat-lines for a period while you entrench that learning, and then you go on. Those are real education conversations that should have been had in this House—not about an arbitrary line set in the sand, not about a packed tool that was to try to get teachers to fit inside a box, to tick box off, and to dumb down the profession. Nor should it have been a conversation where we took away the status of our teaching professionals and decided that we would bulk fund others and leave that profession out to dry. Kia ora.

Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am one of those people on this side of the House who used to be a secondary teacher, for quite a long time, but I have to tell Mrs Martin I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about then. In fact, you’d have to say that there was so much that was muddle-headed in the thinking of the Associate Minister of Education that I really wouldn’t know where to start. But I’ll pick up on one point, because it’s a serious point: she suggested in her speech that the existence of trades academies is in some way an acceptable alternative for those who are going to lose their entitlement to attend a partnership school.

So let me tell Mrs Martin: I am incredibly proud of the Wintec trades academy, which caters for a large number of schools in my Waikato region, but that is not a system that in any way, at this point, would cater for those who are in the partnership school system. They leave an established State or State integrated school for a period of time a couple of times a week in order to go and do the courses that are so valuable to them at the trades academies, and they pick up incredible skills, so that they then go back to the trades academies understanding the whole value of their education. That is poles apart from what actually happens in the partnership school model. Mrs Martin, as an Associate Minister of Education, should know that, and is incredibly muddle-headed in the thinking.

This is a cruel bill, it’s an ideologically blinkered bill, it’s an indefensible bill, and it should be strongly opposed by all decent-minded members of this Parliament. The Minister of Education’s attempt to defend it in his opening speech was pure union dogma. It was most notable by its total lack of focus on children. The needs of children didn’t get a look-in in the Minister’s speech; it was all about systems and unions and what his close confidants have been telling him and urging him to do. It didn’t mention the needs of children at all, whether it was those who are in the partnership schools, who at the moment are getting a fantastic opportunity to turn their lives around, having previously fallen through the cracks and been on a path to a pretty grim future, or the younger ones, who are in the schools at the moment currently being taught under the national standards regime. Yet surely a bill entitled the Education Amendment Bill should be all about children—our children, the young people who need and deserve the best opportunities in life, the best teaching that can possibly be provided to them, and the best outcomes from those vital years that will stand them in good stead for a lifetime to come.

Government Ministers this week in question time have been dancing on the head of a pin when pressed on their attitudes to partnership schools and their determination to close them down. Whether it was the Hon Kelvin Davis, the Hon Peeni Henare, or the Hon Willie Jackson, all of them know that those schools work, that those schools have been the only thing that have worked for children, for the tamariki in the electorates and the rohe they represent here in this Parliament. I find it extraordinary that they do not have the courage of their convictions to come into this House and to defend the statements that they have made publicly over many, many months, knowing that partnership schools work.

They’re not just another option that could be there alongside attending a State school or a special character school; they are for children from backgrounds where there is, in most cases, no commitment to education, and there have been all sorts of things that have been going wrong. Those children have, in many cases, been brought up in the most deprived of circumstances, and as a result there is no culture of educational achievement. The partnership schools are the ones that are focusing on their needs. So that is why I say to Kelvin Davis it is utterly disingenuous of him to suggest that either they should be teaching according to national standards, as are the children in the other schools, or we have to close them down.

Partnership schools are about picking up young people, many of them in their secondary school years, who have no foundation whatsoever, and giving them skills, self-belief, self-esteem, an awareness of culture, and the ability to start to grasp how an education can turn them around. The members on both sides of the House can perhaps throw back and forth comments about ideological dogma and all the rest of it, but I say as passionately as I can to the Government—and I look at people like Mr O’Connor, who, with his background in the Police Association and a lifetime in the service, I deeply respect. He must know what I’m talking about. He must understand that for those young people, this is an opportunity for them not to fall foul of the law and to end up in our criminal justice system, and I plead with him to go back to his colleagues and say, “Think again.”

I’m aware of the fact that there are others who want to take a call. Can I just close by saying that national standards are not a cure-all, they’re not the whole picture, but they do provide parents with vital information. So when Mrs Martin challenged us to tell us about those constituents who are saying, “Oh, we shouldn’t stop it”, I can tell her that I remember talking to many constituents who said if only they had known 10 years ago, before the introduction of national standards, how their children were getting on in the classrooms around the country, particularly in literacy and numeracy, which are the absolute foundation for any successful education, they would have taken action. But they didn’t have the tools, they didn’t feel they had the wherewithal to go to the schools and say, “Well, your reporting tells me things are going quite well, but, actually, it’s not telling me how my child is achieving in literacy and numeracy,” and now it’s too late.

Again, I say to the members opposite, don’t take away from our young people the opportunity for their parents and caregivers to show that basic concern for the welfare and the achievement of their children by taking away something that helps to measure it, something that gives them the chance to find out either that it’s going well and this is great, they can move on to the next level, or that it’s not going well enough and remedial attention is required.

So I return to the point I started with. This is a cruel, ideological bill. It is indefensible. I plead with the Government members to turn back. It is going to have a very negative impact on the children they should be representing in this Parliament.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise after the fearmongering of one Tim Macindoe. The Education Act was originally assented to in 1989. That means that it’s been alive for five years longer than I have. A year after the Education Act came into force, in 1990, the World Wide Web was invented. Access to the internet has changed the world and, indeed, education in ways that were once almost unimaginable. My point is that the context of our lives and the context of education are ever changing.

However, I believe that the values and principles behind why the State provides our country’s children with a supposedly free, accessible, compulsory education—a high-quality, free universal education is one of the foundations of Aotearoa New Zealand, yet, for some reason, I can’t see even National’s David Bennett standing up and shouting “Socialism!” at that. It’s in our DNA. It is what we, as a country, believe in.

It is a vision best summarised, I believe, by Mary Richmond, the founder of New Zealand’s kindergartens, who, speaking on the right to access public education said, over 100 years ago, in 1906, and I quote, “All I ask is to give every child as fair a chance as possible. As we are a formal democracy, let us be truly democratic.” That vision lives on, and it is at the heart of the legislation that we are debating today. This bill is about cutting the white noise and getting back to delivering on that vision.

This bill, as has been noted by many who have spoken before me, removes the ability of the Minister of Education to set national standards. At the Education and Workforce Committee yesterday, as was brought into this House’s kōrero by the Hon Nikki Kaye, members from this House on both the Government and Opposition benches heard explicitly from Ministry of Education officials that the regular testing required by national standards relies, still, on elements of subjectivity. To that extent, as has frequently been said in this debate, they are neither national nor standard.

To echo the sentiments of Minister Chris Hipkins, after nine years of these national standards we’ve not seen discernible increases in achievements among students.

It was found in a 2016 survey by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research that 69 percent of primary and intermediate teachers had narrowed their curriculum as a result of national standards. This morning, I met with the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI)—a union!—who represents 50,000 teachers, staff, and principals from the early childhood sector through primary, intermediate, and secondary schools. As a powerful collective voice for teachers who have been required to implement our national standards for the past several years, they noted their absolute joy at this legislation on today’s Order Paper.

Removing these national standards does not look like removing testing, nor does it look like removing reporting to parents. Those things existed long before national standards—which I note were only implemented in 2008—and will continue with the removal of national standards.

As mentioned to me this morning by the NZEI—that union—removing national standards looks like removing the shackles of consistent testing that soaks up time teachers would rather use for teaching. On the point of the preferences of teachers, with regard to how they teach, the Opposition has spent quite a bit of time this afternoon trying to drive a wedge between the profession and parents by stoking unnecessary fear about how we’ll spiral out of control with the removal of national standards. I understand the cynical politics of it, but I find it deeply disappointing.

💬 Hon David Bennett: You’re in the Green Party; that’s all you do.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: It should be pretty obvious that teachers are not teachers because of the pay packet, Mr Bennett. It is an important thing for the Greens—and the Labour Party—to ensure that teachers are paid fairly for their work, but as it stands there is no massive financial incentive to become a teacher. Nor is teaching glamorous, Mr Bennett. Unfortunately, it does not hold the social standing or mana that we believe it should. So I ask the House the question: why is it that teachers teach? It’s not the money, nor the glamour, nor the power, but ask any teacher and I guarantee you that they will tell you it’s because they believe in our kids and they want to do their best to help them succeed.

So forgive me, when I am, frankly, quite perplexed at the allegations from the Opposition that the Government is bowing to the wishes of the “unions” of the teachers—those evil teachers who want our kids to succeed! We’re listening to the people who work at the coalface with the impacts of the legislation that we here in this ivory tower waffle on about and deeply politicise.

I also want to touch on the points raised by the Hon Nikki Kaye, previously the Minister of Education. Nikki spoke about vulnerable kids, and how we will be deeply damaging these vulnerable kids by removing national standards. But I note that OECD measurements of the poorest kids achieving OECD averages in reading, maths, and science found in 2006—I note, before the introduction of national standards—that 36.6 percent of those kids were beating those odds. But in 2012, four years after the implementation of those national standards, it had dropped by more than 10 percent to 23.6 percent. So that correlation simply is not there, and I would contest the “facts” that have so far, supposedly, been bandied about.

This bill, of course, obviously also removes the provision for the creation of charter schools. Charter schools are another recent invention of the previous Government. They came into effect around 2014. I believe, and the Green Party believes, and this Government believes that every child should have a high-quality education at their local school. I do not believe that charter schools provide the best mechanism to make that happen. Charter schools do not guarantee quality. Nor do they guarantee that access so fundamental to the value of our public education system.

I want to acknowledge that there is an important conversation that we need to have about how mainstream education is currently not serving all of our kids, but the best mechanism to make that happen is a nationwide conversation about the purpose of our education system and what success looks like, which this Government has committed to—yes, a conversation involving teachers and parents and children, and genuinely getting a grasp and an understanding of what they would like to see from this system, not simply politicised waffling, much of which we’ve heard from the Opposition. As was heard at the Education and Workforce Committee as well, the Ministry of Education is working with all charter schools currently on a plan for their future. They are not simply to be dropped into the abyss.

With the short period of time that I have left, I note that this legislation also restores staff and student representation on tertiary councils, and that is, for us, simply a matter of democracy. That is appropriate decision-making, which is a core Green Party charter principle. It’s about ensuring that the people who are affected by the decisions that are made will have a seat at that decision-making table. So too it makes practical and common-sense comprehensive enactments around the framework for fee-free tertiary education, and straightforward changes to school boards’ strategic planning time lines.

In summation, I really look forward to hearing from New Zealanders about this legislation at the select committee. I look forward to progressing the values and vision for a free, accessible, universal education for all, that which Aotearoa was founded on, and which I implore David Bennett to yell “Socialism!” at. I commend this bill to the House.

I wish to rise to speak on the Education Amendment Bill. This is probably the first part of the Government’s plan post 100 days, but it is actually a significant piece of legislation because what it does is abolish national standards and abolish charter schools. Members on the other side of the Parliament, of which at least three, maybe four are Ministers—one’s asleep, but that’s OK. There’s three Ministers on the other side listening to what I’m about to say, because what I really want to comment on first of all, before I get on to national standards and charter schools, is the inconsistency that I’ve observed in the last two days in this House around charter schools.

Today, the Minister of Education stated in this House—less than an hour ago—there will be no impact on existing charter schools. His words, not mine. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister to guarantee those students and boards of trustees and teachers at charter schools that their schools would remain open. As the new leader, would she do that? No. The Minister and the Prime Minister are at completely different positions on the guarantees they’re prepared to pay to these students, who in our society are some of our most vulnerable. And then, even worse, was that today, the Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis said he wouldn’t visit a school because he was philosophically opposed to the way in which that school operated—philosophically opposed.

💬 Denise Lee: No, he couldn’t have said that.

He did say it.

💬 Erica Stanford: He did?

I know! So I think that if Vanguard Military School invited the Associate Minister of Education to their school, the challenge would be: would he accept?

💬 Denise Lee: He won’t.

No, I’ve heard the line. The line is that he won’t accept because under some ministerial conflict process, he can’t do that. But he then said—worse than that—“Last night I reached out to a school. I phoned them.”

So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, “I’m not going to talk to one school because I’m philosophically opposed to it.”, and then, on the other hand, reach out to the principal—last night—and ask to give somebody a call. I think that exposes the inconsistency of this Government’s approach to this bill.

💬 Denise Lee: A shambles.

It’s a shambles, and what I want to do is actually expose that because I think those people and those students—particularly at these charter schools—are being sold a pup. Either the Minister is guaranteeing that there is no change or he’s not, and if he’s guaranteeing that, why won’t the Prime Minister back up that guarantee, which is what she refused to do in this House yesterday?

I now want to talk about national standards, not as a great educator, but as a father of four children and as somebody that has had significant time in my life around schools and education. What national standards seek to do—and they’re not perfect. I accept that. I heard the Hon Nikki Kaye refer to that. What they seek to do is to give good, fair-minded, hard-working New Zealand parents an objective view about how their child is doing before it’s too late—before it’s too late. I remember when I was a child, really early on, getting school reports—getting school reports—and, actually, while it was of great interest to me, it was of more interest to my parents. Then, at secondary school, every term I was getting school reports. That was of huge interest to my parents—huge interest.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Don’t tell me you were educated under national standards, Lawrence.

No, no. I get that. I get that. What I’m saying is my parents were really interested in how I was doing, but what it didn’t give—what it didn’t give in any way, shape, or form—was how I was doing in a national context. I actually found out when I got to university that some people were way further ahead than I thought I actually was, based on—there was no consistent measurement regime.

The worst thing—and I’ve heard the Prime Minister talk about this, as well—is we’re developing our own standards. We’re chucking these national standards out, which a whole lot of people like and applaud. I remind this House that in a recent Stuff survey of 50,000 people, 85 percent—85 percent of those people—said they liked national standards. So we’re going to chuck all that out, and this Government has no new approach. It says, “We’ll develop something.” Well, you go and tell that to the hundreds of thousands of parents all around New Zealand who are waiting to find something. They want to know what their children are going to do.

I now want to talk about charter schools, because I have had personal experience of a charter school. I don’t actually mind that they’re not all registered teachers and I don’t actually mind that all the students are not reaching national standards, because charter schools, in many cases, deal with a group of children that have failed in the existing system. So if you go, in my patch, to Te Kura o Mangateretere, there are 30 young children there—30 children. They come from all over the North Island. They are at that school because they’ve either been away from leave, out of—what do they call that?—absent. They’ve been absent, or they haven’t fitted in. All over the North Island—that’s where they come from.

The Hon Anne Tolley and I visited them just before the election. It’s a small existing school that has been converted. Those students, for the first time in their life, told us they had some hope, aspiration, and somebody was looking after them. They’re fed. They are never going to go to a trades academy in their current form. These are young kids that have failed in every other form. What you’re doing today is writing that opportunity off, because you want to put everybody in the same box. And I congratulate David Seymour, now he’s re-entered the House, because his concept was that, actually, for some people, it’s not working and there needs to be a different approach, and let’s throw some of the rules out about the regimented regime—which were largely union- organised—to try and help these young people, and that’s what’s been done.

These vulnerable people in my electorate actually are not interested in political ideology. They’re not interested in Kelvin Davis telling people that everybody needs to follow a national standard. They’re not actually too worried about whether the teachers are qualified or not. For those 30 young people, for the first time in their life, they’re seeing success.

Equally, we have another group—and I know this, and this is being shut down by this legislation, as well—of young people who have completely failed in the education system. The State education system completely failed. They have turned themselves into performing arts—really, the opera. They are called Project Prima Volta. They are, effectively, the Sol3 Mio of Hastings—that’s what they are. Now, because that thing has been so successful in transforming those young men’s lives, they wanted to set up a type of charter school that was around performance and the arts, and, actually, what’s happening today? What’s happening today is that opportunity for them is being taken away, once and for all.

So let me conclude. When we talk about national standards and charter schools and the abolishment of them, for many people in New Zealand the abolishment of national standards is misunderstood. I accept the teachers don’t like them. I accept that—I heard that in the campaign. But, actually, parents want to know, and for a number of young students in New Zealand, charter schools actually offer them a hope of a reasonable and decent life. What this Government’s doing, because they’re trying to straitjacket everything—[Interruption] Well, you’re either doing it, or you’re not. You’re saying you’re abolishing charter schools today. The Minister is saying there will be no change. The Prime Minister won’t guarantee it.

What I’m speaking about is those 30 kids in my community, in Mangateretere, that have come from all over the North Island, who have no hope and who have been kicked out of every other school—they are being shut down today, and I want members of this House on the other side to reflect on that. The very people that you’ve run your campaign on—lifting them out of poverty; making them part of a successful New Zealand—for those very same people, you are talking away all their hopes and aspirations in one fell swoop. Thank you.

I call the Hon Willie Jackson—a five-minute call.

Debate interrupted.