Education Amendment Bill

Fakalofa lahi atu. Good morning, members. The House is in committee for further consideration of the Education Amendment Bill. When we suspended last night, we were considering Part 1. The Hon Nikki Kaye had the call, and she has eight seconds remaining if she so wishes.

Look, I wanted to just make the point that I really do want to hear from the Minister regarding Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) 127, 128, 129, and 130. This side of the committee has a lot of SOPs that we haven’t spoken to, so we’ve got some really good speeches coming, which I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity to—[Time expired]

I will keep this reasonably brief. There are two things to respond to: one is all the additional typescript amendments that were tabled at 9.25 last night. I did go through those after the committee rose last night to check through them. They are, largely, what I would describe as filibuster amendments. I’m well familiar with those; I’ve done plenty of them myself—things like replacing “5 years” with “3 years”, replacing the word “may” with “shall”, replacing the word “must” with “may”, all basically amendments designed to ensure the committee spends its time voting on amendments rather than debating the content of the bill. And so the Government will be opposing all of those.

Nikki Kaye, in her contribution just late last night, did raise issues around false declarations, and I think she raised some substantive issues, which I’d like to respond to. In the debate last night, I indicated that I was not aware of any fraudulent activity, which was absolutely true at the time. I thought I’d better go and check to see whether there has been any and was informed last night that there are a couple of cases that are being investigated. If you put that into context, we’re talking about 50,000 or 60,000 - odd applications. If you considered it in proportion to, say, welfare applications or ACC applications or so on, there is nothing in there that suggests that there is a significant problem, and they are actually being detected. I’ve asked for more details of that, so if the member does want to put down some written questions, for example, I’m happy to supply the information to that. I haven’t had the information myself yet, but I will be getting it.

The question she asked was “Why not a $10,000 fine?” Why settle it at that $5,000?” And I think the point to make clear is that the $5,000 fine was recommended—because I asked this myself, actually, and I was initially inclined to go with a higher fine—by the Ministry of Justice as being consistent with fines of comparable offences in other parts of the law. And an important point to respond to, which the member raised around “What if the fees were more than the fine?”, is that they still have to pay the fees back. So the fine is in addition to the fact that they would have to repay whatever they had obtained through the fraudulent activity. So the fine is comparable to fines for comparable offences, and that answers that point. So I hope that addresses the issues that have been raised thus far.

I move, That the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I’m really reluctant to do this, because I can’t actually think of a time in my political career when I have stood up and been on the edge of questioning a ruling, but I am looking at the scale of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that have been tabled, and there are a number of members who have individual SOPs who haven’t even had the opportunity to talk to them. I would just, potentially, like, firstly, to put this on record for all of New Zealand that is watching: that this side of the House has spent hours drafting legislative amendments—literally hours—many of which are in individual people’s names here. You’ve got members of the Education and Workforce Committee, you’ve got other National MPs, and we have not had the opportunity, from my perspective but also from my colleagues’ perspective, to adequately outline them to the committee. So I just want to put that on record. I don’t know whether the Chair wants to make any comments about that?

💬 David Seymour: Speaking to the point of order?

No.

💬 David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, I’m going to make a ruling now, and I’m on my feet. The member will be seated.

💬 David Seymour: Are you now saying that we—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, sit down. I am ruling on a point of order.

💬 David Seymour: This is outrageous.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I am ruling—

💬 David Seymour: You don’t even know what the point of order is.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Mr Seymour?

💬 David Seymour: Yes?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): You need to be seated.

💬 David Seymour: Do you know what the point of order is?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I am ruling on a point of order—

💬 David Seymour: That’s completely outrageous. I mean, you actually do have to take—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, what is outrageous is when the presiding officer asks a member of this House to be seated while he is making a ruling on a point of order—to try to stop that. That will lead to disorder, and the member will be seated.

💬 David Seymour: Well, the presiding officer would have more authority—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I have got two sanctions available to me: one is to send the member out of the Chamber; the other is to name the member. I will use one of them if the member is not seated within the next five seconds. I will use at least one of them.

💬 David Seymour: Well, if there’s no debate, then there’s no point.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The member will leave the Chamber now, thank you.

David Seymour withdrew from the Chamber.

My comment is that the honourable member Nikki Kaye has put her view on record. That is now on record. The point of order is actually out of order. I have made that ruling. For the member’s benefit and for members of the whole committee, we have had at least 33 calls on this part of the bill. I would say that I believe I have been very generous in allocating calls. I will also put on record as well that I gave several warnings last night. I did not accept five of the six closure motions; I could have, and I have this morning, OK? And that’s the end of that matter. I will not be entertaining any other interjections or points of order that could lead to disorder.

Barbara Kuriger’s tabled amendment to Supplementary Order Paper 122, amending new clause 9(6), is out of order as not being in the form of legislation.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Barbara Kuriger to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 122 in the name of Simeon Brown to clause 9 be agreed to:

in new section 146(7), remove “would retain” and insert “may retain”.