Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill

Madam Chair, I just want to indicate that I have been following this matter from outside the Chamber. I do want to give members an opportunity to put their point of view—hopefully with a little more relationship with the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings rather than the substance, because I’ve heard quite a lot of, sort of, substance of things but not necessarily a relationship. But, because it is now the dinner hour, I am going to adjourn the House, and I will come back here at 7.30 p.m. to hear those arguments.

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The House is resumed. Before I ask the Hon Ruth Dyson to address me, I do want to apologise for my error. I, probably as a long term believer in dinner breaks, declared it as a dinner break when, in fact, I should have heard the point of order and continued and dealt with it. I apologise for that.

Mr Speaker, prior to the mistakenly adjourned dinner break, at the start of the voting on Schedule 1 I indicated to the members that there were 13 amendments proposing amendments to clause 27(3) of new Part 9 of Schedule 1 to exempt certain polytechnics from the transitional arrangements that convert existing polytechs into New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology subsidiaries. I indicated that the amendments were so similar in substance that I proposed to test the will of the committee, putting the question on a random selection of these very similar amendments. I then proceeded to put the vote for four of those amendments, the only difference between them being the name of the institution. At the end of those four votes being lost, I ruled that the remaining nine were out of order.

The Hon Dr Nick Smith challenged that. We had an exchange in relation to the specific Speaker’s ruling 177/2, potentially.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: 117/2.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you, the Hon Tim Macindoe, 117/2, from Dr the Rt Hon Lockwood Smith in 2010, ruling out subsequent amendments because of their similarity to the ones that had already been negatived by the vote of the committee. Dr Smith believes that this is not an appropriate ruling to judge the amendments that I ruled out of order, and so recalled the Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The question is quite significant in terms of the relative power balance that always exists in the Parliament between the Opposition and the Government.

There are three substantive points that I want to make. The first really significant question is: are the amendments substantially different or not? Now, if we reflect on the Speaker’s ruling from 2010, I was actually the Minister in the chair, and what happened was that there were over a thousand amendments moved to slightly change the date, whether the date was going to be 1 November, then an amendment for 31 October, then 30 October, etc. The Speaker at the time ruled that those amendments were substantially the same. I think that was a correct and a balanced ruling. I’ve looked back on the rulings, if we go back to the bible of our Parliament Erskine May, and the reference that it makes about what determines what is a substantially different amendment. I think it provides some guidance as to whether the amendments are substantially different for the Parliament to be able to reasonably consider those.

Then my second point is around the practical effect. Parliament’s procedures need to be practical, they need to be able to work so that the Opposition is able to fairly express its opposition to views, but equally so you, as Speaker, have to ensure that the Government is able to reasonably do its business. Now, if you take the Speaker’s ruling from Lockwood Smith back in 2010—of which you made a very considered and, in my view, sensible contribution at that time as a member, not Speaker at that time—it is that if every individual amendment was allowed, you would have the Parliament voting for about 13 hours in that situation, and that is not reasonable. I would put to you that for Parliament to have approximately 20 minutes to consider nine amendments about each of our individual polytechnics is not at all unreasonable in the context of the balance of power that you, as Speaker, have to dutifully and carefully try and manage.

The third point I wish to make is actually really important in terms of the role of a constituency member of Parliament. One of the amendments is in my name as the member of Parliament for Nelson. It affects the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, which is the second-largest public institution in my electorate. It’s been around for 115 years. It is unique and different—and this is important in terms of the substantial question—in that it’s the only polytech in New Zealand where the land was actually funded by the ratepayers of Nelson. We’re talking about a substantive asset being transferred over to central government, going from the control of a board that is 100 percent locals to one that has no locals on it. So I would put to you that for the committee of the House not to allow a constituency member of Parliament to individually have their amendment voted on—that is the second-biggest institution in Nelson that’s been around for 115 years—is infringing on my rights to be able to advocate for the 70,000 people that live in the constituency of Nelson, who feel very strongly about this issue.

I think on the basis of those three points that proper balance, not just about the practical issue, but more importantly about the rights of the Opposition to be able to fairly put amendments around each individual institution, when there are only 16, is reasonable. I put to you, if, let’s say, it was an amendment to exclude 2,600 schools and each individual school was moved, I would suspect that a reasonable Speaker would say “That would tie the time of Parliament up for many days.” We are only talking about 16 individual institutions, nine additional votes. I think you should rule in favour of the Parliament being allowed to individually consider those amendments, particularly to protect the rights of constituency members of Parliament to be able to advocate and put issues to the House.

Before I hear from any other member—because I don’t want this debate going off in a way which is contrary to the Standing Orders—I let Dr Smith, as the father of the House, have a long period for his argument. But I am going to, before I hear anyone else, draw everyone’s attention to Standing Order 307(5), which postdates Dr the Rt Hon Lockwood Smith’s ruling. It was a matter that was carefully considered by the Standing Orders Committee and by the House in the adoption of the changes of the Standing Orders in 2011. What 307(5) says is “Where amendments are proposed that, in the opinion of the chairperson, are the same in substance, the chairperson may select amendments…” etc. That is a much tighter arrangement than what used to occur, and that was a very deliberate decision of the Standing Orders Committee under the leadership of Dr the Rt Hon Lockwood Smith. It was, of course, a unanimous decision of the committee and of the Parliament to change the rules to that effect. So we’ve gone from having any suggestion of an objective test to one which is subjective. The Chair has made it very clear what her opinion is, and that is not something for the House to second guess.

I will say that this has been a matter of previous ruling in 2018, 14 August 2018, a very good ruling on the part of my Deputy Speaker, Hon Anne Tolley, when considering the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill with a parallel approach as to exemptions for particular primary produce.

It’s a relatively new Standing Order in our experience, Dr Smith, but it is now pretty well-established, and one which has been reinforced recently by a ruling from the Hon Anne Tolley. So what I want to make clear is that I will only hear argument on the substance of the application of that Standing Order. I will not hear about this polytech, that polytech, or the importance of something else. If anyone can give me a reason that indicates that it’s not actually Ruth Dyson’s opinion, then that is the only argument that will work here.

Speaking further to the point of order, the substantive question under Standing Order 307(5) is that the Chairperson has that discretion if they are the same in substance, and the key question I wish to put to you is that the issue of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, as compared with the Christchurch, Otago, or any other—

No. Order! The member will resume his seat. I have made it very clear—and I have read it to the member—and the question is “in the opinion of the chairperson”. Do I have to say that again? It is “in the opinion of the chairperson,”. It is a discretion which this House decided to give to the Chairpeople of committees. They have that, and it’s not something, in my opinion, that they can be second-guessed on.

Given that, I don’t think there’s any matter now I have to rule on. I’m going to declare the House back in committee—I’m not sure whether the Chair is going to come from my left or right—for further consideration of this bill on the following matter.

In Committee

Debate resumed.

Schedule 1 (continued)