Education Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity to take this call in the committee stage of the Education Amendment Bill. I would like to talk about clause 4 and clause 5 in this bill, and for that I would like to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 121, which is in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye.

So if we look at clause 4, it is to give effect to the objective of the bill—that is, to get rid of national standards. When I look at clause 5, again, the objective of clause 5 is to give effect to the same policy objective—that is, to get rid of national standards. What this Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Nikki Kaye proposes is to delete clause 4 and also to delete clause 5. I am taking this call to support that, because clause 4, as it reads, says it is to amend section 60A(1)(ba) to remove the requirement that the Minister publish national standards, and then clause 5 amends section 61(4)(a) so that a school charter is no longer required to include the board’s approach to assessing students against national standards.

We know that the Labour Government has been against national standards, so this legislation is to give effect to what the Minister actually announced last year—that is, in December 2017—that they will be getting rid of national standards in 2018. We oppose these clauses in this part because we believe that national standards actually help students with their basic reading, writing, and maths skills, and that national standards should be retained in our education system.

When we introduced national standards, there was a lot of work that was done to bring national standards in, in the form that they were introduced, because for any kind of subject interest for students, it’s necessary that they have some basic reading, writing, and maths skills. So national standards as a reporting mechanism for children’s achievement in reading, writing, and maths becomes important, and it becomes important because it’s important for parents to see how their child is doing in school. With that, I believe that the parent will want to get more involved with their school to help their child to do better, because they’ll understand in that big picture—that national picture—where their child actually stands when it comes to reading, writing, and maths.

Yes, I can understand the Minister—I’ve read some reports in the media. The Minister says that some children could be taking up some subjects like arts and other subjects. That’s fine, but give me a list of any professions that do not require those basic reading, writing, or maths skills. Everything requires some basic reading, writing, and maths skills, so why not have a proper measure in place where we can see what students are achieving in schools and have a proper reporting mechanism for parents to see how their child sits in the whole big picture? This is not to discourage; this is actually to encourage, to help the students do better so that they can understand where they are and where they need to work more to achieve better outcomes.

Everybody—yes, we understand—every individual has a different capability, and, similarly, students, even in one classroom, have different capabilities. We are not saying that everybody has to have the same capability. Children have different abilities to learn different subjects, and that’s why some form of reporting, that we had put in place through national standards, becomes even more important. What we have seen is that the Government is really keen on getting rid of national standards but we haven’t seen anything that is being put in place instead of national standards which gives that assurance that parents will get proper reporting of the progress of their child in school. We believe that this move is pushed by unions. Actually, the voice of parents should be taken into consideration in this legislation. So we strongly oppose these two clauses, clause 4 and clause 5, and I fully support the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye to delete clause 4 and also to delete clause 5.

National standards, we know—we implemented them when we came into Government. These kinds of things do take time to sink in, to show us some real results. We also know that the data that is held from the reporting is not that concrete, so I think the Minister of Education should instead focus on having better data so that we know where we should be targeting our resources.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill. As Parliament debates this piece of legislation, I think it’s important to reflect on what this piece of legislation does. On this side of the Chamber, the National Party will be progressing a number of Supplementary Order Papers, covering a range of the issues in this bill, to try to ensure that we at least protect some of the provisions in the Education Act which are essential to our young people and to the future of our country.

What this bill does and what it seeks to do is it removes the national standards, removes the partnership school model, changes the council membership of our tertiary education councils and polytechs, and a range of other things. But I think the thing which Parliament will be incredibly interested in, and the public are certainly very interested in it, is the way in which this bill is being used to remove the partnership school model. The sad reality is that the Minister who’s sitting in the chair now, Chris Hipkins, has already done everything he can to undermine—before Parliament has even voted on this legislation, before it has even become law, he’s already gone and closed these schools down. He’s already ensured that this model is taken away from being able to be used. He’s ensured that the schools have had to go through a process where those schools are being closed down, and they have not had the opportunity for proper and good consultation throughout.

I think that’s clear by the way that we on the Education and Workforce Committee, part-way through the select committee process, had to take Supplementary Order Papers put forward by the Minister of Education to try and fix this legislation, to ensure that the shifting of these schools from partnership school models to other models would be able to be done with at least semi-satisfactory mechanisms. I can tell the Minister that even the provisions that are in this piece of legislation are still not satisfactory, and we on this side of the Chamber will be putting forward a number of Supplementary Order Papers to try to address some of the inequities which he is putting into our legislation, putting into law.

I think the saddest thing about all this is that while we are in this committee debating this legislation—and we’ll be talking about different clauses throughout the evening and into tomorrow—we look at these clauses, and, yes, they’re words on paper, but this legislation is going to make a dramatic impact on some of the children in our most disadvantaged communities. These are children who have failed year after year in education, for a variety of reasons, and partnership schools were the only thing which said that they’re good enough, that they’re smart enough, and that they’re able to succeed and have the opportunity to get an education in this country and be able to succeed as New Zealanders with the same opportunities that we have had—and this Government is getting rid of it. This Government is getting rid of that model.

There’s only one reason why they’re getting rid—well, there are two reasons why. One reason is because they know best. This Government knows best! This Government thinks they have all the answers to all the problems and that anyone else who might have a solution is wrong. Well, that is a completely flawed ideology to run our education system with, a completely flawed education system that this Minister is trying to envision for New Zealand. These schools have had a dramatic effect on these young people’s lives, a dramatic impact. The results speak for themselves but are being ignored by the Minister of Education. So I ask the Minister of Education to talk about the results that these schools are having, the positive impact that they’re having on the lives of the individuals, and the positive impact that they’re having on the communities which they are in, and to tell the committee whether he’s actually gone, during this consultation period, and visited one of these schools and whether the Prime Minister has visited one of these schools to try and really understand.

The second reason is because this legislation is being requested by the unions. This is a Government which is doing this and closing the partnership school model because the unions want to have control throughout our education sector. They don’t like the fact that in some instances, in some schools, there may be a slightly different way of running the schools where, actually, those schools might be able to choose registered teachers to work for them who are able to be paid slightly differently from what the unionised contract might be. They are closing this down so that the unions have complete and utter control over our education sector. That is the second reason why this Government is wanting to close down this model. Firstly, they think they know best, and, secondly, they want the unions—their union mates—to have control over the education sector.

The reality is that these schools have been making a positive difference, have been making an incredible difference in our community, and that is why we will be standing beside these schools, standing beside these young people, standing beside their families, and standing beside their future and saying that, actually, these young people know what is best for them. These young people know what they want from their future, and they know where they want to go. These families and these communities know and have aspirations for the young people and want to see them succeed and will be doing everything that they can, but this Government is taking away those opportunities.

So we’ll be putting forward a range of Supplementary Order Papers in this debate to amend parts of this bill. One of the Supplementary Order Papers that I am putting forward, Supplementary Order Paper 119, is to amend clause 2, which is the commencement date. That’s part of the debate. There’s another clause that we’ll be doing in regards to the establishment board of trustees for new State schools being opened to replace a closing partnership school kura hourua. It will be made up of the board and of the corresponding and closing partnership schools. So we’ll be addressing some of the inequities that this Government has put in place, because the reality is that when the Prime Minister stood up in the House, she said that there will be, essentially, three things in regards to these schools when they’re closed: that she won’t close the schools if they teach the New Zealand Curriculum, if they employ registered teachers, and if they also have results. Well, these schools met all of the three criteria that our Prime Minister told the House they should have, but the Minister and the Government have decided to close them down without proper and due consultation.

So I challenge the Minister to get up and explain to the committee and explain to these schools and explain to the children and young people who attend these schools the consultation process that has gone through, and tell us why he thinks it has been adequate, and tell us why he’s had to put Supplementary Order Papers through to the select committee to fix up this bill part-way through, and to explain to the committee whether he thinks those Supplementary Order Papers actually adequately address the issues which have been raised with him by the partnership schools. We sat on the select committee, and the schools were given limited time to respond to those Supplementary Order Papers. They were given very limited time to be able to actually have their say and speak to them, and the result, in what they said, was they weren’t happy. So I ask the Minister to actually explain how those provisions are actually going to address the issues which they have raised in the select committee process, because they had very limited time to be able to respond, and this is a significant issue. These are significant issues, because, as I have said, they address the future of our young people, the future of our children and our young people, and the opportunities that they have for their future.

So we have a number of Supplementary Order Papers that we’ll be progressing. There are also other issues that I’ll be focusing on in regards to the polytech and university councils and the numbers of representatives. Essentially, this bill is trying to weaken our institutions by ensuring that there are going to be elected members, and it’s going back to what we’ve had in the past. It’s going to weaken the governance by not requiring those people to actually have the governance skills that everyone else around the table is going to have, so we’re going to have some Supplementary Order Papers to address that, as well.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is my pleasure to rise and speak to, in particular, the Supplementary Order Papers in my name to this Education Amendment Bill. I just wanted to address the point made by the last speaker, Mr Simeon Brown, with regard to his proposition that we are going to see institutions weakened by way of restoring elected members to our tertiary education councils, and, also, actually, to refer to his point about how the unions want to have control—complete and utter control—of our education sector, to the claims of ideology, which, of course, the Opposition has none, in having removed elected members in 2015.

This Education Amendment Bill, obviously, in particular, does a broad range of things. But, in particular, I wanted to speak to the issue of representation on those tertiary councils. There were 481 submissions which commented on clause 12 and clause 14 of this bill around staff and student representation and the composition of those tertiary councils—451 submitters supported guaranteed places, and 449 submissions commented that there should be more than one of each. That is more than 90 percent of submitters on the issue of increasing staff and student representation who would like to see more than one of each.

On the point of those “evil” unions that the Opposition enjoys bashing so much, I want to point to the TEU’s petition—that is, of course, the Tertiary Education Union—that I received this morning, with 900 signatures from staff at tertiary education institutions calling for more than one staff or student representative on these tertiary education councils. Of course, these provisions were removed in 2015 by the Opposition, who was then the Government.

What we’ve seen, as highlighted, actually, in the open letter this morning, published by another union, NZUSA—the New Zealand Union of Students’ Association, which brought together 14 different student organisations around the country—was a call for that increase in student representation around tertiary councils. They noted, in particular, that what they were looking for from this legislation was genuine representation around those tertiary councils, not check-box tokenism. In particular, having more than one—indeed, a guaranteed two places around that council table would allow for the discussion of confidential information, allowing for robust conclusions, and supporting each other in fact in putting those conclusions forward to the council.

As has been noted by Opposition members, some of these elected members are not necessarily coming with a wide range or breadth of experience. The very reason that they are there is to represent views and perspectives of consumers of education—to use a piece of terminology so frequently bandied about. So that’s one of the Supplementary Order Papers that I’m putting forward—No. 104, which would increase student representation from “at least 1” to “at least 2”.

The second Supplementary Order Paper is No. 136. This one is slightly more technical in that it increases staff representation from at least one to at least two, but, of those two, at least one must be “a permanent member of the teaching staff of the institution” and the other must be “a permanent member of the general staff of the institution”. That is kind of technical or more granular in detail, thereby providing a guarantee of different perspectives, again, around that council table—so, too, what Supplementary Order Paper 136 does, which is to increase the size of those councils.

I presume, in response to that, we will hear the Opposition decry that this is a “waste of resources”. But, indeed, what we are doing here is ensuring and guaranteeing that the representation around the council table is a genuine representation of perspectives so critical to the sustainability and long-term thinking around this institutions—decisions that would’ve been made a whole lot better and more robust had these perspectives been around the table with decisions made over the past three years. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak here this evening, and I do so alongside my fellow colleagues on the Education and Workforce Committee on both sides of the House, and others who are joining us, for what promises to be really good debate, suggestions, and commentary on this particular bill and in the committee of the whole House stage.

I want to just get straight into it and refer to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 123 in my name. What it seeks to do is—“In clause 14(2), replace new section 222AD(5)” with a new subsection (5). That new subsection (5) would read: “An elected person specified in subsection (4) must have been deemed to satisfy responsible criteria to sit on the council, and have appropriate and relevant skill sets to contribute to the deliberations of the council.” So, obviously, this SOP refers to the make-up of councils, and it’s quite fitting that I follow the previous speaker, Chlöe Swarbrick, in regard to her commentary on the make-up of councils.

What this SOP is seeking to do is to recognise that the governing council of a polytechnic is actually quite a demanding and important role, and we’d all acknowledge that. But the suitability of an individual to contribute to those decisions and actions of a governing council needs to be a little bit more entrenched and set out in legislation. So what we’re suggesting here is that this particular SOP would ensure that the relevant knowledge, skills, and experience of those who sit on the council are high and entrenched.

Now, if you look in the current bill, what clause 14(2) is seeking to insert in the new section 222AD(5) is that “An elected person specified … (a) is to be treated as meeting any relevant knowledge, skills, or experience requirements;”. So there is an assumption there that this is seeking to step one step back and say, “Well, before we get there and make that assumption that they’ve got the relevant knowledge, skills, and experience, how can we get this piece of legislation to ensure that?” So if you step one step back, it’s about overall safeguards on suitability, or if we want to spin it a positive way, it’s about ensuring that we have positive criteria for those who sit on the council.

Now, I’ll refer to the previous speaker right before me, and her comments on membership of the councils. This is incredibly important, because if you look at, say, for instance, the Tertiary Education Union—and I’ve got a number of other submissions right here with me. Let me see who else submitted on this: Auckland University Students Association, Otago University Students’ Association, the Tertiary Education Union Tai Poutini Branch—so all of them, plus many, many others, are looking at increased membership. In fact, if you look at the Tertiary Education Union submission, they’re up to about 12 to 18 members. That’s a lot.

This is a question that I want to pose to the Minister: how can he assure us that this bill has appropriate mechanisms for ensuring responsible criteria in terms of governance suitability from what could be many council members, and knowing that the selection process can be very varied? Governance is everything, leadership is everything, and it’s entirely fitting and appropriate that if we’re heading down this track, we have appropriate mechanisms to ensure criteria. We need to get it right, and this is the chance to do so.

So I would like to see the Minister respond to this particular question around just switching out—it’s a proactive stance rather than a reactive clause that we see now in terms of eligibility and criteria. Thank you for the chance to start with this. As my former colleague said, we’ve got many SOPs to come.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to, again, speak on the Education Amendment Bill. This Supplementary Order Paper I’d like to talk about is No. 127, which is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name that amends clause 15, which is in regards to the offence which is being created for those who take fees-free without reasonable excuse, and make a false representation for the purpose of receiving, or continuing to receive, free tertiary education from a tertiary education organisation. This clause in the bill is a direct response to the Government’s policy that they implemented at the beginning of this year, which was fees-free for the first year, and will eventually, under their proposal, if they wish, continue that to three years. And it does the right thing: it puts in place an offence for the amount of $5,000 for someone who commits the offence of making a false representation.

Now, we dispute the amount here. We do think it should be higher, and I’d like the Minister to explain to the committee why he believes that amount should remain that amount and not have it as a higher amount, because the amount which could be taken by a student who makes a false representation could be greater than $5,000 under this policy. But my Supplementary Order Paper seeks to remove the words “without reasonable excuse”, and the argument for doing so is that we do not think the court should have discretion to decide whether or not a person who has committed the offence of false representation has a reasonable excuse or not. Essentially, we believe this should be strict liability. If someone has made a false representation, then they are guilty of that and they should face the consequences, because this is public money, this is Government money, taxpayers’ money—and the hard-working people in my electorate in Pakuranga don’t want people to be able to just get free cash from the Government, making false representations and then being able to drag it through the court and try and come up with a reasonable excuse. That is completely unfair and slaps them in the face. What a waste of money that would be if we don’t change this.

So I ask the Minister in the chair to explain to the committee why, and what he thinks a reasonable excuse could be, and how he justifies the range of reasonable excuses that could be made up. Is it “because I forgot”? Is it “because my dog ate my lunch”? Is it “because I left it at home”? You know, there’s a whole range of excuses which could become—from the absurd to the more reasonable. But what does “reasonable” actually mean in the context of making a false representation? A false representation is something which is a very serious thing to do, and I guess the question here is, in making that false representation, where does the bar get made? I’d like the Minister to seriously address that issue in the backdrop of the fact that this is potentially incredibly costly to New Zealanders.

I think it’s important, also, for the committee and those listening to remember that when the Government actually set this scheme up in a huge rush, they didn’t even have the ability to actually check whether someone has enrolled previously and actually had tertiary education prior to now getting free education. And so I would ask the Minister to potentially take the opportunity to explain to the committee what the situation was when this policy was implemented, the actions they have taken since then, and whether the Minister is satisfied that there has been none or very little, in terms of taxpayers’ money, going to those people who shouldn’t be getting it under the policy that he has set up.

The fees-free eligibility criteria are easily outlined as part of the application process. When students go and enrol and they are trying to seek to have their education paid for under the fees-free process, the information is very clear on the website, and in our view there is significant information available for those students to know that they have an obligation to make a true declaration as to what their position has been. And that’s not a high expectation; that’s just asking those students to tell the truth. So what we’re proposing is saying, well, actually, it’s not a hard obligation, there is actually no real excuse for this, and what these students need to do is tell the truth, and, if not, pay the fine.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is my first contribution on the Education Amendment Bill, and I’m standing here. I want to support the kōrero on this side around kura hourua and partnership schools. I, for the life of me, cannot understand why any Government would want to get rid of a school programme and schools that are actually responding to the needs of Māori and Pasifika students that have failed within mainstream schooling. Why on earth would you want to do that, Madam Chair—not bringing you into the discussion, but I do not understand the thinking around the Minister’s ideology around what partnership schools are doing. I do not understand that. I have talked with the teachers there, I have spoken with the students—which I think is a little bit more than what the Minister has done with these schools—and the case that has actually gone for a Treaty claim, it stands with great merit.

So as I stand here and still wonder what on earth this bill is all about, at the end of the day, it seems to me that this particular bill, this Education Amendment Bill, is like the Government just wanting to stamp their mark on perfectly good legislation that this side of the House actually implemented and did the work on. Yes, we needed to review it, but really going at it, slashing it to pieces, isn’t really the way that a Government should be behaving. I’m really disappointed in the way that this Government has approached education per se. This particular amendment bill, to me, just flies in the face of what this country could actually produce through its education system.

So I stand, I’m disappointed, and I just want to make sure that the amendments in the Supplementary Order Papers that this side of the committee puts in are considered—are considered by the Minister. Without that consideration, making this bill a bill that everybody in this Parliament can be proud of will not actually wipe on this side of the Chamber.

My Supplementary Order Paper that I want to speak about is Supplementary Order Paper 126. It follows on from my colleague Denise Lee’s around the constitution of combined councils. It’s clause 14A, “Section 222AM amended (Constitution of combined councils)”. I don’t understand in this bill why the Minister must ensure that at least 50 percent but not more than 60 percent of members of the combined council are members appointed by the council. I think that this particular clause of the bill—I believe it’s actually very poorly crafted. It conflates the issue of appointments to combined councils. What it also does is it puts the council—should the council opt for between 50 percent and 60 percent, as soon as they go over that 50 percent mark we have an imbalance. We have an imbalance.

The Minister must ensure that combined councils are evenly balanced. That’s how organisations are run. There’s got to be an even balance on these councils. I believe that this particular clause 14A should actually be deleted from this bill. It’s not a good piece of legislation for this particular part. I think that the Minister would have too much say. I think that the Minister needs to stand up and answer why deleting clause 14A will be an issue for him. I don’t think it will be an issue. I think we must make sure that our combined councils, the polytechnics etc., the tertiary area will actually have their ability to be able to appoint evenly across their organisation for council members.

Obviously, he doesn’t really have faith. He wants to have some say in there, and I think that that’s very unfair. I think they’re very capable of being able to do this. I think it’s a waste of time. I would like to see this clause in the bill, clause 14A, deleted from this bill—not go back there. Give the kudos to the council, to the council members, to be able to do the right thing, to get the nice balance that they have always done in previous years. So I don’t know what the Minister thinks that he needs to actually figure out.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Kia orana to you. In the first and second readings of this bill I spoke predominantly about my great concern about some of the significant aspects of this bill, this Education Amendment Bill, such as the removal of national standards and also, effectively, the abolition of partnership schools. There is a huge amount in this bill, and as we go through the committee stage of the bill it is clear that this is fundamentally flawed legislation for which this Minister will be remembered, and history will judge him very poorly for it. I say this to the Minister: I have respect for him, but there are ideological decisions that are being reflected in just about every clause of this bill that are not what the public of New Zealand is asking for. They may well be what some of the union leaders have asked for, but they are certainly not what the people in my electorate and those in the electorates of my colleagues are hearing from our constituents.

Since we’re in the committee stage I want to commend some of my colleagues who are around me and behind me tonight for the very considered amendments they’ve put forward. And as other members have done, I want to ask the Minister, please, to take a call. It is good that he is here but he must respond to a number of the questions and the concerns that are being raised by him. If we look for a few moments at the fees-free regime, on one level that sounds very attractive. After all, who wouldn’t want to have the opportunity to enrol in a course of study that he or she might not be able to afford were it not for this policy? So on that level, it sounds attractive.

But, unfortunately, what this does is it creates an incentive for some people who are not really suited to a course of tertiary study to enrol, because, effectively, there is no consequence for making the wrong decision. I would have thought that it made more sense to create an incentive for commitment and achievement and application during the course of study. If you were going to introduce one year of fees-free, why not put it on the end of the course of study to say, “We recognise that over the course of study you’ve accumulated a student loan debt.”—and in some cases it’s quite significant.

Both of my children have substantial student loans. In fact, they are quite eye-watering, and I know that that’s true of many of their friends as well. Had they had an opportunity at the end of their course of study, after they had done well and passed all of their papers—not necessarily passed every paper but shown that they were really committed to the study—it would have sent a message about applying themselves. To have this policy applied at the final year—and it’s not just for university study; it’s also for trades courses and all sorts of things available through the polytechs—would have created at least the message that if you apply yourself and show that you are really making the most of your opportunity, we’ll reward you at that point. But, oh no—here we have something that sends an incentive at the beginning, which may be good for some but is certainly not good for all.

So I want to ask the Minister: how much fraud is he aware of in the tertiary education fees-free regime? Because I don’t think we’ve had an answer to that question, and yet New Zealanders would be very interested in hearing the answer, and they would expect the Minister to be able to tell them. So how much fraud is already apparent and has become known to the authorities in our tertiary education fees-free regime? Next comes the question to the Minister: how concerned is he personally about that issue? Is that sufficient for him to say, “Well, perhaps it’s time just to take a step back, to think again about whether we’re heading down the right path here.”, because I can assure him that there are many New Zealanders who do feel that this is something that should be looked at very carefully.

New Zealanders are forced to be very generous in supporting our tertiary students because of this particular policy. We were already very generous, because, on average, tertiary courses are subsidised to the effect of around about 75 percent. That was before this particular policy was introduced. While, again, that sounds pretty attractive, what we have to look at is the fact that the sons and daughters of people who are earning some of the highest incomes in this land are being subsidised by people on the minimum wage and benefits through the tax system, and there is something fundamentally wrong about that, I would have thought. Again, it’s a sort of one-size-fits-all approach to an issue where that is just inappropriate. So I would ask the Minister to comment on that as well. Why should the sons and daughters of people who are earning the figures of, say, a member of Parliament, a Cabinet Minister, a leading doctor, a specialist, a magistrate, a District Court judge—I’m showing my age in using that term. Why should people who are in a family of that sort receive the subsidy from the people in my electorate who are really struggling to make ends meet on the minimum wage? That is what is happening at the moment.

Now, one answer to that—and it’s an answer I accept—would be that this is a way of helping people to reach a level where they can support themselves and have a better life for themselves and for their families. That’s great—no argument with that. I don’t think anybody in this Chamber would argue with that, but the way in which it is being achieved is fundamentally flawed. And I hope that the Minister will explain why he thinks that is fair to the people who are doing it tough in our country at the moment.

Could I turn to commending two of the Supplementary Order Papers that, I think, in this area are particularly meritorious, because as we look at the fact that the wrong signals are being sent, another wrong signal is surely being sent about there being no consequences for fraud. Simeon Brown, the member for Pakuranga, has introduced Supplementary Order Paper 127, a very good Supplementary Order Paper. We spoke about it earlier, and I want to commend his comments and add my support to it, because what he is saying is: why should there be, in a particular clause, the phrase “without reasonable excuse” in respect of making a fraudulent declaration? Mr Brown’s amendment removes that phrase, as it’s a very serious offence. It’s not just an offence against legislation; it’s an offence against the taxpayers of this country. It is an offence against those people who, as I’ve mentioned, are doing it tough in our communities and earning the minimum wage. If we say there won’t even be a sanction for committing that sort of behaviour, then the law is, frankly, an ass, and I hope that Mr Brown’s Supplementary Order Paper therefore will achieve the support of members across the Chamber.

Let me also add my support to Supplementary Order Paper 132 in the name of Jo Hayes, which would see, in clause 15(2), the insertion, after new section 292A(4), of this provision: “ (4A) A person who commits an offence against subsection (3) will, on conviction, become ineligible to receive a loan interest write-off under section 137 of the Student Loan Scheme Act 2011 for the balance of their student loan.” Well, I would be fascinated to hear if any member opposite is going to argue against that very sensible amendment.

I am concerned that we are not hearing from members opposite. We have, at least, heard from the Green Party member, but we are not hearing from Labour members opposite, and I would like them to stand up and explain—if they’re not going to support Jo Hayes’ very sensible Supplementary Order Paper, why not? I say to those members opposite that they owe the public of New Zealand a very clear explanation, because why on earth should somebody who has defrauded the taxpayer, who has willingly and wilfully supplied totally inaccurate information, not face some sort of consequence? Nobody else, in any other area of life, would be able to get away with that sort of behaviour. Fraud is fraud. A false declaration if given wilfully and knowingly is a very serious offence, so I call on the Labour members opposite either to explain why they wouldn’t support that Supplementary Order Paper or just to get up and do it—give it their support.

So I look forward to taking calls later in this committee stage on some other aspects of the bill, but in this call I wanted to focus on those aspects related to our tertiary fees-free and loans policies, because they are serious. They haven’t had a lot of attention prior to now because there have been some very big issues that have dominated the first and second readings, but in the committee stage, members on this side of the Chamber are very concerned to get these finer points of the legislation right. There are ways that this bill could be improved. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues are listening. I look forward to their support for the Supplementary Order Papers that my colleagues are putting forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a good time to respond to a few of the issues that have been raised by members of the Opposition thus far. I’ll work backwards through those, perhaps, and start with the contribution from Tim Macindoe.

The first part of his contribution, or the first half of his speech, largely was an ideological argument against fees-free, which doesn’t actually relate to the bill, which, of course, is a very narrow and technical aspect of the implementation of the administration of fees-free. Now, I accept that the Opposition are ideologically opposed to fees-free, and we can have that argument on another day, but with regard to the specific provisions in the bill which are around the making of a declaration, the intention of these provisions is to make it easier for someone to make a declaration.

I utterly reject the claim that the member made, which is that there is no consequence for fraud. In fact, the bill creates a consequence for fraud. That is one of the purposes of the bill, and that’s exactly what it does when it creates an offence and a fine that goes with committing that offence. He did ask me how much fraud I’m aware of. None is the answer to that. I’ve not been informed of any fraud associated with the fees-free policy. This is about making compliance with the requirements of that easier. We do have systems in place to detect when people are making false declarations or false applications.

Just to pick up a couple of the other points that have been made—Simeon Brown, I think, continues to make the claim that charter schools are being closed. They are not being closed; they are transitioning into the public education system. The Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 50, that deals with transition measures responds to issues that were raised by those existing charter schools in the transition process. Now, not all of them agree with one another on these, and there was certainly some disagreement about that, but, actually, the intention of the bill is to remove the ideology of privatisation and deregulation from the school system that was introduced.

Now, I think Simeon Brown and Tim Macindoe both didn’t get the memo from Nikki Kaye about the teachers when they talked about our union mates, because it seems to me that the union mates—of course, these are teachers that they are talking about. On the one hand, the National Party is trying to cuddle up to them at the moment, so I am surprised that their ongoing attacks on teachers are continuing, in light of that. It does seem to be somewhat contradictory. The allegation is that we are giving teachers too much power over what happens in classrooms. Now, I think that we could give teachers a bit more power over what happens in classrooms, and that would probably have quite a positive effect on kids’ education, because, actually, these are people who have devoted their lives to educating kids, and they do actually know what they are talking about, as opposed to some of the contributions that we’ve had in the debate so far.

The final point that I wanted to respond to was Parmjeet Parmar’s question: without national standards, how will parents know how their kids are doing? Well, the requirement for national standards has been replaced with a requirement for schools to report to parents regularly and in plain English about the progress their children are making in all aspects of the curriculum. So it’s not just about literacy and numeracy. Actually, parents want to know how kids are doing across the board, and not just in literacy and numeracy, and there is a multiple range of tools that schools can use in order to give parents very accurate information—much more accurate information than they got through national standards, which research reports clearly demonstrated were neither national nor standard. So they were getting bogus information previously, and now they will actually get reliable information.

Now, just with regard to the various Supplementary Order Papers, I did do the Opposition the courtesy of reading them all and considering them all, which is something that the committee is not particularly accustomed to, because certainly for the nine years that I sat in Opposition, having tabled many Supplementary Order Papers myself, I don’t think Ministers in the previous Government ever troubled themselves to read them. But I read them and I considered them. Now, none of the Supplementary Order Papers put forward by the Opposition enhance the bill. Most of them express opposition to the bill, which is an understandable thing, and therefore seek to delete various parts of the bill, but, actually, they don’t improve the bill in any way. Many of them are inconsistent with the policy intention of the bill—i.e., trying to delete clauses in order to thwart the policy intention of the bill. But none of them—and I have considered them—in my view, enhance the bill, and therefore, certainly, the Government intends to vote against them.

I rise to speak on the Education Amendment Bill in this committee stage. I want to acknowledge the Minister of Education for addressing us in this committee, and I suggest that it would have been nice if he also took the time to address the students in the partnership schools, who very much have the view, Mr Hipkins, that their schools are being closed.

The Minister can stand up in Parliament and say that those schools aren’t being closed, but I have sat down with the students of Vanguard Military School and I have sat down with Nick Hyde, the leader of that school, and his very clear view is that the school that he established to transform the lives of young people at that school has been irrevocably changed by this Government. It will no longer remain in its current form, and the magic that allowed it to do great things for dozens of young people may well have been destroyed completely by the flexibility that is being taken away by this legislation and by the legislation that preceded it. So let us be very clear today about what is happening.

Now, I want in this contribution to first talk about the bit of the mishmash of amendments that we have in this bill. Of course, what happened for the Education and Workforce Committee, of which I am a member, was that we had one amendment bill come that we received submissions on in good faith and that we considered, and then we had the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) land. The SOPs, in fact, established this entire section relating to how partnership schools should treat their employees as they move to becoming designated character schools. Did the partnership schools who would be affected by those clauses have the opportunity to present to the committee and show their views on what impact they would have? No, they didn’t, and that is relevant.

I want to thank and call out and acknowledge Mark Patterson from New Zealand First, who joined National members of the committee—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: No, not quite right.

—in writing to the Business Committee. That’s exactly what happened, Tracey Martin. He signed a letter to the Business Committee outlining our shared frustration in the report-back date and the timetable for this bill, which meant that caucuses weren’t able to properly consider it and which led to a shortened process. I want to thank Mark Patterson, because it was a simple matter of what’s right and wrong in terms of parliamentary process, and we weren’t given ample time to consider this bill.

I would warn the Minister today that if there are unforeseen consequences with some of the amendments here relating to the way staff are treated, then be it on his head, because there wasn’t ample consideration of them. They were last-minute amendments and there are still real questions to be asked about them.

The second point I want to raise is about this whole issue of what this transition to designated character schools means for partnership schools, because we have this delightful suggestion that, actually, they will remain just as they were. I want to draw your attention to the amendment in clause 9A to section 156AA, which allows that a designated character school may “name a body that has a special affiliation with the school or has responsibility for the different character of the school:”. So partnership schools have had taken away their ability to have a governing body of the composition they choose running the school, leading the school, and deciding who teaches in the school, what hours it runs, and how funding is used, and, instead, what they’re allowed is that a body is allowed to be named that, actually, just has a special relationship. Somehow, the Minister thinks that that sop will be enough to maintain partnership schools in their form, and I think that it is beneath him to make such a claim for such a small and meaningless amendment.

We also, of course, in this bill have the question of national standards. Of course, the point that the Minister neglected to mention was that there is now no requirement for system-wide reporting on how children are achieving in schools. So while an individual child might get some progress about goodness knows what benchmark—it will depend on which school you’re at and which principal is in charge and what teacher is teaching as to what sort of information is conveyed—there is now a very real question that Treasury officials have raised with the Minister and that other officials have raised about how we, as a country, will track system-wide progress of students from one school to another. The Minister still, in this bill, hasn’t come up with amendments to replace that, and that is very disappointing.

In further contributions, I’m going to discuss a number of SOPs that I have brought to the House that I believe would improve this flawed bill, but before I do so, I do want to draw attention also to this question of fines for students who make a false statutory declaration in order to gain access to fees-free tertiary education. If there was ever an indication that the fees-free policy was rushed in in an ill-thought-through manner, it is this clause that seems to latterly realise that people might actually be prepared to take quite significant steps in order to get free tertiary education, that, in fact, free tertiary education could be worth thousands of thousands of dollars, and that the Minister might have an obligation to protect taxpayers from abuse of that.

It is disappointing that here we are, many months into the application of the fees-free policy, and only now is there going to be punishment for people with false statutory declarations. As previous members have raised, there is a real question about whether or not a $5,000 fine is sufficient. I want to draw your attention, for example, to the fact that someone going to aviation school might expect to spend up to $18,000 in fees in order to get their pilot’s licence. Well, weigh that up against a $5,000 fee and you might find that the incentives for people to make false statutory declarations remain, despite this amendment. But, most importantly, I’m interested in where this amendment came from, because we never had it addressed at select committee why this hadn’t been raised in earlier legislation and why it hadn’t come up earlier.

So my specific question to the Minister is: does he have any concerns right now that there are students who have made false statutory declarations in order to get fees-free tertiary education? If the answer to that question is yes, then New Zealand taxpayers deserve to know, because that is a gross abuse of public money. It is not something that should be countenanced, and it is something that we should have public knowledge of.

Of course, the Minister could have taken the opportunity in this bill to make other amendments to the fees-free policy. I make a regular practice of engaging with students in Wellington. Last night, in fact, I attended a pot-luck dinner with a number of students at Victoria University of Wellington, and the subject of fees-free tertiary education—as it does—came up. What these students said to me was “We just can’t understand why you would get it in first year, when everyone knows that’s the year when half of the people drop out. Really, if the Government wanted to help people out, why wouldn’t they be helping out the people who make it to the very end, who study hard and pass their courses? Why wouldn’t the Government help the people out who are actually from the homes that didn’t have the financial or material support? Why wouldn’t the Government help out the students who attend schools and have had teaching and circumstances that mean they don’t even have the grades to attend university?” Those questions were asked by the students. I looked them in the eyes and I said, “Those are good questions. You need to put them to the Minister.”

But, instead of debating those sorts of issues in the House today, we are debating the Education Amendment Bill, and it is, in summary, a bill that seeks to remove good progress in terms of the national standards sections and the partnership schools sections. It then puts in the requirements around statutory declarations for fees-free tertiary education, and then, of course, there are the issues relating to council composition.

I want to draw the committee’s attention to the fact that at the select committee we had wānanga submit to us, saying that they felt that the provisions around council composition were inappropriate for them, particularly because they didn’t want to have to have requirements around staff and student representatives because it was very important that they had iwi representation and tikanga-competent people. Those views were heard, and there have been subsequent amendments to the bill.

But what wasn’t responded to in a similar fashion were the concerns from Māori leaders, who came forward and said, “We have grave concerns that there are sections of this bill that represent a Treaty of Waitangi breach.” A question for the Minister today I have is: what consideration has he given to the potential that this bill re-entrenches a Treaty of Waitangi breach? What consideration has he given, or what advice has he received, about the potential Treaty of Waitangi implications of this piece of legislation? If he has had that advice, we in this House deserve to know, and members opposite deserve to know before they put their votes to it.

Finally, before I sit down—but I will rise again to speak on my SOPs—I want to just say to Chlöe Swarbrick, if you’re prepared to listen to 900 people submitting from the Tertiary Education Union, what about the more than 1,000 students at the partnership schools, who have spoken very clearly—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to take another call on this legislation. I just want to commend the challenge that Nicola Willis put to Chlöe Swarbrick to explain to the committee how she is prepared to listen to the 900 or so people who signed a petition through the Tertiary Education Union, and not the over 1,000 students and young people who are studying at our partnership schools and their families and the lives which they are changing and impacting. So I think that challenge also should be put to the Minister, Chris Hipkins, today, as well.

I’d like to take a moment to speak in support of my Supplementary Order Paper 122, which amends clause 9 of the bill. I know the Minister has sort of tried to explain, with a broad brush, that he doesn’t agree with a range of these Supplementary Order Papers, but he didn’t actually go into any detail. He simply just said, “Oh, look, I don’t agree with these and I’ll just go throw them in the bin.” So that’s essentially what he’s done.

So what this Supplementary Order Paper seeks to do is, essentially, protect the intent of what he’s tried to say that he’s doing for our partnership schools. He said, “We’re not closing them down. We’re letting them continue.” But what this actually tries to do is put some action to the words that he’s tried to use in explaining this to the public, which, I can tell the Minister, the public aren’t buying.

But, anyway, let’s get to this Supplementary Order Paper. So there are three things. The first thing it does is that it ensures that “The establishment board of trustees for a new State school”—which these schools will be transitioned to; closed down and then restarted as—“will be made up of the board of the corresponding and closing partnership school”. Now, the reason for that is to ensure that the intent and the purpose and the people who make up that partnership school—the purpose of it; who are the driving force behind what that partnership school is all about—are able to continue, and will be the same people as at the closing partnership school. They will be exactly the same people.

That ensures that there is that continuity which is required and which will allow those schools to actually transition, rather than close down and start as something new. What the Minister’s trying to do is he’s trying to say, “Well, we’re just going through this transitionary process.” Well, he’s actually closing these schools down and restarting them under a different model with a different board of trustees, with a different structure, with different rules, and a whole range of different things. So this, essentially, means this provides for a smoother transition for those schools.

The second is: “In the event a designated character school is established to replace a closing partnership school … the construct of an alternative constitution would retain the option of appointing no Ministry of Education nominee to the designated character school’s governance”. And this is to ensure that that partnership school, which will then be transitioned, or closed down and opened again, would remain and retain its independence and allow it to be able to continue to pursue the purpose that it has.

Now, I ask the Minister to explain why he feels the need to interfere with the purpose and the direction of these schools. The results that they’ve had speak for themselves. The lives they’ve changed speak for themselves. The ethos that these people bring, the way that they engage with these young people and engage with students who would otherwise be disengaged and would become statistics later in life—these are the type of students that these schools are re-engaging and are getting into our education system and turning their lives around. So I challenge him: why does he need to mess with their structure if they’re doing such a great job already?

The third part of this Supplementary Order Paper 122 is around “State schools established in the place of partnership schools [would] retain the ability to employ staff on individual employment agreements outside of any teachers’ collective agreement.” That’s what they can do now. Why can’t the Minister allow these schools to be able to employ teachers on the conditions that they are on? We heard the big rally cries by the Government where they said there are going to be teachers in these schools who aren’t registered. This is not talking about unregistered teachers; this is talking about teachers, and is simply allowing them to be employed under an individual employment agreement outside of the teachers’ collective agreement. There’s no problem with that. Or is it simply because the unions are trying to ask for more power? We on this side say the unions don’t need that power. This can be done differently.

Look, I’m very pleased to speak on this bill, but, firstly, can I just, though, take a moment to acknowledge all of those children and the families of those children who have been at partnership schools, which are some of the most successful schools in New Zealand, that have been terminated by the Minister of Education. He is driving through a piece of legislation that will remove a model of which the facts are very simple.

Firstly, iwi leaders are opposed to this. This Government has talked a lot about how much they care about Māori education. People like Sir Toby Curtis, people like Dame Tariana Turia, and people like Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi—all of them have opposed this, especially when there is a Waitangi Tribunal claim currently being processed. This Government is moving, ignoring iwi leaders, ignoring the families, and ignoring these children, and pushing through this legislation and ignoring the Waitangi Tribunal.

The other thing that I would like to say is on those videos from those children. The facts are, again, that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education, post the election, have not bothered once—not bothered once—to go and visit these partnership schools, and they have been terminated, and now this legislation is going through which removes the model. Many of those children have had really tough backgrounds. Many of the sponsors have worked for many years in education, doing an incredible job. So it is a very sad day for New Zealand. That is why the National Party will bring back partnership schools. We will expand the model. We will provide opportunities for children with incredibly complex needs, and that’s why we oppose this legislation in terms of partnership schools.

The second part of this legislation that we oppose is, ultimately, around accountability of achievement. We all believe in this House that, actually, what every parent wants to know is the progress of their child. But what we also understand—or most of us on this side of the House understand—is that, in order to be able to be confident of a nationwide picture of achievement, it is important to have information reported back to the centre, to the Ministry of Education, so that we can actually target some of our most vulnerable children who are in schools and so that we know where there are major numeracy and literacy issues. What the Government did—again, it’s part of their ideological agenda; it’s part of what they do in terms of bad process—was, late last year, instead of consulting with the million parents out there about what they think in terms of reporting and school reports, they scrapped national standards, and now what this bill is doing is making sure that any reference to national standards is gone from law.

The question that I have for the Minister is why didn’t the Minister consider consulting with the million parents before he amended the guidelines last year? Why is it now that we have a situation where legislation is going through and he isn’t confident that we’re going to have individual reporting back to the centre, to the Ministry of Education? How is it that he is confident that we will not be the laughing stock of the world in terms of not having a nationwide picture of achievement at an individual school level? Why is he confident of that? Why did he do it at the end of last year—again, without that consultation of parents? That is, again, why the National Party opposes this bill.

We want to work cross-party. We believe in a system of progression. I was the Minister, actually, that put that decision through. But instead of working across the House, instead of accepting that we don’t want to have a ping-pong between National and Labour in education, and instead of working cross-party, this Minister not only got rid of partnership schools by terminating the contracts but also pushed this legislation through despite huge opposition from parents and families and many iwi leaders but also has now removed every reference to national standards and hasn’t put something to replace it with in terms of basic accountability of our education system.

So I would like the Minister to stand up and talk to this House about why he doesn’t believe that there should be that basic accountability around our education system and information that comes to the centre, to the Ministry of Education, so that we know where we need to put additional resource for some of our most vulnerable children. And I ask the Minister to do that, again, on the back of the fact that some of our most vulnerable children in New Zealand, who have been at partnership schools, are missing out as a result of this law.

Nikki Kaye claims that the removal of national standards would make us the laughing stock of the world. I think what the world potentially is laughing at is the fact that subsequent to introducing national standards, the achievement of New Zealand children declined in international studies, because they clearly didn’t work. They weren’t national, and they weren’t standard.

Nikki Kaye then claims that we didn’t consult about the removal of national standards. I can give her an absolute guarantee that there was a lot more consultation about the removal of national standards than there was about the introduction of them, because they were introduced under urgency without any select committee process at all. We at least had the decency to put it through a full six-month select committee process in order to remove those national standards.

Basically, Nicola Willis and Nikki Kaye both repeated many messages that we’ve already heard repeatedly through this debate, which, effectively, trash the schools that are going to be replacing charter schools. I think they should take care, because if they do care about the children who attend those, then trashing the reputation of the schools that will open at the beginning of next year and saying that they are not going to be the same and they’re not going to be able to deliver quality education for the kids in the way they have been in the past isn’t going to be in the best interests of those kids and of those schools. So I’d encourage them to think again about that particular approach.

With regard to Nicola Willis’ claim that the Supplementary Order Paper was not given to the select committee in time for there to be adequate consideration, that’s simply not true. What the committee chooses to do with that, and the fact that they chose whether or not to hear submissions, is a matter for the committee.

With regard to the claim both Nicola Willis and Nikki Kaye made that removing national standards will mean no system-wide monitoring, again, that’s a complete fiction. There was system-wide monitoring for national standards, and there’ll be system-wide monitoring after national standards. In fact, it will be genuinely reliable and it will be robust, unlike national standards, which study after study showed was neither national nor standard. So trying to say that there was a comparison between school A and school B using national standards was nonsense, because we know that the subjective judgments that school A and B were using in order to assess national standards were often different, and so the same child would be assessed differently by different schools. National standards were a fiction. They didn’t live up to the label on the tin, and that is one of the reasons why we removed those.

Finally, the other point—which, again, I’ve already made several times—is that there has been no evidence of fraud with regard to the implementation of fees-free. Most of the arguments being raised by the opposition are about the fees-free policy itself. That is not what this bill deals with; it deals, quite narrowly, with the offence provision for fraud. There is no evidence of fraud; this is a precautionary measure. The measure is here, first of all, to make it easier to comply with the fees-free requirements for a declaration and, second of all, to introduce an offence if there was any evidence of fraud—and as I’ve indicated, there hasn’t been. So it’s about simply safeguarding the public’s interest.

I just want to make a couple of points in response to the Minister of Education’s comments. The first point is I would like the Minister to consider releasing to the people of New Zealand the time line that he gave us around that Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that went into the select committee. The reality is our committee ended up scrapping with other Labour members to be able to even let the partnership schools know that this SOP had been put into the committee. So that’s the first point. It was completely rushed, it was something that was going to affect the lives of staff members, and it was going to affect the way that these schools ran. The process was absolutely appalling, and I challenge the Minister to release that time line so that New Zealanders can actually see exactly what that process was.

The second thing is I completely object to the characterisation that the Minister has raised that somehow on this side of the Chamber we are trashing the designated character schools. We are not doing that. We are pointing out that under the model that there was in terms of partnership schools, it was a model that was successful. It was successful. We know that because there was an independent evaluation by Martin Jenkins—there were several reports—and it not only showed there were great things happening in terms of children with complex needs; it showed a lift in achievement with many of these children. It showed incredibly good things in terms of both student achievement and staff morale.

So our point is we can stand in this House and say that model was working and that model was successful, and, on the other hand, we can say we are very hopeful for the designated character schools but acknowledge exactly what many of these schools have said in the select committee which is that they won’t have the flexibility of funding, they won’t have the flexibility of teaching resources, and they won’t have the flexibility of management. We are absolutely capable of distinguishing between what was a great model and then what is a model that is going to be very different for these schools. So I absolutely object to the member characterising that somehow we are trashing the designated character schools, because we are not doing that.

The third point that I want to raise is around this issue of nationwide achievement. Again, the question I have for the Minister is that—it is correct that he put through a change to the guidelines around national standards last year. He did not consult with a million parents on that. He did that last year before this legislation came through the House. That is an absolute fact. It is an absolute fact.

The second point that I want to make is that he has not clearly articulated, and that’s why he’s got an advisory group—one of the many, I think there are 15 now—that is looking at how they might have additional reporting. He has not put a system of replacement in there. Again, we have said we were quite happy to move to a system of progression. I know this because I put a Cabinet paper through that said, “Let’s move from national standards to a system of progression.” But do you know what we acknowledged? We acknowledged several things. Firstly, in order to be able to support schools and not have chaos—I’ve received the many emails from principals and teachers around New Zealand, some of which think they’ll still keep national standards, some of which don’t know exactly what their system will be in the future but they know that parents want national standards—you need to transition a system through.

So the smart thing to do would have been to do what that Cabinet paper said last year, which is to invest the tens of millions of dollars in ensuring that the progress and consistency tool was up to scratch, to invest in other curriculum resources, and to agree with the National Party, or other people in Parliament, on what a decent system of reporting would be. That would have been the intelligent way to go about this, but also the thing that would have meant that many other teachers and parents out there could have had confidence in some kind of cross-party agreement around parental reporting. Instead, what the Minister did was he scrapped national standards via the advisory guideline last year and this legislation is cleaning that up, and it’s been a sham of a select committee process when he knows that that decision was made last year.

So I did want to address those three issues: that issue of the fact that National are very supportive of what designated character schools are doing, but we do believe the partnership school model was very successful; secondly, we absolutely stand by our position that is there needs to be accountability around parental reporting and the data and the nationwide picture of achievement; and thirdly, we totally object to the process that that Minister created around the select committee and the SOP, because it affects a whole lot of schools.

I move, That the question be now put.

Kia ora, Mr Chair, and thank you very much. I am outraged that the senior Government whip would be taking a closure motion at this point in a debate on such a significant topic.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Members have the right to do that. It is the sole decision of the Chair—

Mr—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, the member will turn his attention to the bill, to Part 1.

Mr Chair, I just want to assure you that in no way was I questioning your decision; I was simply pointing out that I’m outraged that the senior whip was trying to do that, because this is a very important measure. This is going to affect the lives of some of our vulnerable young people. This is going to have a major impact on the education system in this country, and the very least that the Government should do is engage in this debate. I do acknowledge that the Minister has taken a couple of calls, and I appreciate that. He didn’t answer all of the questions that were put to him, but he certainly did respond to some of the matters that have been raised. I also thank the Green member Chlöe Swarbrick, who has taken a call.

What else have we heard from members opposite other than that one closure motion? Absolutely nothing. There are teachers over on that side of the Chamber. The Associate Minister of Education Tracey Martin has been here for much of the night. She’s been chirping away. We’ve heard lots of interjections; most of them have been difficult to decipher, but we certainly know it’s been her making the noise. So I want to ask the Associate Minister: since she is so keen to interject, why won’t she take a call? It’s not as if she has no interest in this matter; she is an Associate Minister of Education. Surely she should be able to defend this legislation.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): And the debate is not about her participating in the debate; it’s about Part 1 of the Education Amendment Bill and the member should turn his attention to it.

Mr Chair, I do want to ask the Associate Minister of Education what she would say to the parents, to the whānau, to the tamariki who are currently enrolled in partnership schools. That is very much part of this section of the debate. When they can point to such significant evidence of their success, why does the Associate Minister claim that she knows best in telling them that the model that they have developed and proven to be successful is not in the best interests of those children? All of the evidence suggests to the contrary.

That Associate Minister’s party recently voted to entrench the Māori seats. Now, how does the Associate Minister of Education reconcile that clear contradiction of New Zealand First’s long-held, clearly articulated policy to the contrary—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Why are you talking about me?

—and how will she now tell her supporters—is the Associate Minister denying that her party recently voted to entrench the Māori seats? That’s exactly what that party did with Rino Tirikatene’s bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): And the member, again, needs to come to this bill not the other bill.

I’m trying to point out the total inconsistency in the Associate Minister’s position on issues that are relevant to this bill. She is now ignoring the clear evidence of widespread support for partnership schools especially in the regional communities of New Zealand that her party has spent at least the last year telling us that they are championing.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: That’s rubbish.

Well, talk is cheap; the action speaks volumes to the contrary. When did the Associate Minister of Education decide to take her instruction from the unions on education matters, because that certainly wasn’t the approach that her party signalled in their education election policies last year? I listened to New Zealand First candidates in my area giving very different ideas. Suddenly, however, she is happy to let the lead Minister of Education completely dominate all the decision-making. She has capitulated on matters that should be important to her party. She should be prepared to differentiate herself from the Labour Party on this matter, because these are things that matter in the lives of young people.

Partnership schools have made an enormous contribution in their short time of existence—for the better—for tamariki the length and breadth of this country. I’m incredibly proud of that; I’m incredibly supportive of that. I’m supportive of it first and foremost because those were young people who had fallen through the cracks, who were already on the path to very grim futures, and those partnership schools have picked them up, turned them around, given them a sense—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chair, for this opportunity. I would like to start by responding to the call the Minister of Education took earlier. So, yes, we are grateful that the Minister is taking calls. The Minister actually said that he has gone through all the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) put forward by us, which is really good. But, with due respect to the Minister, I want to say to the Minister that he might have read them but he hasn’t understood them, because, firstly, he said that about reporting—yes, there is another way of reporting put in place, which will be done twice a year or something like that. But what we mean is something that is sensible, something that means knowing the place where the child is in the big picture. So if the report is going to read that, yep, your child can read but can also improve, what does that mean? Can the child read or can the child not read? That is what a parent wants to know. Just getting a paper twice a year or thrice a year is not helpful.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: At what level? At what age? What reading age?

We need to be able to measure their learning against something, and that is what national standards did. The member, if she wants to take a call, she should actually stand up and take a call. So, yes, take your time and make your point in your time.

So, coming back to my point, what parents want to know is how their child is doing in comparison to the whole system. They don’t want to receive a piece of paper that they have to sit there and interpret and understand where their child is in the whole education system. Because that means a lot—reading, writing, and maths mean a lot for a child’s future.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Science? Arts?

Yeah, for arts. For any kind of trade, there has to be some reading skills, there has to be some writing skills, there has to be some kind of maths skills. I don’t think anyone can be a successful tradesperson without knowing how to read, how to write, or having some basic maths skills. If that is what this Government wants to promote, we are definitely not supporting that. Of course we want to see that national standards are kept.

The second point I want to make is the Minister said that our SOPs are saying that there are no consequences. We are not saying that there are no consequences if someone is misrepresenting—that is clause 15. We have two SOPs and members on this side have already spoken to those SOPs—SOP 128 and SOP 127. SOP 128 is Denise Lee’s SOP and SOP 127 is Simeon Brown’s SOP. Today, the Minister said there are consequences. We know that the consequences are there in the legislation, but what we are saying is that the consequences are not enough. That’s not going to actually help people, people that would feel tempted to take this opportunity to misrepresent and take advantage of something that is freely available. That’s what we are saying. We are saying that the offence that is in clause 15(4), “a fine not exceeding $5,000.”, is not enough.

The other SOP, which was about removing “without reasonable excuse”. Why we are saying to remove “without reasonable excuse” is that if there is this clause the way it is, that is, keeping the wording “without reasonable excuse” in the clause, that means the person is misrepresenting willingly, knowingly. If that person is willingly and knowingly misrepresenting, then there should be severe consequences. The consequences that are listed here in clause 15 are not going to deter anyone from taking advantage of this free system that is available, at the cost of $2.8 billion of taxpayers’ money. So this is taxpayers’ money; it cannot be taken lightly. There can be temptations by people. If the Minister wishes to keep “without reasonable excuse”, then the Minister should take a call to explain why he thinks that, when that person is convicted, a fine of up to $5,000 is going to be enough.

In other legislation we have seen there are fines of up to $55,000, and this is along with the possibility of imprisonment. So this is a serious fraud, if somebody is misrepresenting and taking advantage of the education system at the cost of taxpayers’ money. If that person actually goes through with it, the benefit for that person will be huge. If that person is caught, if it is going to be just up to $5,000—it could be $50, it could $100, it could be $1,000—that will mean nothing. So the Minister needs to put a system in place where people know that if they try to take advantage of the system that is freely available, then there are going to be some serious consequences.

So no one is saying that there are no consequences listed in this legislation; what we are saying is that the consequences listed in this legislation are not enough, and we want to make sure that people are not committing fraudulent activity and we want to make sure that the consequences are serious enough so that they realise—[Time expired]

I move, That the question be now put.

Oh, thank you, Mr Chair, because I’m very keen to make a contribution to this debate. I want to speak to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 109, in the name of Erica Stanford. It makes quite a significant change to clause 18. When I go to the bill and have a look at clause 18 and look at inserted clause 12A of new Part 6 of schedule 1 of the principal Act, it says “Transitional arrangements for employees of specified partnership schools …”—the SOP inserts a new clause 12AB.

I do congratulate Erica Stanford for this clause, because it’s a very well-thought-out humanitarian type of clause which is for the benefit of the children of partnership schools as they transition into designated partnership schools, which in itself is a travesty. That is something that’s been well canvassed by members standing up in this committee tonight and at the Education and Workforce Committee, as flawed as that process was, thanks very much to this Government not allowing people to have their say on something which is so very important to our children in New Zealand. But Erica Stanford has stood up for those children, as have a number of other colleagues on this side of the Chamber.

So if I have a look at this new clause 12AB—“Transitional arrangements for funding of specified partnership school …: The funding arrangements that existed under the terms of the contract of a specified partnership school … that is, or is to be, replaced by a specified State school must be carried over to that specified State school for up to 5 years.” Well, how sensible is this SOP? Because what it means is, for those children who are already in those partnership schools, they will have the certainty and the security of knowing—well, they won’t know, hopefully, because they shouldn’t have to bother themselves with details like this, but we do and we should and we are. They will have the comfort and security, and certainly their parents and supporters and caregivers will, that the funding is in place for the next five years, so that if the 13-year-old child is in one of these schools which is transitioning, then they will know that until they leave the school at the age of 18 or earlier, that level of funding that is there to support them in their learning will be there for them for the time of their school learning.

One would hope that in the time of that five years, upon the passage of this SOP, there will be a change of Government and we will take a different approach to those children in our education system who need that extra support which has been provided by partnership schools.

So I want to commend the member for this SOP. It is a humanitarian approach, which I have to say is sadly lacking on behalf of this Government, on behalf of this Minister—Chris Hipkins—who has been deaf, dumb, and blind to the impacts and the implications that will be brought about by the passage of this Education Amendment Bill. This Minister has been concerned not so much with the welfare of these children but, instead, has been absolutely concerned by the look—by the look—of partnership schools. How dare there be partnership schools in New Zealand’s education system, which are providing an outstanding support to those children who need their care. How dare they, in the eyes of this Government—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Whangaruru.

—and the eyes of this Minister and this Associate Minister, who’s had a lot to say but most of it has been unintelligible this evening—how dare they?

So I want to congratulate this SOP in the name of Erica Stanford, and there are others on the Table. There are other SOPs that myself and other members who care about children, who care about children’s education, are very keen to pick up and speak to. But in this debate on Part 1 of the Education Amendment Bill, just simply inserting, in clause 18, new clause 12AB, transitional arrangements providing security of funding for the next five years surely must give rise to a sigh of relief from the teachers, from the parents, from the supporters, and from the caregivers of those children in New Zealand in those partnership schools which are being forced to transition through to specified partnership schools; this must be giving them hope that on one side of the House there are people who care about the children.

As a former Minister of Education, I want to particularly focus in on clause 9 in Part 1 and question the Minister of Education on the ideology behind getting rid of the charter schools and replacing them with this notion of special designated character schools. My concern is that the election and the rhetoric from the Government since has been dominated by this notion that New Zealand needs to do better with our disadvantaged young people and to provide them with more opportunities in education. There’s absolutely no question from this side of the House on that objective, but the part that I find extraordinary, and that’s been so well highlighted by my colleague Nikki Kaye, is that the very schools that are making such a material difference to the lives of our most disadvantaged children are those charter schools, and yet for purely ideological reasons—and let’s not be cute about it. Who’s funded the Labour Party has resulted in them wanting to change—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Oh, hey!

Well, the member from New Zealand First interjects. Tell me I’m not correct that the teacher unions are the paymaster for the Minister in the chair and that as a pay-off, want to get—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Those allegations by the member speaking—the longest-serving member in the House—are completely out of order and unacceptable. I take offence to them and, of all the people in the committee, I didn’t think the National Party would be talking about where money comes from today. [Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’m on my feet.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s outrageous.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m on my feet—OK? Let’s not get too excited over what’s happening in the Chamber right now. I would say to the Hon Dr Nick Smith, though, that I think he has crossed that line and that he should withdraw that comment.

I withdraw, but I challenge the Minister: can he please give me a logical explanation as to why we would want to advance legislation that nails charter schools that even his own parliamentary colleagues accept are making a material difference in the lives of those New Zealand children that are doing the very best and which need to improve. You see, I heard Willie Jackson prior to the election championing the cause of charter schools, I heard Kelvin Davis championing the cause, and I genuinely believed that they were here to advance the cause, particularly of young Māori, and what we were seeing in these charter schools making such a massive difference in children’s lives.

Here’s the other part: why is it that the Prime Minister has refused to visit any of the charter schools when she says that she cares so much about our kids? I was Minister of Education, and I was repeatedly challenged by members opposite at every single school, and I did close some schools for non-performance and some that didn’t have sufficient roll to be justified. I visited every single one of them. Why is it that the Prime Minister, who’s wanted to wear her heart on her sleeve around the issue of our disadvantaged children, has not been prepared to visit the very schools that are being changed by provisions in Part 1 of this bill and is compromising the education of those children who we on this side of the House want to give opportunity to and want to break the cycle of disadvantage?

I make no apologies for saying that the reason the Government is doing this has nothing to do with the welfare of children. It has nothing to do with “Education” in the title of this bill. It has nothing to do with trying to address some of the social challenges that our country has. It has everything to do with the association of the current Government and their close relationship with the teacher unions, who only see a single model of education, even where that fails kids. That’s why members on this side of the House take such strong objection to the provisions in this bill that actually are bad for children and actually are going to make it more difficult for New Zealand to find the solutions, to find the innovation, and to do the work that’s going to make the difference for those children’s education that this Parliament owes more than anyone for.

So I just want to hear from the Minister in the chair: give me a good reason. If it’s not because of the close association with the teacher unions, give me one good reason why we should be getting rid of these schools and imposing these extra constraints on them when the record is quite clear that they are giving a better result for our children.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. You know, the funny thing about partnership schools around the world is that they are not the preserve of centre-right parties like the National Party—typically not the preserve; they are actually institutions advanced by progressive parties—or, at least, parties that like to call themselves progressive. I have not taken a call yet in this Education Amendment Bill debate, in either the first reading or the second reading, and I just want to put it on the record that partnership schools in New Zealand will go down as progressive institutions of achievement. It doesn’t matter what the Labour Party says about them and it doesn’t matter the defamation that Tracey Martin can fling about—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Ha, ha, ha, ha!

—and it doesn’t matter the insulting things that Tracey Martin—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: That member should know about misleading statements. If anybody knows, that member knows.

Well, that member laughs, but it is a matter of record that Tracey Martin stood in this House and compared charter schools to what people send their dogs to—what people send their animals to. It is a matter of record that Tracey Martin likened partnership schools to dog kennels. I just want to put that on the record. [Interruption] My colleagues are saying, “We were there.”, and she’s gone all quiet again because she knows that that—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: That member’s not misleading the House again, is he?

—deeply defamatory and insulting remark—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: That member’s not misleading the House?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The Hon Tracey Martin will withdraw that comment. It is wrong to accuse someone of misleading the House.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Hmm, hang on. I’ll think about it.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Ah—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: I withdraw and apologise.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, you do not make a comment to the Chair like that. You stand, you withdraw and apologise, and that’s it.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: I withdraw and apologise.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. It is a matter of record that the associate education Minister did that. It is a matter of record that she defamed and insulted these partnership schools and the teachers and the students who go there. My colleagues and I, unlike Ministers and members opposite, have actually gone and visited these partnership schools. Anyone just needs to take a look at the speeches given by Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford and our spokesperson for education, Nikki Kaye, to realise how passionate they are on behalf of the students and teachers and principals of these great schools.

These are not institutions advanced by centre-right parties. The biggest advocate for partnership schools—or “charter schools”, as they call them in the United States—is not Donald Trump and it’s not the Republican Party; it was President Barack Obama. It was President Barack Obama who started his State of the Union speech in 2012 by promising a massive expansion of partnership schools around the United States. Why? For exactly the same reasons they were introduced by the National Party and the ACT Party in New Zealand: because traditional schools don’t meet the needs of all students, because there’s a cohort of students for whom traditional schooling has failed; there’s a cohort of children for whom the innovation and flexibility provided by partnership schools, which have the ability to wrap themselves around individual students and tailor their educational offering to those particular needs that they have—they know that that works. Barack Obama promised the expansion of partnership schools, or charter schools, throughout the United States for exactly the same reasons that we did, and it is, frankly, reprehensible that we are standing in the House tonight debating in committee stage a bill that will get rid of schools that do so much good.

It just is worth reflecting on that: we have a small number of schools, set up with the best of intentions, doing a good job for students who so desperately need them. It’s just worth reflecting on that. These are not students who don’t need assistance, like the students who get the fees-free. These are students whom the Labour Party purports to represent. These are the poor, the downtrodden, and the indigent; the students who have struggled the most at school, from the hardest backgrounds, from the least well-off families in our country. Go to South Auckland Middle School and look at the students who go there, and don’t tell me that they don’t need assistance. These are the pupils the Labour Party say they represent, and they’ve come down here and rammed a bill through that does away with the very institution that is trying to allow these kids to escape their backgrounds.

💬 Denise Lee: How does that add up?

“How does that add up?” says Denise Lee. I don’t know how members opposite look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

Look, I want to pick up on Chris Bishop’s speech, and I want to just remind us for a moment of some of the moments that we had in the Education and Workforce Committee: Sir Toby Curtis turning to the committee and saying, “Could the Prime Minister show some aroha?” I do want to address the Prime Minister this evening. I want to address her because she made comments to our previous Leader of the Opposition, Bill English, to the effect that there could be a pathway for these partnership schools if they followed the curriculum, if they had comparable funding, and if they had registered teachers. Here is the reality: these schools were following the curriculum. Many schools in New Zealand don’t have registered teachers; they have limited authority to teach. These schools had comparable funding. But the reality is not only did the Prime Minister not follow up on that commitment but also she never turned up. She morally failed these children. That is the truth here. She did not visit the schools, she did not keep that commitment publicly, and that is not only it.

I look at the Ministry of Education’s regulatory impact statement, and I object to it. It says that the Labour Party campaigned on getting rid of partnership schools. That is not true. Where were Kelvin Davis and Willie Jackson, who both publicly, prior to the election, said that they believed in partnership schools? In fact, Kelvin Davis said that he would resign. This regulatory impact statement by the Ministry of Education is false. It’s wrong. The reality is that not only has the Prime Minister failed these children but also a number of these processes around getting rid of partnership schools have been completely wrong, incorrect, and legally improper, and I want to talk you through them.

The Minister of Education put the Crown potentially at legal risk by announcing that they would all be gone anyway before he had terminated the contracts—process error number one. The second thing is that, for months on end, these schools did not know what their future was and they were left in a situation of limbo. The next question that I have for the Minister of Education is: not only has this been a moral failure; it has been a fiscal failure, and I want the Minister to front up. I want him to front up on the exact compensation cost for these schools, and also the running costs, because I tell you what I’m hearing: I’m hearing that, actually, there were a number of agreements made by the Minister and the Ministry of Education that are not being upheld. So not only have these schools been terminated but also there’s been some deals behind the scenes that are not being honoured.

I hope that there is a journalist listening. I hope that there are some journalists that will try and uncover that and ask the question: is it the case that not only have these schools been terminated but we’ve got legislation being rushed through when there’s a Waitangi Tribunal claim being opposed by a number of iwi leaders, and also that it might be that the Crown is not living up to its deal in terms of some of the things that it offered these schools to become designated character?

I would argue that not only is it a moral failure but it is a fiscal failure. Is it $10 million? Is it $20 million? Is it $30 million? What is the cost of the ideological drive of this Government to shut down schools that are helping some of our most vulnerable children? Well, we want to know, and we don’t want this legislation to go through. We want the Minister of Education to stand up now in this House and tell us what is the cost of that, particularly at a time when we’ve got the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education saying to the teachers that there’s no more money—there’s no more money. But there’s billions of dollars of surplus and there’s been a whole lot of money for diplomats, but there’s no more money for teachers. So why can’t the Minister of Education then confirm exactly how much it has cost the Crown, the Government, the people of New Zealand to close these schools? How much has it cost? We want to know that. It’s a moral failure, it’s a fiscal failure, and it’s a legal failure.

I want to deal with this Waitangi Tribunal claim. I do have Supplementary Order Papers that try to deal with this, and I would love the Minister to tell this committee why it is that he needs to push this legislation through this week. Why can’t he meet with Sir Toby Curtis? Why can’t he meet with Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi? Why can’t he meet with Lance O’Sullivan? Why can’t he meet with these people? Why can’t he meet with the claimants that have put in a number of iwi leaders to discuss the issues at hand? Why does the legislation need to go through now? Why won’t he do that? I have put amendments which, effectively, say, “How about we give the respect to these iwi leaders and let that process happen?” That is the right thing to do. Forget the moral and the fiscal failure that has already happened. Why are we pushing this legislation through at a time where you have this Waitangi Tribunal claim?

Finally, I just want to finish on national standards. Again, as I’ve said before, ultimately, there are a few policies that would affect parents so much, but something that involves reporting about their child’s achievement, you would think that there would be huge consultation on that. Well, I have just again gone back to the regulatory impact statement, and it’s really clear. It says national standards were, effectively, scrapped on 13 December of last year by this Minister, and, again, in that regulatory impact statement it says there was no systematic stakeholder consultation. So again I make this point to the Minister: not only is there a moral and fiscal failure around partnership schools but he has morally failed parents on national standards.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am going to take another call, but I am going to let members of the committee of the whole House know that we’ve had several contributions and the contributions around partnership schools have been well traversed, and I haven’t heard any new arguments from members. Members might want to turn their attention to other parts of Part 1 or come up with new arguments.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate the chance to take this call. It is just my second call tonight. I spoke on my first Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), and I intend to speak now on my second SOP, and it is not on the subject of partnership schools. But I would want to start, if you’ll indulge me, Mr Chair, by using just a quick Niuean greeting, because it is Niue Language Week, and that’s Fakatonu Fono Taane, which hopefully says, “Mr Speaker”. Ha, ha!

One of the drawbacks, of course, of the committee of the whole House stage is that you’re up on your feet and you hope that you can talk following someone else so that there is a theme, and a definitive and very undergirded theme, but that doesn’t always happen. It’s been a good passage of time since my colleague Simeon Brown spoke on his SOP 127, and I’m going to just make a couple of remarks on that before I head into my SOP 128. Now, of course, they are on the topic of the penalties, I guess, and the newly inserted and created penalties for those who would wish to do something untoward in regard to fees-free tertiary criteria and if they choose to—and they shouldn’t, but if they choose to—commit an offence of a false representation.

The SOP in Simeon Brown’s name which seeks to amend clause 15 would ask to remove the phrase “, without reasonable excuse,” from the new section 292A(3). So we don’t think that the court should have discretion to decide whether or not a person who has committed the offence of false representation has a reasonable excuse or not. That’s just stating something very obvious. But it is very obvious, because there is no reasonable excuse for committing an offence. There never has been and there never should be. The fees-free eligibility criteria are clearly outlined as part of the application process, so where is the excuse in not knowing what is clearly outlined?

If you go and look on the Government’s fees-free website, it is there in plain English and black and white for everyone to see. You should never be in doubt whether you are sure or unsure about meeting eligibility criteria; it’s there in plain language for all to see. Now, if that be the case—switching now to my SOP 128—in clause 15(2), I’d like to suggest that we replace subsection (4) of new section 292A with the following words: “A person who commits an offence against subsection (3) is liable on conviction to a fine of the higher of—(a) $5,000;”—and that’s, of course, what we see in the current wording—“or (b) the amount of money gained from false representation.”

Now, this is an interesting point. Perhaps $5,000 is actually not enough. In this case, perhaps committing an offence and receiving a fine of $5,000 is nowhere near the sum total of what someone gained from false representation monetarily. If that’s the case, then why are we not sending an incredibly strong signal? And if the Labour-led Government saw fit to put in a new offence in the first place, why not make that a very strong and very clear signal that it’s not just one capped figure but there is scope to send a bigger monetary consequence?

I note that the Minister of Education said earlier on, when he was speaking and addressing the House, that none of our SOPs improve the bill in any way. Really? This does exactly that. If we want to ward off and if the Government wants to ward off anyone falsely declaring, well, then here’s a really practical way to do that, and I hope they pick this up.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to be able to speak to the Education Amendment Bill, specifically Part 1, obviously, as we are engaged in this committee stage. I will speak very narrowly, if I may, on clause 11 of the bill, which relates to section 159 of the Education Act. It’s to do with interpretation. I did promise you it’s going to be pretty narrow—it’s narrower than a you-know-what’s you-know-what. Specifically, it’s only one definition at that, and it’s the phrase “permanent member”. The significance of that, which I’ll return to in a minute, goes to the appointment of a person, or, rather, the consideration of the appointment process by the Minister, in terms of making an appointment to the council.

But to the interpretation itself—to that particular definition, which will flow to a question that I’d be very grateful if the Minister would address, as he’s shown willingness to do throughout the debate, for which I thank him in anticipation—the definition of “permanent member” in this bill relates to “teaching or general staff of an institution,”. And I presume that the intent of the drafting there was to capture that it could be any staff member whatsoever. So I just note in passing that perhaps it could have been expressed to be “any staff member”, as I understand that the phrase “general staff” probably means any staff other than teaching staff, and we’ve already got teaching staff, thereby including the whole lot. But, in any case—moving on.

So an institution’s staff of any kind, then, and a member thereof who fits one of three different categories—the first is pretty clear: on a basis that is neither casual nor a fixed-term contract. I think and hope that I’m right in saying that’s pretty clear. Obviously, I’m happy to stand corrected if the Minister has a different view, but we’re talking about full-time or part-time basis and a period ending either on resignation or retirement—neither of which event is ordinarily known or, indeed, specified in terms of a calendar date. So that much is clear in terms of the first criterion.

The other two options relate to employment: either, again, full-time or part-time and whether under an employment agreement. That could be, in fact, a fixed term in this case, but here we see that it must be for at least three months. So if we’ve got a fixed-term contract, then, in addition to that first criterion, it must be at least three months that that particular member, in order to be considered a permanent member, must have already been, by the relevant time, employed. Now, lest there should be any doubt about the possibility of someone being selected by the Minister in circumstances where they’ve been employed for less than three months, well, then we’ve got a third criterion there.

I’d just like to pause at this point and just ask the Minister to reflect on the significance of three months. I don’t know if that was a particular time frame, based perhaps on ensuring that they would have served at least one school term in the institution and therefore have at least some sort of appreciation for something of the life cycle of a period of time within the school, or perhaps not. Perhaps the word “term” there is something of a red herring and I’m reading too much into that. In any case, there is scope for the consideration of a person who’s been in for less than three months in the circumstances, however, where, for the chief executive of the institution—and I haven’t checked to see whether that aspect is defined, but, in any case, it’s probably clear enough whether a person holds that role or not—it occurs to them that it’s likely to continue for at least three months from the date of commencement of the operation. So all bases seem to be covered; although, as I say, I’m quite curious on that point about the significance of the three-month mark.

The context of this—as I alluded to earlier on and, as promised, have returned to now—is that under section 222AD, as it will be, amended, in clause 14, the Minister must seek and consider nominations from the relevant council, and then, when appointing members of the council, at least one member is a “permanent member”—that, of course, being the point that we’re defining in that other clause, again, of the teaching or general staff and so on. Similarly, at subclause (2) there, one member is a permanent member of the teaching staff, and so forth.

So that’s the significance of that particular definition. I think the clarity would be helpful just to ensure that we understand that that is the most appropriate time period. I’d welcome any advice that the Minister can give us in that regard, and I hope that I’ve gone some way to help clarifying that quite narrow aspect of the legislation, whether it shall pass or not.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m glad that I have this opportunity to speak, as I have a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in my name which I haven’t yet had a chance in this debate to address, and which I hope to address in this speech. But before I do so, I do want to respond to comments that have been made by the Hon Tracey Martin this evening, who said that my comments relating to the support by her good party member Mark Patterson, in relation to the process followed by the select committee on this matter, were not accurate. So I do want to draw her attention to the amendment bill commentary and report from the Education and Workforce Committee, which is on the Table of the committee, and which quotes a motion that was agreed to by the committee: that the committee would write to the Business Committee outlining frustration with the report-back date for this bill, in particular the reduced time frame for parliamentary counsel to draft the revision-tracked version of the bill and the inability to take the report to caucus. I want to note, for the member, that Mark Patterson did agree to that letter being written, and that refers directly to the process issues that we had with this bill.

I also want to quickly take the opportunity to respond to comments from the Minister in the chair, Chris Hipkins, who said that I was trashing the future of these partnership school students, and I take particular issue with that, because I absolutely back the students who are in partnership schools. I back them to succeed. I want them to do very well indeed. I hope that their schools continue to do a good job for them into the future, but I am concerned that the Minister, by his actions, is removing the ability of those schools to act in the way that they have in the past. And I would put to him a couple of questions: will he commit that the performance of those schools will remain on par with where it has been—is that a commitment that he is prepared to make? And what responsibility will he take if the performance of these schools does reduce following the changes that this bill makes to the scope with which those schools can deliver for their students? I put to the Minister that, in fact, if there is anyone who is putting risk in these children’s way, it is he who is putting the risk of changing the structure of the schools they attend for reasons which are still to be outlined in the debate in this committee tonight.

Finally, I want to just address this issue of system-wide reporting, because we have the Minister asserting in relation to national standards clauses, “Oh, system-wide reporting will continue to occur.” This is the classic case of having your cake and eating it too. Say you want to get rid of national standards on the one hand, to placate one group of people, and on the other hand tell parents “Don’t worry, the system-wide reporting will continue.” So my question for the Minister is: what will be the common benchmark that schools will be reporting against in future if not national standards? What will that common benchmark be and in what form will they be required to make system-wide reports? In what form will they be required to provide information about the achievement of their students over time? And with what regularity and against what benchmarks? If the Minister won’t address those questions, we will judge his silence accordingly.

So I have two SOPs. The first SOP relates to clause 18, which of course is the new section that was introduced by a late SOP introduced by the Minister, which relates to the way in which designated character schools are required to take on the staff of partnership schools. It’s worth noting that every principle of a New Zealand school right now has the discretion and ability to recruit and employ their own staff as they see fit, because it is acknowledged that that right to hire teachers that are appropriate for the class and the students, that are appropriate for the school and its community, is a key way in which a school goes about its business. But, of course, the clauses in this bill that we’re debating tonight take away that power from this particular class of schools and dictate that they must take on the staff of previous partnership schools. So what this SOP does is it inserts a new paragraph that allows the principal or the board, if they consider the employee to be wholly unsuitable for appointment due to the character of the school, not to make that hire. We see this, on this side of the Chamber, as an appropriate safeguard that gives discretion to ensure that, where people are hired for teaching roles, they are appropriate for those roles. That’s SOP 106.

SOP 129 deals with this question of fines for students making false statutory declarations in order to gain access to the fees-free policy. What we’ve put in numerous speeches is the fact that, actually, if you are able to get free fees, which could be many, many thousands of dollars, a requirement that—[Time expired]

Look, it’s really good to have the opportunity to run through a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), which I actually haven’t even had the opportunity to speak about yet. So I’ve got a lot to say on a lot of SOPs, as do many of my colleagues who haven’t had the opportunity to talk to a number of those SOPs.

I want to start with a series of SOPs, of which one or two of them have been mentioned but, again, not gone into in detail, and it does cut to the heart of this fees-free issue. We know it’s $2.8 billion, we know that all of the figures show there’s not going to be great participation or major increases in participation, and that’s equivalent to paying—just so all New Zealanders can understand the scale of the funding that we’re dealing with, because it cuts to the heart of SOP 127, 128, 129, and 130, which I’m going to run through. If you’re going to give $2.8 billion of funding, which is equivalent to paying, potentially, 50,000 teachers a 15 percent pay rise, then you would want to make sure that this system was watertight in terms of accountability.

There are a number of SOPs here that I want to walk through. As I say, you look at SOP 127, put up by my colleague Simeon Brown, and this is all about deleting the words “without reasonable excuse,”. We actually believe that if you have, effectively, made a false representation, there isn’t a reasonable excuse. You have made a false representation. We are not going to accept a reasonable excuse if you have been in the act of doing something inappropriate in an area of fees-free. We’re talking about huge amounts of money, potentially, for students, so I would ask the Minister to consider SOP 127 very seriously.

You look at SOP 128, again, by my colleague Denise Lee, and her point is very simple. Again, I do want to quote the Minister back, because we would love to hear from him on this issue. He himself has admitted that it’s a very difficult situation to try and design proper scrutiny of a fees-free system, and so he’s gone and tried to develop this penalty, through which we can see multiple holes. One of the issues that Denise raises is that we should, as a principle, not enable or let someone benefit from that false representation. So, again, SOP 128 does cover that: that a person is liable for $5,000, but also, potentially, the amount of money gained from that false representation. I think the Minister should adequately consider SOP 128.

The other SOP that I want to mention is actually in my name, and that is, again, SOP 130, for which the argument goes like this: if you are a student that is about to benefit from $8,000 to $9,000—and we do have, again, many holes in this policy. There are potentially 50,000 people that may be filling out these statutory declarations, and I do want to hear from the Minister: can he confirm that there haven’t been any situations that he is aware of whereby there have been major issues around the statutory declarations? We may be hearing—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Yes. Yes, I can confirm that. I already have.

Yeah, but we would like to know the scale of that. We would love him to talk to us about that in the House.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I answered that earlier.

Well, we would like him to give us more detail, because we have serious SOPs on the Table. The one in my name, again, is SOP 130, which I would love for him to talk to. Can he confirm why he wouldn’t consider a penalty of $10,000, given that many of the fees that we’re talking about would be over $5,000 anyway? Why won’t he consider that as a possible option? That’s what my SOP does: it states that “A person who commits an offence against subsection (3) is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000.”

Again, this is not about us bashing students. Actually, we know how many students work incredibly hard out there, but what we’re saying is that if you are putting up $2.8 billion, then you would think that you would have much stronger policies in terms of accountability. We have put up some options in this committee in the form of SOP 127, 128, 129, and 130, and we would like to hear from the Minister on the range of issues that I have raised.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 9.55 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)