Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill

Te Kaiwhakahaere kei te whakamana au Te Reo Māori mō te kaupapa i tēnei wā.

[Mr Chairman I wish to honour our current focus on Māori language.]

I wish to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 100, in my name. It seeks to amend schedule 2, new clause 1 of schedule 21, and insert, after subclause 4(b)(v), a new paragraph (vi), and the wording is: “understanding of the partnership principles between the Crown and proprietors of State integrated schools.”

For those who were here before the dinner break, they’ll recall that I made reference to a very thorough and a very well-thought-through and reasoned submission by the peak bodies that represent State integrated schools and, specifically, the Catholic integrated schools. I posed a question to the Minister back then about how their valid concerns will be addressed, given that they’ve been very reasonable in not requiring or asking for a specific council position but wanting to make sure that the Minister would have specific regard to their connections or their understanding or their principles—the partnership—between the proprietors of State integrated schools and the Crown. It’s with great pleasure that my Supplementary Order Paper is precisely the Supplementary Order Paper—well, they didn’t phrase it like that but as an amendment—that they would like to see inserted. So what I’ve done is take some of their wording and insert it and make it into a Supplementary Order Paper in my name.

What it does is ensure that, when appointing a member to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa, the Minister can have regard to the candidate’s knowledge and experience relating to State integrated schools specifically and how this will contribute to the collective skills, experience, and knowledge making up the overall composition of the council. If you look at some of the undergirding documentation, going back to 1975 and under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act, you’ll see that there is quite an understanding between the Crown and State integrated schools around necessary actions that arise out of the principles of this documentation, specific rules, specific actions, knowledge of principles, and legal requirements under which State integrated schools operate. It’s actually quite complex and incredibly important that at least one member on the council can lay claim to specific knowledge for State integrated schools. We can’t guarantee, under the legislation that we’re debating here tonight, that council members will have this knowledge. So that’s what the Supplementary Order Paper seeks to do. The amendment seeks to make sure that the Minister has regard to understanding the partnership principles between the Crown and proprietors of State integrated schools.

One particular point that he made—the submitter that was representing the schools was Mr Paul Ferris, and he did very well in presenting to us on the committee—when he referred to 11 percent of all New Zealand students who are in State integrated schools in New Zealand—that’s quite a high number; 360 schools to be precise—was that if one person doesn’t understand the partnership principles that are in place between the Crown and the proprietors of State integrated schools, then, in fact, you wouldn’t be having regard to the foundation documents. He did present us with one, and that’s the memorandum of understanding dating back to—no, I can’t see a date. But it covers areas such as funding for consequential property costs, updating of the legislative framework, which is an interesting point in itself, and specialised teacher training—all areas that need regard.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take a second call on this very important piece of legislation. Well, I don’t think it’s that important, actually, because it seems to be the sort of big issue, or the big thing, that this Government’s trying to push through in regards to education but, really, it’s only changing the name of the Education Council to the Teaching Council. But I just want to make a couple of comments and ask the Minister, Chris Hipkins, a few questions in regards to a couple of submissions which came before the Education and Workforce Committee. I must acknowledge Dr Parmjeet Parmar, who did a fantastic job, actually, in chairing that committee, and has done a great job since she was appointed. It’s a privilege and pleasure to have been able to work with her through this process and through other pieces of legislation which are slowly winding their way through the legislative process.

Anyway, back to the bill, and the submission that I’d like to touch on is in the name of Mr David Brock. He’s in support of the bill. So he’s someone who supported the intention of the bill, and he says it’s the right way to go. That’s his view, but then he asks a really important question here around the way that the democratic process—or so-called democratic process—works, and says, “I am happy with sector representation through the recognised groups but wouldn’t be against some form of democratic, independent, direct representation from the sector.”

I look at clause 5 of this piece of legislation, and it has seven elected members from seven different sector groups. I know my colleagues here have been talking about some of the groups, or, if you were going to be going for sector groups, then some of the groups which are missing. And he makes a very good point, which is: why are we not just electing at large? Why are we not defining the education sector at large, and why are we not giving them all the opportunity to put forward candidates and then also to be able to vote at large?

I just want to ask the Minister whether that was something which he or his officials considered as part of the process in developing this piece of legislation, and whether that’s something which he sees as having some merit. I think, while we’re looking at this—you know, we do have one teacher representing the early childhood education sector, one teacher representing the primary education sector, one representing secondary, a teacher educator, one principal representing the primary sector, one principal representing the secondary sector, and then an early childhood education service leader.

I guess the point that this submitter was making—and, yes, as I noted before, he’s in support of this piece of legislation—is: why are we not looking at this as a whole, rather than sort of looking at it independently of each other, and why are we not saying, “Let’s get some sort of democratic, independent, direct representation from the sector.”?—to quote Mr David Brock’s words.

I’d appreciate some comments from the Minister. Maybe we could put some amendments through which could maybe look at how that could be done; whether that’s merging some of these roles together. If he thinks that’s something which is a sensible amendment, I’m happy to help draft and facilitate that, but I would appreciate his comments on that.

The second submission that I was keen to get some comments from the Minister on was from Mr David Graham; again, someone who supported this legislation and wants to see it go through Parliament. He makes the comment that, “Renaming the council as the Teachers’ Council would also increase the relevance of the council.” I’d like to ask the Minister’s opinion on that. Does he agree? Does he disagree? How will it actually have an impact on the relevance of the council? From my reading of the legislation, this doesn’t actually change the function of the council. It doesn’t change what the council does. All it does is it changes a name, and we’ve talked about how much that costs. We’ve talked about what that money could be going towards, instead of changing a few letterheads and a sign on an office door somewhere in Wellington and a few other parts around the country.

So how will it actually increase the relevance of the council? What does it actually do—because it doesn’t change the core function. So what does it actually do, other than change the name and change the mix of the make-up? And we’ve heard that 66 percent of the people on the council are already teachers. I mean, that’s a key point which we’ve heard over and over again from this side of the House, but how does that actually change that relevance?

Tēnā koe. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa i tēnei wiki, Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

[Thank you. I pay you all warm compliments of the week, Māori Language Week.]

I rise to make three brief points in this call. The first is to respond to speakers opposite who have perpetually referred, this evening, to the fact that this bill, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill, will somehow revive democracy. They’ve said that this bill is about ensuring that teachers’ own members can elect themselves to their own body. I just want to question the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, as to whether he believes it is truly democratic if, as was the case in the last election for the Teachers Council, only 13.7 percent of registered teachers choose to vote. And I’d ask the Minister how representative can a body truly claim to be if the vast majority of that profession choose not to vote and have not had a say in electing the members of the council?

But I’d also say that if you’re putting yourself on this high principle of democracy, I would take you back to the purpose of the Teachers Council, which, in fact, is to be a steward for education in the country. That is where I want to come to this question of the name change. In particular, I want to draw the committee’s attention to a submission from Ms Yvonne Groot, who has made a very specific call where she has said, “I cannot believe that you are changing the name of the council yet again, surely the cost of doing so could be better spent elsewhere like speeding up and improving the application process.” As has been discussed by previous members, around $700,000 will have to be invested in this name change. So my question for the Minister is: has any consideration been given to what effect $700,000 could have on speeding up the application process for teacher registration at the Teachers Council? What effect could that level of resource have?

The reason, of course, this question is so important right now is that we have been told time and again by that Minister that we are facing a teacher shortage. I would have thought, in light of that, that it would be quite proper that officials would have considered how resources could be applied to ensuring that the registration process occurs smoothly. But as Ms Yvonne Groot points out in her submission, “What is in a name anyhow, it is what actually happens within the organisation that matters.”

We’ve had some speakers previously claim that the cost of this name change is only $220,000. I would like to point out that, in fact, the cost of elections every three years—in which only 13.7 percent of people have historically chosen to vote—will be $150,000, that the associated cost with increased membership is $105,000 per year, and, again, I would ask the Minister: what would the potential impact of those resources be on the ability of the Teachers Council to conduct its job if they were applied otherwise?

Finally, I want to come to an amendment in my name, which goes to this idea of how we get the right skills and knowledge on to the Teachers Council, because what we have consistently argued on this side of the House is that representation should be competency based. The reason we have said that is that we want a range of skills and knowledge brought to the table. Historically, of course, that’s meant that a number of registered teachers have been around that table. In fact, right now there are registered teachers on the Education Council whose wisdom and experience bring great richness to the role. What my amendment suggests is that we should also, in the future, ensure that the Minister has a mind to understanding the partnership principles between the Crown and proprietors of special character schools when he is making appointments.

The reason I have tabled this amendment is that I think it’s very important that the Teachers Council does have a diversity of thought and experience on it. What we don’t want is a uniform set of experiences. We want to make sure that it has those who have particular experience with special character schools, which, by their very definition, are there to be different from State schools, and offer education which is significantly different from the State option. So making sure that people with that varied experience are there is important.

Of course, this is something that was backed up by submitters. In particular, I draw your attention to the submission from Filipe Menezes, who drew attention to the fact that—sorry, it wasn’t Filipe, although he made some good points which I’d like to refer to later. Frian Wadia pointed out that the Minister, of course, is only actually required to give regard to the views of parents and the wider community with one of his appointments. I would argue that that is substandard and means that this council will not operate as effectively.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to take a very brief call just to register New Zealand First’s support for this Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill, the first part in particular, which we are covering at the moment.

What an outrageous state of affairs that teachers would want their own elected representatives on their own professional body! I cannot believe we’re actually having this debate. My sister, who’s a teacher of 30 years, her husband also a 30-year plus veteran—why should they not have the ability to vote for the people that represent them on their elected council? I would have thought that was perfectly obvious. And there are the checks and balances. In answer to the previous member’s contribution—those six independent appointees—there is still the opportunity to look at where there may be a skills gap that we need to identify, and the Minister can make those appointments.

Also in one of the previous contributions, from the Hon Nikki Kaye, she did allude to—I think my colleague Jamie Strange suggested—almost a conspiracy theory where there was a press release, apparently, that if you went to a link on a website there was some dastardly power that the Minister was going to invoke. Well, actually, those seven teachers—those seven elected teachers—are the bulwark against that very sort of behaviour. They are independent; they are not appointed by the Minister. They do not owe the Minister their fees, their directors’ fees; they have earned it because they’ve had support from their fellow teachers. If it was 13 percent, I agree that would not be a particularly high number but 13 percent is 13 percent. The other teachers had the ability to vote too. That is a right, as well. They may have indicated that there was some degree of comfort with the way that council had been going, but at least they had the right.

Do we want to take democracy away from this country if the voting drops below 75 percent, because maybe people aren’t interested or something like that? That’s a Draconian statement, and we need to push back about that in any way, shape, or form. So we in New Zealand First absolutely support this bill, especially Part 1 of this bill as we are debating now. Teachers need their own representatives elected on their own professional body. It is the right thing to do, and we are totally behind that. Thank you.

I call Tim Macindoe.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Honourable.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Hon Tim Macindoe.

Kia ora e Te Kaiwhakahaere. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou mō tēnei Wiki o Te Reo Māori hei whakanuia e tātou.

[Good evening to the House. I offer warm greetings as we celebrate Māori Language Week.]

I was interested in listening to the New Zealand First member Mark Patterson a moment ago. He seems to be so obsessed with talking about the election for this particular council that he completely failed to discuss what its purpose and function would be. This debate essentially hinges around what will give the best range of skills to meet the requirements of the Teaching Council.

I’d like to extend an invitation to his party colleague the Associate Minister of Education to take her opportunity at this stage of the committee to withdraw and apologise for an outrageous slur she has made not once but twice against me, suggesting that I told the select committee that anyone can teach. Now, as a former teacher, I am absolutely convinced that no teacher would ever make such a claim. I have never made such a claim. I have invited Mrs Martin to come and withdraw that ridiculous assertion, because I have no idea why she made it and I’m still waiting for her to do so. I believe she’s an honourable person and so I hope she will nevertheless take the opportunity.

But let me move on, because my colleague across the river in Hamilton, Jamie Strange, was speaking just after the committee stage resumed after dinner, and he suggested that the National Party doesn’t want teachers on this particular council. Now, I found that a bizarre assertion as well. That is, of course, nonsense and I have to say it’s inconceivable that any Minister in making appointments to the council—from whichever party might lead the Government and any parties that might make up a Government in this House—would take such an approach. No Minister would make such exclusive appointments. But again, Part 1 of this bill is about ensuring that the Teaching Council—or it should be about ensuring that the Teaching Council—has that range of core skills and competencies that are required to do the very best job. The Labour Party and its partners in this Government, when you look at new section 380, inserted by clause 5, in redesigning the composition of the Teaching Council—

💬 Simeon Brown: What partners?

Well, they have partners in New Zealand First and the Green Party, Mr Brown. You’ve been here for nearly a year and I thought you might have noticed that, but anyway.

💬 Simeon Brown: They hate each other.

Well, I take your point, Mr Brown, but their obsession here in expanding the membership from nine to 13 includes, in new section 380(1)(b), seven elected members. Here you have, “(i) 1 teacher representing the early childhood education sector, elected by teachers from that sector; and (ii) 1 teacher representing the primary education sector, elected by teachers from that sector; (iii) 1 teacher representing the secondary education sector, elected by teachers from that sector;”, one teacher educator, “(v) 1 principal representing the primary education sector, elected by principals from that sector; and (vi) 1 principal representing the secondary education sector, elected by principals from that sector;”.

Now, they’re all very fine people, but what I think it tells us is that this is a Government that is far more interested in having a little bitsy sector representation right across the board rather than focusing on what the skills are that each of these people will bring to the table. Some of those sectors are already represented and always would be represented on the Teaching Council, because, as I say, no Minister of Education is going to exclude all of their skills and background and professional experience. But to suggest that each and every one must be represented in that way shuts out other people who—and the review in 2012 showed this—could bring to the council the sorts of skills that would really enhance its ability to function as it’s intended.

I am dumbfounded that this approach from the Labour Party is so concerned with this sort of segmentation that they would overlook the grand picture. I ask the Minister therefore to take a call and to explain why such a prescriptive model is likely to produce that range of skills that is required, as opposed to just achieving the sector representation set out in that section.

As I say, the 2012 review found that there was a need—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I think it’s fair that I go through the various Supplementary Order Papers put forward by members and provide some comment on those, so I’ll try and run through them in numerical order.

Supplementary Order Paper 95, which is in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye, would require the Minister to report back, following the election, on the skills of the members who had been elected around education, governance, leadership, financial skills, and understanding of the partnership principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. This really would have no practical effect because they would have already been elected, and unless the Minister was going to overturn the democratic election, it would be rather irrelevant because the Minister would already need to consider those matters in making the appointment to the balance of the council. So there would be no practical necessity or benefit from doing that.

Supplementary Order Paper 96 in the name of Simeon Brown would require the Teaching Council in its annual report to provide a summary from each elected member of the council outlining the impact of the council’s operations on the group that that representative was elected from. There’s nothing to stop the council doing that now, and, of course, those members, having been elected by that relevant part of the teaching community, will have a direct interest in ensuring that that part of the teaching community knows what they have been doing on their behalf. So in terms of following the elected incentives, they will probably have been wanting to do something like that anyway.

Supplementary Order Paper 97, again in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye, basically would require that the Teaching Council’s rules included a requirement for public disclosure of any union membership by those standing for election. I simply say, why stop there? Why not ask them to declare any religious affiliation they might have, any political party membership they might have—what would be the limitation on requiring them to disclose any type of affiliation or interest that they might have before standing for election? I think that, ultimately, teachers don’t need to know that information. If they want to ask somebody, of course they can ask somebody. That’s part of the democratic process.

Supplementary Order Paper 98, in the name of Erica Stanford, effectively does the same thing, which basically would require people to declare membership of a union, in standing.

Supplementary Order Paper 100, in the name of Denise Lee, talks about integrated schools and suggests that there should be criteria around considering the understanding of the partnership principles between the Crown and the proprietors of integrated schools. The criteria listed in the bill are not exhaustive criteria of things that the Minister needs to consider. If the Minister considered—whoever the Minister was—that a sector or group of teachers was not represented, then they can certainly address that in their appointments.

Supplementary Order Paper 101, in the name of Nicola Willis, effectively, does the same thing but it talks about “special character schools”. In the law there are integrated schools, which are special character schools, and then there are designated character schools. Designated character schools do not have proprietors; they are part of the State school system. Therefore, this, effectively, does exactly the same thing as Supplementary Order Paper 100 because there is no difference between a State integrated school and a special character school—they are one and the same thing.

Supplementary Order Paper 102 suggests that the people being appointed should have an understanding of partnership schools, or kura hourua. The Government is progressing a bill—at some point, when the House gets around to debating it—that will remove that model of education from the Education Act.

Supplementary Order Paper 103, in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye, deals with extraordinary vacancies, and suggests that the Minister should have—no, sorry; that’s the next one. This one deals with the Minister’s appointment of members and ensures that members must be appointed after consultation with “representatives of parent, school trustee, and community interest groups in relation to schools and early childhood education services.” I think this is a legitimate argument, but it’s difficult to see how any Minister wouldn’t do such a thing, and it does somewhat contradict the principled position that the Opposition have been taking, which was actually just recently elucidated by the Hon Tim Macindoe in arguing that there shouldn’t be a representative structure. So having said that there shouldn’t be a representative structure, they’re now trying to add additional representative criteria to it. It does seem to somewhat contradict their position.

The final Supplementary Order Paper is Supplementary Order Paper 99, and that, again, is in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye. I’m assuming that there might be some more Supplementary Order Papers coming, but these are the ones that have been tabled so far. Supplementary Order Paper 99 deals with extraordinary vacancies. Again, I think there’s some validity in this. What this would do is—“If an extraordinary vacancy occurs within 6 months of the expiry of the vacating member’s term, the Minister may—(a) appoint a replacement; or (b) leave the vacancy open.” The bill allows for the council to make that determination in the case of an elected member. So that does leave, therefore, the election and the integrity of the electoral process with the council, so I don’t see any need to adopt the provisions that are being suggested by that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m not on the Education and Workforce Committee, although I occasionally get whipped on.

💬 Hon Member: You should be.

I should be. I’d like to be. It’s a great committee. I occasionally get whipped on—I wasn’t in any of the sessions where this was discussed, but I spoke on this bill in its first reading and second reading.

💬 Jamie Strange: Strong start.

Yeah, thank you. I’m feeling positive about it.

What we have is a body of competent, well-respected people with a great deal of knowledge and ability to govern. What we’re trying to do with this is go back to something that we had, that was broken. We know that what we had before wasn’t working—they weren’t able to self-regulate, they had financial difficulties, which is why we made the change. Jamie Strange got up here tonight and tried to tell us that there weren’t many teachers on the Education Council. We know that’s not true—

💬 Simeon Brown: He can’t count.

—because we know that there are six of them. He had trouble counting. Although Mark Patterson redeemed members on that side of the Chamber by saying “13 percent is 13 percent.”, so that was good.

But what Jamie Strange doesn’t seem to understand is that there is a majority of teachers on the Education Council. In fact, one of them is from my electorate, from Albany Senior High School—a wonderful, competent woman on a body that is full of good, competent people. I would like to point out that at no point in the proceedings did any of the submitters or anyone ever say that any decision that was made by the current Education Council was in any way a bad decision or that anyone was unhappy with any of the work that they’d done.

I would like to speak tonight about one of the submissions that I’m particularly interested in, the Graduate Women New Zealand submission.

💬 Hon Member: Good submission.

It is. It’s relating to Part 1 of the bill. I want to speak to this, as it relates to Part 1 of the bill, and I’m particularly interested in the views of Graduate Women New Zealand because of their work in creating positive differences to education and employment outcomes for women and girls in New Zealand. They made a really detailed and interesting submission in which they made a number of suggestions that are worthy of note and that I’d like to bring to the Minister of Education’s attention. I’d like to hear from the Minister as to why some of the suggestions were not included or were not fully included in the bill as it is now. I do acknowledge that for the most part of this submission they did agree with many of the parts and they supported the bill, but their detailed submission did centre around diversity. They talked in great detail about wanting a range of diversity. They say they believe “diversity on governance councils is beneficial for functioning. Therefore, the guidelines directing the Minister and Councils to have regard for ethnic and socio-economic diversity, gender balance, and to include at least one Maori member [should be] encouraged.”

I note, from the part of the bill where the Minister’s obligations are laid out for the members that he selects, they include things like education, governance, leadership experience and skills, financial skills—which is good, given the problem with the financial irregularities of the old Teachers Council—and understanding of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Minister must consider the candidate’s ability to carry out the duties as a member of the Teaching Council and represent the public interest. So that’s all great, but there is no requirement to consider the things that are important to Graduate Women New Zealand—no requirement to consider socio-economic diversity, gender balance, ethnicity, or with a view to including one Māori representative.

The Government talks about gender balance all the time. It’s something that they have a very strong opinion on. I’m not saying that I particularly agree with this submission—I want to make that very clear, Mr Hipkins. I don’t agree with it, but what I am interested in is hearing from the Minister as to why these considerations weren’t taken into consideration, as per the requests from Graduate Women New Zealand in their very detailed submission.

One of the other issues that they brought up was the issue of international students. There aren’t a huge amount of international students in New Zealand but they deserve to have their voice heard as well. Their concern, it seems, from their submission is around the fact that there may not be someone on this body who is able to represent their views.

Look, I know that we’re not going to win this argument overall—the Government are eventually going to get their way on this—but I think what is important is that we make sure that the bill is as good as it’s going to get. If we are talking about representation, then we need to take all the submissions into account and have a look at what they think. There were a number of views that did think that there could be better representation.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for giving me this opportunity to take this call. It was really interesting to see the Minister in the chair, Chris Hipkins, responding to my Supplementary Order Paper 102. I suggest the Minister go back and hear what the Minister who was in the chair before the dinner break, Jenny Salesa, said. That Minister very clearly said that, yes, there are some ministerial appointments. In responding to my Supplementary Order Paper she said, yeah, that could be a possibility. Now this Minister in the chair, he said, with a funny gesture, that we are getting rid of partnership schools so—ha, ha!—why do we need any kind of knowledge and experience that is related to partnership schools on the Teaching Council. So it looks like the two Ministers don’t know what they’re talking about, because in my previous contribution I very clearly said that this experience and knowledge is needed because we want to have legislation that is working long-term for our country, not just for this Government.

We have already announced that we will be bringing partnership schools back, and that doesn’t mean that if this Government has decided to get rid of partnership schools we should be working on legislation that is valid only for two years. So that was the point that was made in my previous contribution, and it was really interesting to see the response of the Minister that is in the chair now, and compare that response with the Minister that was in the chair before the dinner break.

I also heard a member from the Government side making fun of partnership schools—counting the numbers of partnership schools and saying that, if the Opposition was really interested, why, when National was in Government, did we just have 11 partnership schools? I actually felt really sad, seeing that member making fun of partnership schools. On one side, they want to have Māori seats entrenched—and these partnership schools are helping Māori kids achieve, and they want to get rid of these schools and get rid of the future that these Māori kids can have through partnership schools. I really want to emphasise this point, that the Minister should take another call and explain the discrepancy in the responses that I have heard from two Ministers in the chair.

I also would like to talk to one submission which relates to the composition of the Teaching Council. This submission is actually from the Education Council—the Education Council that we are dealing with through this whole legislation. Very clearly, they have stated that the elected members’ criteria does not mean that they bring all the skills and the experience that is needed on the council. Then they went on to say, in point nine in their recommendations—this is quoting from their submission—that “We consider it would be helpful if the Bill required members to receive some training once they are elected, to make sure they are able to participate in the Council effectively and constructively.” So now we are talking about training, after having this big description of who can get elected on the Teaching Council.

So, yes, we are increasing the membership from nine to 13—six members are going to be appointed by the Minister, and seven elected members. There’s a full description of who these members can be, saying this has to be “1 teacher representing the early childhood education sector, … 1 teacher representing the primary education sector, … 1 teacher representing the secondary education sector, … 1 teacher educator, elected by registered teachers … 1 principal representing the primary education sector, … 1 principal representing the secondary education sector,” and then the last one is an early childhood education service leader. In spite of this description, the Education Council itself is not satisfied that people will bring the level of leadership and governance experience that is needed at the Education Council, which is going to be called the Teaching Council.

I would like the Minister to take another call and explain to us how he can overlook this big requirement of the Education Council of having the governance experience. This is actually available through the structure that we put in place through the changes that we brought in when we were in Government, because we wanted to make sure that there are people on the Education Council who bring governance experience. So, yes, we wanted to make sure some people have a teaching background and bring teaching experience, but, along with that, some people who bring governance experience not necessarily from a teaching background but from the wider sector, because that is always helpful.

Leadership and governance experience can be transferred to other sectors, and this Minister has completely ignored that. Now the Education Council is saying in their submission that there should be some kind of training available to those people who get elected on the Education Council. Then they compared it with legislation governing district health boards. Yes, that is the basis of this legislation: the doctors have their representation, nurses have their representation—they get the training, so this council should also get the training. It’s completely mixing up two issues here, so the Minister should take the call and explain these points to the committee.

Look, I am very pleased. Unfortunately, you only get a certain number of calls in a committee stage, and I think this is actually my last one, but the good news is there are a lot of amendments and a lot of National MPs that want to speak on this bill.

Firstly, my first basic question to the Minister—and I mentioned it before, and I was called a conspiracy theorist by Jamie Strange—is that the whole purpose of this bill, that we have been told, is to enable the profession to have independence. So my first question is for the Minister Chris Hipkins, and that is: is it correct that he has taken papers through this Government that indicate that he wants to have a greater say over this entity, therefore taking away its independence? So we’ve all been standing in this Parliament—in my view, in a bit of a sham—pretending to be giving this entity back its independence, but the Minister has taken through papers or briefings that indicate he wants to be able to direct this entity to do what is Government policy, rather than independence of the profession. That’s the first question that I would like the Minister to answer.

The second point that I want to make is that I couldn’t believe we heard this Minister utter the words around partnership schools and this bill and representation. He also made the comment that, somehow, us putting up Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) indicating that he could change representation was somehow backward-flipping on our position. The reality is we do not support this bill. We know the reviews that have previously happened—that indicated there were serious financial issues and that there were issues around process in terms of sex offenders and the teaching profession, as to why we had the original Education Council. We don’t support this bill going through but we are doing everything that we can as part of the democratic process to improve this bill, and I take offence that we are being told that we shouldn’t put these SOPs up.

Now, I can’t believe that the Minister is criticising us around partnership schools, when this is the Minister that has just admitted that for several months he failed to acknowledge via Crown Law that a Waitangi Tribunal claim exists, which involves iwi leaders, which is a major reason why we should not be debating the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill—and I’m glad that he has shifted that bill off the Order Paper so we’re not debating it tomorrow morning. I would love the Minister, in the context of that SOP, to explain to this House how we could be potentially, over the coming weeks, railroading that bill through when there is a Waitangi Tribunal claim.

The next thing the Minister did was reel through a range of SOPs, and I want to deal with a couple of them. He did raise SOP 95. We do think it is right that as part of this new entity’s business it does report back on the education, governance, leadership experience and skills, and financial skills of this entity. We think that matters to New Zealanders. We’re shifting away from a competency-based body. And, actually, the sum of the information around that entity and who has been responsible for major decisions affecting tens of thousands of teachers—it is important to report that.

But, as I said before, one of the most important SOPs that we have put up—and it relates to my first point—is that we believe that if the Minister is true to the intent of this bill, he will support our amendment that makes it absolutely clear that this entity is independent of the Government and cannot be directed on policy by the Minister. We want an answer in this committee, because we think that the tens of thousands of teachers out there that thought that the Government was being nice and somehow giving them greater autonomy and independence need to know that in the background the Minister is pushing through a policy that enables him to direct the council to do what he wants from a Government perspective.

Finally, can I just make this point: as we have said before, there are 19 reviews under way in education. Not only is this going to cost money—the rebranding of this council—not only is it against all of the reviews that have happened in the past, not only is there representation around the council now, but this is not the largest priority in education. We go throughout New Zealand and we meet different members of the community, from teachers to principals, and what they are saying to me is they are drowning in reviews. They are drowning in reviews, yet the most important priority that the Minister has brought to this Parliament is the renaming of the Education Council.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a third call on this bill, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. I’d like to talk about my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 96, which the Minister was very quick to say was something which needed to be thrown away and he didn’t really want to get into the detail of, but he did make the comment that this was something which could be done. Well, my message to the Minister is: why not legislate it?

So let’s get to the substance of this SOP. Supplementary Order Paper 96, in my name, inserts new clause 5AA “Section 385 amended (Reports)”, and it is to ensure that “The Teaching Council must present to the House of Representatives an annual report on its operations, including, but not limited to,—(a) the audited financial statements of the Teaching Council; and (b) a summary from each elected member of the Teaching Council outlining the impact of the Teaching Council’s operations on the group from which that respective member was elected.”

The purpose behind this SOP is to ensure that this body—this Teaching Council, which is going to be renamed at a huge cost to the taxpayer—will be accountable to the taxpayer and accountable to the people who will vote the people onto this new body. At the moment, we know the history of the Teachers Council and the Education Council. There was a review done. There were some issues which were uncovered which were then reviewed. And then we moved to a competency-based model, with a high degree of people put in place with competency. Now we’re moving back to an elected member body, which will be in charge of funds and in charge of the functions of this body. What my amendment is saying is that there should be a high degree of accountability, particularly over the fact they have taxpayers’ money and that they have responsibility for the money of their members and that these reports—the financial reports—should be brought to Parliament to be scrutinised. So that is the first leg of this Supplementary Order Paper.

The second leg is to ensure that each of these elected members is providing a summary which outlines the impact that they have had on the Teaching Council. The purpose behind this is because it really is being contested, here in this debate, over what the value proposition is for changing from having the current model, where they’re appointed by the Minister, to this elected member model. What we’re saying is, if teachers are going to be represented through this model, where there’s seven different categories and they all vote through their different categories—and, yep, Mark Patterson added to the debate that only 13 percent of teachers voted, or something very minuscule like that. If they’re going to be, well then there needs to be that accountability back to those people so they know exactly what value was put forward.

I think there’s this healthy degree of scepticism over these different groups. We had submitters coming to the Education and Workforce Committee, and the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association said they wanted their own special person on that Teaching Council, and another union wanted their own special person on the Teaching Council. It could be looked at, by reading this legislation, that the seven different bodies could easily fit into one or two unions to get one or two slots on this body each. That’s something which could easily be read into this piece of legislation, because we understand the other side are having to pay back the unions through legislation, and this is one of them.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. It’s, as I understand it, clearly against Speakers’ rulings to suggest that the Government is—in the words of the member—paying back a certain party.

💬 Brett Hudson: Which Speaker’s ruling?

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Speaker’s ruling 49/1, Mr Hudson, is specifically the one I’m referring to, which clearly states that “A member may not (1) impute improper motives to the Government; (2) suggest that the Government has received orders to put a bill through; (3) impute dishonesty to the Government; [or] (4) suggest domination by outside bodies.”

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The member is absolutely correct, so the member on his feet needs to be very careful about those imputations.

I apologise, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. There is concern over the influence and there are concerns over the management of funds, and so this Supplementary Order Paper is required to ensure that there is a high degree of accountability. I guess the questions I’ve got for the Minister—he said this should be something which naturally happens. Well, why is he not prepared to put it into legislation? If he agrees with the intent of this Supplementary Order Paper, why is he not prepared to put it into legislation to ensure that that accountability is in place? The question needs to be asked: where is the accountability in this legislation? Where is the accountability back to the taxpayer and back to the people who are voting in these processes which will be set up for the Teaching Council? I’d like the Minister to take a call and answer that question. Where is the accountability? Where is the scrutiny by Parliament over the Teaching Council? Where is the appropriate level of scrutiny so that everyone can have that? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll just respond to a few other issues that have been raised. With regard to the most recent contribution by Simeon Brown, I have already spoken to that particular Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), SOP 96, and I don’t intend to repeat myself on that. But in his earlier contribution, he asked why representatives should not be elected at large. The bill makes it very clear that we’re trying to get a representative balance of the teaching profession. That’s what the Government’s policy is designed to achieve, and that’s why it is structured in that way. That would not be assured through an at-large election process.

Nicola Willis asked why elections should not be scrapped if turnout is low. Similar approaches could be tried in other areas where there is low turnout—for example, local government, where there is a persistently low turnout. I don’t think that’s a legitimate argument for scrapping local councils—because turnout is low. I’d like to see more people participating, but the fact that the turnout is low is not necessarily a reason for scrapping an election. Nicola Willis also asked about speeding up applications. Well, that’s not relevant to the bill. I’m pleased to inform her that a new online services project by the council will certainly speed up the process of registrations.

Erica Stanford argued that as long as people are competent, then elections don’t matter. Again, the Government doesn’t agree with that position. She did raise issues around why gender balance was not included in the criteria that a Minister would need to consider. The Government’s already made commitments around gender balance across the Government in all of the appointments the Government makes, and that is a commitment that has been opposed by the Opposition, so I’m sure that they would be opposed to that being put into the legislation.

Parmjeet Parmar raised that the Government—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Parmjeet who?

Parmjeet Parmar. Sorry, have I got—I hope I haven’t got that pronunciation wrong.

💬 Hon Member: Doctor.

Doctor—doctor—that the Government can’t make laws based on—well, she argued that we should make laws based on what a future Government might do, that we should look into our crystal ball and decide what a future Government might do and make provision for it in legislation. I think that that would clearly be a nonsense. The remainder of the points that she was raising were largely relevant to the next education bill that the House will be debating.

Nikki Kaye did ask some legitimate questions about future amendments that the Government might bring forward regarding the ability to issue a Government policy statement. That will be dealt with in a future bill, and the House will have an opportunity to address that fully when that happens.

Finally, I’ll just quickly run through the remaining amendments that have been tabled. Tabled amendment No. 17—I’m just going on the handwritten numbers in the corner there. It’s already inherent in the overall nature of the council’s legislative mandate that it needs to operate independently, and therefore I don’t see any need to support that amendment. No. 18—I’m not really sure that even the National Party would really support the idea that the Minister and the Government should have absolutely no ability to have any say over the activities of the council. I mean, I think that completely contradicts what the National Party spent the last nine years trying to achieve, so I have some difficulty in accepting the sincerity of that amendment. Tabled amendment No. 19 in the name of Andrew Bayly talks about, once again, concerns about the low turnout in elections, and I would simply refer to the comment that I made in response to Nicola Willis.

Finally, tabled amendments Nos 15 and 16 are around the removal, with just cause, of somebody for neglect of duty or bringing the council into disrepute. I’m satisfied that the existing provisions in the bill are robust enough. Of course, issues around neglect of duty or bringing the council into disrepute will be incredibly subjective, and one of the things about elections is that there is an election process, and if you create a subjective criteria that allows a Minister to override those elected results, I think that you’re somewhat contradicting the purpose of the overall intent of this legislation.

Oh, thank you. Ngā mihi ki a koutou. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for such warm support. I must admit I think it’s just rather odd that the Minister in the chair, Chris Hipkins, took the opportunity to rebut what I’m about to say. Normally in debates, you listen and you understand what’s going on before you actually reflect and actually respond. I thought that was normal. I’ve never yet been in a debate where you actually give the answer before you know what the question is, but somehow we have a very smart and intelligent Minister of Education—very smart—because he can interpret. He knows what’s coming! He knows what’s right for all of us! He even knows what’s right for the 50,000 teachers in the industry—of course he does!

The other thing I’d like to say, Madam Chair, is that I am particularly disappointed, looking across this wonderful debating chamber—with, of course, you sitting in the middle. On the other side, we have these wonderful speakers of Te Reo and we have people who sit on the Education and Workforce Committee, and which of those people have stood up and given a substantive speech on this bill tonight? I think it’s exceptionally disappointing. We’ve got a whole raft of people who are self-proclaimed experts on the other side, and yet they are silent tonight. Why is that? Why is that, eh? I think some of them know a bit of Te Reo, and they should be standing up. But it is very unfortunate, and I’d like to see some decent contributions from these people.

Now, I’d just like to turn to my amendment, which, of course, the Minister thinks he knows all about. I just want to recap for a moment. My amendment is actually in relation to clause 5, new section 380. Of course, what this is about—I think we’ve heard about it, but it’s a while since we actually have—is that the Minister’s chosen that we’re going to increase the council from nine to 13 members. The way that that council is going to be constituted is that we’re going to have seven elected from the teaching profession, and they must be registered teachers with a current practising certificate, and in respect of the remaining six members, they will be appointed by none other than the Minister of Education. Now, all that sounds quite good in principle. Of course, as part of the six that we’re going to have appointed by the Minister, we’re going to have a representative from parent and community interest groups in the early childhood education and schooling sectors.

Well, my amendment inserts a new subclause (7) into new section 380 in clause 5. It states: “Following each election of elected members to the Teaching Council, the Teaching Council must publish the following information by way of notice in the Gazette; (a) The number of teachers who took part in that election. (b) What proportion of teachers in possession of a [practising certificate] took part in those [elections]. (c) A comparison of the figures provided in (a) and (b) with numbers in previous elections (if any).” The reason why I have chosen to pursue and put forward this amendment is, first of all, there should be transparency about elections. We all face it as MPs; there is no difference in this sector. I’m sure that those people—and I’m talking about the seven representatives from the teaching profession—will feel that they are legitimately elected and should be subject to public scrutiny around their election.

I challenge one of the members from the other side to stand up and tell me why that should not take place. You tell me why there should not be transparency about that election process.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m not going to tell you.

Of course, I’m referring to people across the other side. I think the whole thing about this is that these are good principles around any governance structure but this whole thing may be a sham, of course, because I understand that the Minister is looking forward to another bill that will override all these provisions.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call. Before I come to my question to Minister Chris Hipkins, I just want to reflect for a moment on comments he was making in his last contribution. He referred to statements that my colleague Dr Parmar had made. His point was that she was seeking to bind the current Government to policies or actions which a future Government might want to take, and he claims that that is either speculative or somehow wrong.

Well, I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind the Minister that not so many months ago, when he and his colleagues sat on this side of the Chamber, the Hon David Parker—and I use a technical term here—banged on for months about how the National-led Government should not negotiate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership to allow foreign ownership of residential properties in New Zealand because a future Labour Government might want to legislate that away. There’s a non-parliamentary word that describes the Minister’s current position tonight and the position that he and his colleagues held in Opposition. Suffice it to say that consistency of former words and current actions is a foreign concept to this Government.

But my question for the Minister around this bill and in this part is, given that he wants to have registered teachers only, principally, elect the seven members of various parts of the teaching profession—and, although we oppose this bill, as my colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye has said, our job is to try to panel beat this into the best possible shape it can be, even though we ultimately don’t support it. If he is so adamant that the teachers should elect the representatives from various parts of the education sector, why does he value the knowledge and experience of those teachers so little that he will not allow them to have a voice in the specialist skills that he will appoint to the council? Why can those teachers not make decisions about the people with the best governance skills or appropriate financial management skills or understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi? For instance, apparently a registered primary school teacher is able to know who the best secondary school representative on the council is—because I’ll get to that—but they can’t possibly understand who would have the requisite and proper sort of financial management expertise that they should also sit on the council.

So he’s limited their voice quite significantly in the structure he’s chosen to put in place, but it’s perhaps slightly more egregious than that, because the structure, I contend, is a lazy structure. Although it allows—well, actually, it doesn’t allow. It states representatives from each part of the education sector—so you’ll have a representative from the secondary education sector and a representative from the primary school sector. The actual weight of numbers for electing each of those representatives is not from the registered teachers within that sector, because all registered teachers appear to get a vote across all those members. So if you take the collective numbers of registered teachers in early childhood education and primary and the other sectors, well, they’ll outnumber the number of secondary school teachers. So the actual representatives elected will actually be the decision made by the weight of the numbers from outside of that part of the sector. It is, I would argue—and I’d ask the Minister why he chose this model—a model which will ultimately elect a representative from each part of the sector, but in no way does it guarantee, or even give a strong sense of confidence, that you’ll get the very best of the representatives from each of those sectors.

It’s odd, really, I think, that a primary school teacher gets to elect a secondary school representative but they don’t get a voice in other specialist elements of the council, whether it’s governance skills, leadership and experience, or financial skills. I think it’s a flawed model. Actually, I think the bill’s a flawed bill. But, certainly, if I look within it, it looks, on the face of it, easy, but at the heart of it is actually a lazy means to give a headline model which appears to look like it offers some sort of democratic representation but, in reality, doesn’t necessarily deliver the best set of skills from each part of the education sector. I’m kind of keen to hear from the Minister why he chose to adopt that model.

Oh, well, thank you very much, Madam Chair, for a call to speak on what I consider to be an extremely important bill—an extremely important bill for a number of reasons. Can I just say, one of them is that it reveals the priorities of a Government. Madam Chair, you ruled, quite rightly, earlier, in accordance with Kieran McAnulty, who, like a good young new member, has been reading not only the Standing Orders but the Speakers’ rulings to establish that it is wrong to say that an outside force is coercing any person in this Parliament or any Government to do anything. But I’d put it to you, Madam Chair, that this Government didn’t require an outside force to make sure that its first legislative act in education was nothing to do with kids, nothing to do with standards, nothing to do with achievement, nothing to do with engagement, and everything to do with teacher politics. They don’t need to be influenced by it from the outside, because it is them—they are so tightly intertwined that no corrupt influence was required whatsoever.

But I also want to draw your attention and perhaps get a response from the Minister in the chair, Chris Hipkins, on one of the new sections in this bill that’s come back from the committee, section 380(3) and 380(4). What that section tells us is that the elections must be held “in accordance with rules made under section 388.” Now, presumably, the Minister knows what those rules are. Presumably, he will have to make new rules after this amendment passes, because if you go on to new section 380(4), it then says, “However,—(a) elections must be held … 4 months before members take office; and (b) the Teaching Council must provide confirmation of the election results to the Minister at least 3 months before [the] members take office.” That means that the Minister, if I’m reading this correctly—and I hope he can tell me I’m wrong about this—has a three-month window where he knows how the registered teachers have voted, and he has six more votes that he can put on to the council. Some might say he would be tempted to use that for political purposes to stack the committee and frustrate the purpose of the electors in electing a certain group of people.

So the electors might have a particular beef, a particular gripe with the operation of the council, and they might seek to elect candidates who promise to work in a particular way, who promise to fix whatever that problem is that the electors—the registered teachers, that is—had with the operation of the council. They might manage to elect, say, I don’t know, five out of seven, maybe six out of seven that they’re allowed to elect on to the council and believe that they had given a democratic mandate for their particular beef or gripe to be fixed under this legislation. How wrong they would be when they discovered that, actually, the Minister of the day—and it’d behove these people in the sector to remember that the Minister is not always quite as friendly as the ones that they’ve got used to—might then decide to frustrate their democratic intent by stacking the committee against them in order to frustrate their intentions to give a democratic mandate to a group of elected representatives to achieve an objective for them.

I put it to you that if that’s really what the Minister intends—and, again, I hope he can stand up in a second and tell me I’ve got this all terribly wrong—then that’s actually worse than simply dictating who gets to be on the council. That is worse than telling people that they have no real power because they don’t. It is dishonest to tell them that they have power, and yet they do not have it at all. It’s dishonest and it’s a lie to the people who think that they are benefiting from this bill, and I put it to the people who are behind it that they may well have been hoodwinked by this Minister and they will be dominated in ways that they won’t imagine by future Ministers.

You can only imagine the corollary if such an act was to play out in this Parliament, if there was some higher power—[Time expired]

Tēnā koe. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. I want to take a moment to respond to members opposite and remind the people at home that National values teachers—absolutely. We value teachers such that on the Education Council, which we put together, six of the appointed people on that body were in fact registered teachers, because they had the competencies, the skills, and the diversity of experience to make for a strong governance body.

The argument we have against this piece of legislation is that the changes are unnecessary, they are costly, and they will not advance the ability of this organisation to fulfil its core functions. In fact, at no stage during this debate have we had a speaker stand up and really present to us a case for change. We have never really had a speaker say, “This is what the current Education Council’s getting wrong. Here is the decision that it shouldn’t have made. Here is the process that could be improved. Here is the egregious error that it’s made.” No, there has been no such example, because the reality is that there is no case for change, but it does come with a cost: $700,000 that members opposite are quite happy to throw at a name change.

But the item I want to turn to in this contribution relates to this very issue of independence, which is the word that’s been bandied about by both the Minister of Education and others this evening, claiming that, somehow, by having an elected process, this body will become more independent. I would like to point out that, in fact, the elected process does open up this body to potential politicisation, which could be dangerous to its underlying mission. The reason I say that is because we only need to look to history to see how many people actually have voted in these elections.

💬 Simeon Brown: How many?

So in—that’s a very good question, Simeon Brown. How many registered teachers are there who were eligible to vote last time? There were 100,953. Now, of that hundred thousand, how many do you think voted?

💬 Stuart Smith: 70,000.

Seventy thousand, someone says. No, you’ll have to go lower. What do you think it would’ve been?

💬 Hon Member: 50,000.

I’m sorry, you’ll have to go lower again. Only 13,865 people actually voted, 13.7 percent. So then I ask the Minister who sits in the chair tonight, Chris Hipkins: in that context, where such a small proportion of people have shown willingness to vote for these members, who is it that we expect will be elected? Because I would venture a guess that the people that are most likely to be elected are those that have access to the resources of a nationwide body that’s used to running campaigns and used to doing a bit of advocacy and has access to a broad spectrum of membership. I would suggest that the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) and NZEI may be able to influence that election process unduly. I would ask the Minister whether this is something he has considered and whether he has any concern about that, or is this not an issue that is of concern to the Minister?

As we sat on the Education and Workforce Committee, we did have some members submit, and members opposite will remember Mr Chris Abercrombie, who suggested explicitly that the change he would like to see is that there be specific representation for the Post Primary Teachers’ Association as the voice for secondary teachers. I want to be very clear that I recognise the role of the PPTA, which has a function that is important in terms of advancing its own members, but the purpose of this council should not just be about the interests of teachers; it needs to be about the interests of children and of young people, and it needs to be about advancing the interests of education. So what we do not want to see is a politicisation of who is appointed to that body, and that is why it is very important that these elections are, if they going to happen, in some way accountable to some sort of process.

So I have proposed Supplementary Order Paper 101, which would mean that the rules for elections made by the Teaching Council under amended section 388—after each election, those rules would have to be reviewed. So you’d have to see how the election actually had gone. What members actually supported or suppressed voter turnout? Were there efforts by people to actually get out to vote or to suppress the vote? Were the rules actually appropriately enforced, and how did those rules operate in practice? Because if the Minister wants to stand on the high horse of democracy, accountability, and independence, he had better be prepared to stand also on the horse that says that those things have been delivered by the process that this bill sets up. I would venture to this House that, as it is currently formulated, we are not going to see the vast majority of teachers voting; we are going to see only a small group. I would therefore venture that it is a very large claim to make to say that this will be a democratically elected body.

I’ll just quickly run through a few of the points that have been raised. I think Brett Hudson probably needs to consider the difference between not binding a future Government and trying to pre-empt what a future Government might try and do. Certainly one Government shouldn’t bind—or try to bind—a future Government, but trying to pre-empt what they might do isn’t the most desirable thing for them to do, either.

He seemed to then go on and argue that 100 percent of the members should be elected. I’m not sure that’s consistent with what his colleagues have been arguing. He did question why an early childhood teacher might be voting for a secondary teacher representative, and I simply draw him to the provisions of the bill that specify—new section 380(1)(b)(i) in clause 5, for example, states “1 teacher representing the early childhood education sector, elected by teachers from that sector;”. If you run through all of them, they all require the teachers who are electing those representatives to be from that sector. So I think that clearly addresses his concern. I commend to members on that side of the Chamber the virtue of reading the bill before speaking on it.

With regard to David Seymour’s comment—he claims that this is the first legislative Act in education by this Government. We either have a numeracy problem or a comprehension one. In fact, we’ve had other education bills passed by this Government during this term of Parliament. He raised a legitimate question regarding the three months between the election being declared and the Minister having to make the appointments. That is deliberate, and it is to ensure that the Minister has an opportunity to ensure that the right balance of representative people is on that council, so that is deliberately by design—bearing in mind that the Minister is still only appointing the minority side on the council. The majority are elected, and therefore the Minister can look at that and say “Well, we’re short on a particular perspective on the council.”, and therefore fill that perspective. They couldn’t, as David Seymour was claiming, jack up the council, because they’re only appointing the minority of the members.

Nicola Willis raised much the same argument she raised earlier, which I’ve already referred to, arguing that the case for democracy hasn’t been made. Well, I would say that the case for democracy is inherent in itself—that low turnout is a reason for not having democracy—and I don’t agree with her. She then argues that there shouldn’t be outside influences on an election process. I’d be interested to see how that would apply in a general election. For example, there would be no political parties in a general election if people weren’t allowed to have any other affiliations. I don’t think that that case has been made, but I’ve addressed all of those points earlier, as I have already indicated.

Ngā mihi nui. Thank you very much. It’s great to have an opportunity to speak on this bill. I’d actually like just to go back to what Mr Brett Hudson’s point was, which the Minister was refuting here. I think, given the very low turnout of only 13,000, they might need votes from all sorts of sectors to cover it, because it’s such a poor turnout. I think that’s a really small number. We’re going from nine to 13 members, and, certainly in my Government’s experience, eight is an ideal size for a board; nine you can live with—that’s fine—maybe even 10. But going up to 13, it becomes far less workable. It actually is quite an issue for a board to get some sensible discussion and sensible decisions being made with some progress. Having 13 around the table will slow that down quite significantly. And you’d have to wonder why we’ve gone to that, going for representation as it is. In fact, I’m sure my colleague Nicola Willis has already worked this out: that’s one person on the board for every 1,000 votes. So that’s a pretty poor result, I would’ve thought, in terms of numbers.

I was really stunned. I thought David Seymour’s contribution was outstanding. And, you know, he’s quite right. This isn’t about kids and it isn’t about education; it’s about teachers. And I think, while they are connected, I suppose, one would hope the primary focus of Parliament would be to get education right, and to get everything right for the kids, rather than some sort of quasi body that’s looking after teachers—particularly when we look at the reference to the policy statement that the council will have to take regard to. And I think that is really quite concerning. I think Mr Seymour might not have been aware of that when he made his contribution, in that he was making a claim that the Minister would be able to see how the elected members go and then judge their political leaning, and then he could stack the deck with the remaining appointees. I think that, while that might be a valid argument, that’s actually not going to be the case, because it seems like this is really a stalking horse, or a shroud, if you like, for this policy statement. Effectively, the Minister will run the council, because they will have to take direction from his policy statement. I think that is a very dangerous position to be in and I suspect the teachers will be very disappointed when they find out what they have really been delivered. I’m sure it has been delivering on a promise. You can take that any way you like, but I’m absolutely certain that will be the case.

I also wanted to mention Nicola Willis’ Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—No. 95, I think it was—where the Minister would have to report on the skills of those appointed to the board and elected to the board. I think that’s a really important SOP. I think the Minister has dismissed that without really going into why he would dismiss that. One thing we do know is that sunlight is a great disinfectant. If we can see, and it was plain for everyone to see, who was on that council, what their skills were, what they were bringing to the table, that would be a real incentive for them to deliver on those skills, on their mandate to represent those teachers. I think it’s a pity that he didn’t take that a little more seriously. I do think he should reconsider that.

I do note the New Zealand Catholic Education Office was very keen for a greater representation.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Be careful of those Catholics!

Yeah, well, I think they do raise a very good point, because when charter schools come back in, and that’s not going to be very far away—I mean, they just made such a significant contribution to education. They were punching way above their weight. It’s really important that we have good representation, and I’m sure we should cut it back to nine and certainly make sure that charter schools are well represented on that Teaching Council. We could perhaps even rename it. I’m sure we could do it for less than $700,000. It’s not that expensive to do a bit of rebranding—quite popular with this Government. I think Damien O’Connor probably gave the Minister the idea, because he’s rebranding the Ministry for Primary Industries. So thank you, Mr Chairperson.

I move, That the question be now put. [Interruption]

Kāti rā. Mēnā he kōrero hou me tukua ki te komiti nei.

[That’s enough. If there is new information, it must be submitted to this committee.]

OK? I call Tim Macindoe.

Ha, ha! Tēnā koe e Te Kaiwhakahaere. Kia ora e Te Whare.

Mr Chair, thank you for that call. This is only my second call in Part 1 of this debate, so I’m pleased to feel that I can now resume where I left off. I was going to acknowledge the member for Hunua for his passionate oratory a short time ago; in particular, for ensuring that my fine constituents in Hamilton West were able to hear him without the assistance of the fine technicians up in the broadcasting box. It was a very impassioned approach.

I was also going to acknowledge the Minister for having taken a few calls, because it’s very important in the committee stage that the Minister is willing to engage in the debate and, in particular, to answer the legitimate questions that the Opposition members are putting forward. This is, after all, our detailed scrutiny, part by part, clause by clause. As I say, I was going to acknowledge the Minister but I have to say I think actually his contributions have been in the nature of pre-emptive strikes. In fact, one of Mr O’Connor’s most distinguished constituents would probably describe it as something of a three hearts bid in trying to anticipate what might be coming, and then a very quick once-over-lightly treatment rather than detailed engagement in the substance of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), because, as he’s highlighted, there are a large number of SOPs on this bill, and I want to talk about a couple in this contribution.

I just feel that so far he has dismissed some without really actively engaging with them, as if by suggesting that if he mentions them here in the Chamber that will do; he’ll convince people that we’ve had the debate. Well, Minister, that won’t do. We do need far more detailed engagement. I’m very pleased to see the Associate Minister of Education, the Hon Tracey Martin, has been sitting over there with her head down. I assume that she’s been writing out her apology that she’s going to deliver shortly for the outrageous slur that she uttered against me in both the first and second readings of this bill. So I encourage Mrs Martin to take a call and to acknowledge that at no stage have I ever uttered the suggestion that anyone can teach. Mrs Martin knows that and I look forward to her correcting the record, because I know that she is a decent and honourable person and she wouldn’t mean to have allowed that slur to go on unchallenged for so long.

I was making the point to the Minister of Education that in Part 1, in new section 380(1)(b), is this obsession with one representative per sector. The Minister in his reply suggested that I was arguing against representation. Well, of course, I wasn’t doing that at all. The point I was going to be making, had I not been interrupted by the five-minute bell, was that in going for such a highly prescribed sector representation, I think that the Minister is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. He’s actually overlooking the fact that, just as not all politicians speak with one voice—and here we have tonight a range of people in the Chamber who have different views; that’s a good thing—to suggest that one person elected from, say, the early childhood sector and, let’s say, might be from down in Invercargill, can speak for all of the early childhood sector teachers right around the country is farcical.

Yet the Government seems to have accepted that this idea of very sector-specific representation will bring greater skills on to the council than we have at the moment. Well, even if that was an untested theory, it would be highly dubious, but the evidence totally contradicts it. So I want to ask the Minister, has he really given detailed consideration to the review that was commissioned and released in 2012 that showed the very substantial flaws in the previous entity, which, effectively, the Minister is now trying to reintroduce, because he’s taking us back to a model that was discredited? As the Hon Nikki Kaye pointed out, it was one that was beset by financial issues. I wouldn’t want to overstate it, but there was a problem with a sex offender being caught up there. The most important thing, however, was just a lack of core competencies, and that’s why the new structure, the new entity, was set up.

Again, if we look at the evidence, the new entity is working incredibly well. So why would you move away from a model that has been proved to be working well, that is actually highly respected in the profession, to go back to a model that is highly prescriptive, will not achieve the degree of representation that the Minister requires, and which will overlook much of the core competencies that are the whole point? So, Minister, I ask, what is the rush?

I want to move on to the Hon Nikki Kaye’s amendment, and that is an amendment to clause 2. If we talk about what is the rush, here we have a provision—[Time expired]

I just want to repeat what I said earlier, except in English. Mēnā he kōrero hou, tukua mai ki te komiti nei.

[If there is new material, submit it to this committee.]

That means that if you have any new arguments, now would be the time to bring them out.

Ka pai e Te Kaiwhakahaere. It’s a pleasure to speak in Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. I appreciate the call, and, yes, I do have some new material. It’s specifically in regards to an amendment in my name and it seeks to amend clause 6: “After clause 6(8), insert new 6(9)”, which is “In Schedule 21, clause 4(a) after [the words] “neglect of duty,” insert [the words] “any actions that may bring the Teaching Council into disrepute,”.

This is, of course, around schedule 21 “Removal from office” and “Disqualification from office”. This is the sort of thing that you speak on and you hope that things always work out and that you don’t have to get to this stage in any game where someone is disqualified, once having been elected or appointed. But it is necessary that we do look forward, look ahead, and know that sometimes these things happen. “This”—amendment in my name—“clarifies that any actions undertaken by a member of the Teaching Council which may bring the reputation of the Council into disrepute are considered just cause for removal from office. This contributes”, I think, “to the stated intention of the bill to lift the status and reputation of the Teaching profession.”

If you look at schedule 21 of the Education Act, which is where the current disqualification material comes from, you see that in schedule 21 under clause 3, “Removal from office (1) The Minister may revoke the appointment of a member of the Education Council at any time for just cause. (2) The revocation must be made by written notice to the member with a copy to the Education Council. (3) The written notice must state—(a) the date on which the removal takes effect, which must not be earlier than the date on which the notice is received; and (b) the reasons for the removal.”

Now we get to the section where my amendment specifically inserts some new words. “(4) In this clause, just cause—(a) includes misconduct,”—and I want to come back to that word in reply to something the Minister said earlier—“inability to perform the functions of office, neglect of duty,”—and then this is where I think, and I’m contending, that we should be inserting the words “any actions that may bring the Teaching Council into disrepute”, and then would carry on and say—“and breach of any of the collective duties of the board or the individual duties of members (depending on the seriousness of the breach);”. It then goes on to talk about the case of a member holding a practising certificate, and if they cease to hold that certificate, they’re disqualified. It even mentions a judge who may or may not be on the council and non-payment should you be disqualified.

But what’s really interesting is that—I’m on several boards: the Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre; I’m a patron of Onehunga Historic Society, a cadet unit, and political parties and voluntary organisations—the phrase “bringing into disrepute” is quite common and I think that this is something that we should insert. It does, obviously, have broad coverage, but that’s exactly why it should be inserted. We can cover the bases and easily put in language that is common in quite a few spheres. If you look at the stated purpose of the bill, which is to raise the status of the profession, this would help to do that, because it’s another mechanism to ensure that council members don’t undermine that. So if a council member undermines lifting the teachers’ status because they’ve brought the council into disrepute, this would be a good mechanism.

I just want to come back to that word “misconduct”. The Minister of Education raised this topic before I’d even got to speak to it, and he said that this is too subjective. Well, the word “misconduct” is subjective, so I’m not sure that that argument stacks up. In fact, I’d like to hear from the Minister: does he think that the word “misconduct”, which is currently in the Act, is subjective, like the words “bring into disrepute” that I’m contending should be in the Act. Is “misconduct” also subjective? If it is—[Time expired]

Ka mea ahau kia whiua te pātai.

[I move, That the question be now put.]

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m going to speak tonight to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 98, in my name. It hasn’t been spoken to yet at all, so it is absolute new material. Before I do so, I do want to go back to my first contribution, because one of the things that I specifically asked the Minister of Education wasn’t addressed. I have to agree with my colleague Tim Macindoe in that some of the Minister’s answers haven’t been as full, perhaps, as they could be. I specifically asked, and I think we owe it to the Graduate Women of New Zealand to have this question answered, because they did specifically say in their submission that they would like to see better representation in terms of ethnicity, socio-economic diversity, and have one Māori representative on the council. Now, I’m not saying that I agree with what they’re proposing, but what I am asking and what I’m really interested in is to find out what the Minister of Education thinks. All the Minister did, in fact, tonight was talk about gender balance, which was only one of the four things that I mentioned, so I would like the Minister to address those things.

Moving on to my SOP, I have to say that I am a victim tonight of the pre-emptive strike. Mr Hipkins did come up tonight and dismiss my SOP, basically by saying it was very similar to another one. I would like to use the Minister’s own words back at him and suggest to him the virtues of listening to a contribution on an SOP before passing judgment. He did disregard completely my SOP without listening to what I had to say, but I have to say that is entirely in keeping with the way that this Minister operates.

I’d like to just pre-empt my SOP argument by saying that what Nicola Willis said earlier fits in perfectly with my SOP. Nothing that the other side of the committee or the Minister has said has given any reason as to why the current council is in any way acting inappropriately or making bad decisions. In fact, their only argument is that teachers want to elect their own people to the boards. But what we’ve said is that only 13.7 percent of these people actually vote, so what that means is they’re open to influence. That leads me perfectly into my SOP.

Basically, what I’m advocating in my SOP is proper process. We want to “ensure that the process of nominating and electing members does not undermine the independence of the Teaching Council from any relevant industry advocacy organisations;”. This is specifically talking about making sure that the process is proper, fair, and that the body is, in fact, independent. This is the first time anyone’s spoken on this SOP. We oppose the view that members of this council should be elected for reasons that I’ve outlined earlier tonight. But given that this Government is going to get its way because they’ve got the numbers, the votes, it’s important—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Well, we might persuade them.

Well, I know. We like to think that we get our way every now and then, but we’re not going to in this case. It’s important that we discuss the fairness of the process. There are legitimate concerns around the way in which teachers have a fair and free opportunity to elect their peers to this body. There are going to be elections. They have to be conducted properly. They have to be conducted fairly, and it’s a concern that we have that the unions—the NZEI Te Riu Roa, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, and other industry organisations—have a monopoly on what good teaching should be. In fact, they don’t. They have an important contribution to make but in no way do they have a monopoly on good ideas. They don’t know everything about teaching, and, in fact, they don’t represent all teachers. What’s important is that we have a set of processes in place to ensure that teachers can nominate and elect members, and that they conduct these elections in a way that does not undermine the independence of the Teaching Council.

If we look at elections in general, the biggest elections we’ve got are of this Parliament and local body elections, and there are a number of things that, when we hold these elections, have to be adhered to. When we change the law under this bill, we change the way in which teachers are appointed and elected. There must be a proper process in place. I’m not going to devise that entire scheme, but what I do want to ensure is that there are important safeguards that are in place around the conduct of these elections to make sure that they’re fair and that the Teaching Council has independence from industry advocacy organisations.

The Teaching Council has an important role to play in the lives of teachers and the governing of their professional conduct. The Teaching Council is there for all teachers, a large number of whom belong to unions and believe in what unions stand for. But in a free country like New Zealand where we value independent thought and the freedom of individuals, these are principles that you hold that are important, whether you’re red, blue, yellow, or green. If the Teaching Council is to fairly and properly represent—[Time expired]

I move, That the question be now put.