Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill.

💬 SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 16 September 2021 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

A brief background of why we’re here with this bill. The Teaching Council, as it is now known, was established by the last National Government under the name of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. It replaced a body, what was then called the Teachers Council. It had an expanded range of functions from the previous Teachers Council, and it was expected to move to a position where it would become self-sustaining through member contributions, through the contributions of the teaching profession. The last National Government expanded the functions of the council and also put additional funding in to manage the transition to those expanded functions, but with an expectation that, over time, the council would set new fees that would mean that it would be self-sustaining. Those subsidies from Government were due to come to an end shortly after this Government took office. We increased those subsidies to increase that transition time for the new council, and particularly in recognition of some of the changes that we made, including reinstating elections to that council. Therefore, those subsidies were due to be phasing out last year.

The council went through the fee-setting consultation. They decided that they wanted to affix a new fee that was based on a one-year fee rather than a three-year fee, and that they would adjust teacher registration to a one-year cycle rather than a three-year cycle in order to achieve that. That was then challenged by the Post Primary Teachers’ Association—the PPTA—who took that through court. What the court found was an anomaly in the legislation that was never intended by the last Government, who established the council, or by this Government, who transferred those provisions from the previous Education Act into the new Education and Training Act. The court found that the council was not able to affix a fee that covered all of its functions. It was only, by law, authorised to affix a fee that covered some of its functions. That was never Parliament’s intention. However, the court found that the new fee that the council had been intending to introduce, the one-year fee, was overturned.

The challenge that we were then faced with was that the fee that the council had to revert back to had also been established under the very same law that the new fee had been established by. Therefore, there was a question as to whether or not that existing fee was also established legitimately. So this bill, first of all, validates the previously collected fees, the fees that were collected under the National Government and the fees that have been collected under this Government, up and to the point where the higher fee was introduced. It also allows the council to keep the fees that it collected, the one-year fees that it collected, and offset those fees against the three-year cost of registration for those teachers who had gone through the one-year registration process during that intervening period, otherwise the council would be in a position where it would have to refund someone the one-year fee and then reinvoice them, effectively, for the three-year fee. It would potentially also lead to a position where most teachers in the country, if we didn’t pass this bill, were not currently registered, and that is something that I think we would all want to avoid.

The other thing that the bill does is it allows the council to move to an annual fee without having to change to a three-year registration. So they can retain the status quo of a three-year registration, meaning teachers won’t have to reregister every three years, but will, effectively, allow teachers to pay their fee in one-year instalments, which I think is something I hope the teaching profession will welcome.

I acknowledge that there are different views amongst the teaching profession about the council itself and the scope and functions of the council. Primary teachers are quite supportive of the current scope and function of the council, if we are to accept what their advocates and their representatives tell us. Secondary teachers are more sceptical. I want to indicate that the Government will be making other changes to the council in future legislation that responds to some of those concerns. One of the concerns is that the disciplinary functions that the council has are overly onerous, that there are matters going to the council’s full disciplinary tribunal process that could be dealt with through the complaints assessment committee in a more efficient way—still transparent, still robust, but more efficient—and thereby reducing the overall cost of the running of the council. We will be bringing some proposals forward to the Parliament in due course that will deal with that issue, because I think the teachers do have a legitimate point there.

We are also in conversations with the council about their leadership function and who should ultimately pay, what burden of that leadership function should sit with teacher registration fees versus whether Government should make a contribution to that, and we’ll continue to talk to them about that. So the council will now have an opportunity to set a new fee to cover their full costs, the costs of operating the council. They will, in the meantime, revert to the fee that existed before the court case, before the new one-year fee was overturned by the courts. That will be the fee that applies in the intervening period, and fees collected under that previous regime will all be validated by this legislation.

So it is an undesirable position for the Parliament to find itself in. It dates back prior to this Government, to the previous Government. I don’t think they intended this situation to emerge, nor did this Government. We have a responsibility, I think, as a Parliament to fix it and to fix it quickly so that the public, parents, students, and teachers can be confident that we’ve got a robust teacher registration regime in New Zealand, teachers can be confident that they are registered and that their registration fees that they’ve previously paid are valid, and also that those who are caught during this period, the one-year period, don’t have to go through the process of getting their money back and then paying more in order to get the three-year registration. So I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

How many times is the Minister of Education going to amend this education Act? He made a complete hash of it when he did the vocational education review. He then had to amend it for the early childhood education, and now he’s having to amend it because the Teaching Council lost their High Court case under the Education and Training Act 1989 for trying to increase fees for practising certificate renewals. He could have taken a leaf out of Sir Michael Cullen’s book, who said, “We won. You lost. Suck it up!” But, no, he puts retrospective legislation in place.

What does this Government do in their spare time? Do they sit around looking at where all our essential workers for the health and wellbeing of society are?

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume her seat. I’m going to make two points to the member. The first of all is that this is a very narrow bill—very narrow. She will address this bill. It’s a first reading; it’s not a wide-ranging debate. You don’t go on to other things. The second point: the member is reading her speech; she may not.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Here are the facts—and I will read those because it comes from the facts of the court case, if I may, Mr Speaker. So the Post Primary Teachers’ Association took the case to the High Court and it was lost. The fees and the annual certification decisions were quashed at the beginning. They failed on five counts: they failed to consult, they failed to properly consider the merits of the annual certification, they misconstrued and misapplied key elements of the statutory regime, and it amounted to an unlawful tax. So they lost on five counts.

The Minister could have, at that stage, sucked it up, paid the money, and then gone on and thanked the teachers. The teachers who have done such an amazing job over lockdown: Zooming in with kids, bringing kids back up to speed—and we know that’s been really tough. We could have thanked them for dealing with all the non-teaching issues that kids have been bringing to them and caring for our young people, guiding them through these really challenging times, and we could have thanked them for doing a good job. But, no, instead, the Government is bringing in retrospective legislation to keep the fees that they had to pay unlawfully.

So that court ruling quite clearly said that it was unlawful for those fees to have been taken. Now, clearly, the Teaching Council does a really important job and, clearly, they now have a funding shortfall. But the Government has been prepared to spend money in lots of other areas: $785 million on an on-again and off-again walking and cycling bridge, half a billion on the first year of health reforms, $120 million on failed vocational education reforms—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m just going to say “ditto”, and it’s the second warning.

—thank you, Mr Speaker—$20 million to develop new phonics early-reading books for teachers, with not one language, but two languages, that nobody else in the world has done. So plenty of money to spend on education and other matters when the Minister has chosen to, but not to pay the amount, the shortfall that is needed for the Teaching Council. So I felt the Minister has had to spend a lot of money on consultants with all the changes he has brought in and I felt that it was my duty to give him some free advice on this.

The amendment bill should be dropped. It is a waste of time and money. The Minister should do a Sir Michael Cullen—suck it up and pay the gap—because the Teaching Council has important work.

Right. Order! Order! The member will resume her seat. I have warned her twice about reading her speech. She has continued to read it. This speech is terminated.

I want to make it clear that I made it very clear earlier in the year that members are not to read their speeches, and while I don’t spend as much time possibly as I should during readings of the bill in the Chamber, it is something which I am adamant about. The Standing Orders were changed very deliberately, and I intend to enforce the rules.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: Does the member want to table the rest of her speech?

I want to table my notes so you can see they’re just notes. I’m happy to table them for you to see.

Well, the member wants the leave of the House to table her notes. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: A point of order, Simeon Brown. I hope the member is not going to make a rare misstep.

Well, no. I mean, it’s a pretty unreasonable thing for you to be saying that someone’s reading their speech when, clearly, they have just got notes, which they’re referring to as they give a speech. I mean, how are you—

The member is now arguing with a ruling that I have made. I’m just saying that I’ve been around long enough to know or to at least make a judgment that when a person is constantly looking down, then that member gives the appearance of reading. People who refer to notes generally don’t have six or seven pages of them and turn over one—[Interruption] No, no, the member’s been shifting notes around. She knows. Next speech.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill. It’s an absolutely narrow bill, and there will be very little to add to the speech that we’ve already heard from the Minister, but I would like to elaborate a little bit more on what the Minister spoke about: the work that we did in our previous term with regard to giving teachers more independence when it comes to representation on their own body, the Teaching Council, as it now is. Our Government did that work, and, of course, as the Minister already foreshadowed, more of that work will be continuing in the next few months that we have ahead with regards to the way that the council operates, as the Minister outlined, because, as they did previously, the teachers raised a really legitimate point when they brought up these points.

Now, there are some facts and figures involved that I don’t want to get wrong, so I will be referring to the numbers as they were added up, because I don’t want to get that wrong. So prior to the change to the fees increase, these fees had not changed since 2010, and when they were changed in February 2021, the amount really changed from $220.80 for a three-year certificate to what became an annual certificate of $157. So that meant that a teacher would pay $471 over the period in total of annual fees, where, of course, previously it would have been $249.20 for the three years. Now, the recent High Court decision did challenge that decision, has brought it back to what the fees were previously, and that is exactly what this bill does.

So it is important to understand that this bill is not validating the quashed practising certificates, but what it does is it validates the payments that were received since 1 February 2020, because it would be quite a ludicrous exercise, in fact, if we were to get the teachers to pay a certain amount and then having to refund, and then the teachers having to pay a top-up on top. So this bill is really common sense. It saves a lot of time. But what I do look forward to, as chair of the Education and Workforce Committee that will be hearing submissions and working with my team on this bill, is that we hear from a wide variety of submitters on their views on this bill, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This bill is an outrage, and if a National Government introduced this bill, the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) would be marching in the street. Every teacher in New Zealand deserves to understand exactly what this bill does. First of all, it gives the Teaching Council broader powers to set whatever fees it wants. Second of all, this bill retrospectively tidies up unlawful fee setting by the Teaching Council.

I have in front of me the High Court ruling that has led to this bill, and I would put to you that a Minister of Education who was on the ball of his education role would not be introducing this bill, but instead would be sitting down with the Teaching Council and saying, “Sort it out. You are not given a mandate to charge teachers whatever you want whenever you want to. That is not actually what the law allows you to do. Tighten your belt, because teachers around this country are already faced with extraordinary increases in living costs, and what they don’t deserve is to be given increases in their registration fees because you, the Teaching Council, are breaking the law.”

So, first, I want to congratulate the PPTA on having the courage to bring this case to court, because, actually, it’s not every day—is it, members of this House?—that the PPTA takes a Government entity to court. I think, actually, before it spends its union fees on taking anyone to court, it thinks carefully. I thank them for doing that, because this court ruling I have in front of me sets out very carefully exactly what it is that the Teaching Council have done unlawfully. It sets out how poorly they have behaved and it sets out all of the bad behaviour that the Minister of Education is just going to hide in the corner and fix up with this retrospective piece of legislation.

So let’s go through why we need this bill, because what the court found was that the Teaching Council broke the law because it failed to consult before imposing annual certification fees. So that’s the first thing the Minister of Education does with this bill—he says, “Look, they broke the law, that’s a bit tricky and embarrassing, but I’ll tidy it up with a little bill to cover their tracks.” The second thing that the High Court said was that “the Teaching Council failed to properly consider the merits of annual certification”. Then they said, in a very clear judgment, that they had misled the Minister on the payment by instalment idea—they had misled the Minister of Education. But, you know, don’t worry, he’s here to tidy it all up for them! Then, they said that they didn’t properly consider the pros and cons of annual certification. Then, they said that they imposed a blanket one-year period of certification inconsistently with the Act, and that they set an unlawful fee—and set an unlawful fee—which bundled together all of the costs of the council services.

Now, Mr Speaker, when I say this I’m going to look at my notes, because if I don’t look at my notes for this, you might think I’m exaggerating. But, actually, what the High Court said was that “the Teaching Council’s decision to set a fee for issuing a practising certificate amounted to an unlawful tax”, and that’s what the members on the opposite side of the House think that we should use Parliament’s time to validate. We should use Parliament’s time to validate Government quangos going off and setting unlawful taxes, and they expect this to all quietly happen on a Thursday afternoon in Parliament and not a teacher in New Zealand will notice. Well, I will tell the House this: when ratty little pieces of legislation are put through to put unlawful taxes on New Zealand teachers, New Zealand’s teachers will find out.

It is fair to say that it is not every day or every week in Parliament that the National Party finds itself in strong agreement with the PPTA. But I do want to quote the PPTA’s views on what is occurring in this House right now, because what the PPTA say is that they are concerned not only with the detail of the bill but what it says about the Teaching Council because they say they were “concerned that the Council had mandated annual certification without consulting the teaching profession.”—without consulting the teaching profession. So here we have the entity whose responsibility it is to represent that profession, to ensure its reputation is kept in good order, to certify those who are allowed to be members of that profession, and you have the union for that profession saying they didn’t even consult the teaching profession effectively, and that has been upheld by a court of law.

Now, I listened very carefully to Minister Hipkins’ speech because I waited to hear him say, “I’m disappointed in the Teaching Council.” Did he say that? Did he express any disappointment?

💬 Stuart Smith: No.

No. No, he didn’t express any disappointment.

I also listened very carefully because I waited for him to say that he was angry that he was going to have to introduce retrospective legislation—that he was disappointed that the entity hadn’t lived up to his expectations. Did I hear that anger? Did I hear that disappointment?

💬 Stuart Smith: No.

No, members of this House, I did not.

And I listened to the Minister of Education to hear something I think is pretty important, and that is an apology to New Zealand’s teachers for being subjected to an unlawful tax, because what sort of a Minister of Education are you if you say, “Look, teachers, it’s OK, there’s been an unlawful tax. The Teaching Council did it to you, but I’m here to make it all OK by making it lawful.”? Well, what a serious lack of responsibility, because I think the opportunity that the Minister had here with this court ruling was to say to the Teaching Council: “Sort it out. Pull your socks up. You cannot behave in this way, you can’t act in an arbitrary way without consultation, you can’t act in a way that operates outside the law, and you can’t charge too much for your fees.”

Now, what this bill also doesn’t do, and the Minister expressed this clearly in his speech, is it doesn’t deal with the fact that the Teaching Council has created for itself—and this Minister introduced legislation to empower it—a leadership function. Now, that leadership function that is empowered is costly, it’s costing a lot, and what I think teachers around the country will want to know is why in this bill are we not ensuring that the Teaching Council isn’t just going to empire-build on that leadership function and charge teachers for paying for it, because it does allow it. This bill widens the scope—we’ll quote its policy statement—it “broadens the Council’s … fee-setting powers”. That is what we are doing in this House today, and yet we aren’t at the same time being very directive to the council about the circumstances in which it can do that.

I return to the PPTA statement, because I think it’s important it is in the Hansard for this bill. Here we have the PPTA saying that they “welcome the Council’s announcement … that it will abide by the judgment”. Well, actually, what the Minister of Education has come in and said is: “Don’t worry, you don’t need to abide by the judgment.”, and that is what this bill does.

So I look forward to a select committee process in which the teaching unions, in which everyday teachers, in which those concerned with the professions in our classrooms, get up and submit and say that, actually, they don’t want to have to pay ever-escalating registration fees, that that cost actually matters to them; that every time they have to write that cheque, it’s money that isn’t in the household budget and it’s money that isn’t available for groceries; that when it gets higher and higher every year, it affects them; and that, actually, some of them find it pretty insulting when it goes up and up and yet they’re not seeing any improvement in the standards of their professional body. I look forward to them sharing that view, and I look forward to them at select committee also asking why it is that their professional body that is charged with ensuring they comply with the law is unable to comply with the law itself. I look forward to them putting to the Minister of Education that when he is setting standards for our education system, it is unacceptable to validate unlawful action by a professional body without even expressing an ounce of disappointment. This is a retrospective bill—

💬 Simeon Brown: Outrageous.

It is an outrageous validation of an unlawful tax. It is a bill that has been brought about because the PPTA was forced to bring the Teaching Council to court, and, actually, if the Minister of Education were anyone but the Minister for COVID recovery, there would be headlines on this. It is unacceptable and I am pleased that National will be opposing this bill.

Before I call the next member on the bill, I have had time during the member’s speech to read the bill, and I want to make it clear that this bill is about the fees and not the certification periods. If members try running another argument down that line again—if I had read the bill before, I would have stopped the member. She was lucky I hadn’t. I have now, and it is a very narrow bill—even narrower than I thought from the Minister’s speech.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The previous member appears to be a little bit confused. She appears to be blaming the Minister for this bill, whereas I stand to commend the Minister for bringing this bill to the House.

Look, I think both sides of the House would acknowledge that there has been a legislative failure in this area. The Minister has brought an elegant solution to the House, you know, bringing about a solution that I expect our teachers will be very happy with.

On the topic of the fees, as we heard from the Minister, the Teaching Council decided to change the registration structure from a three-year to a one-year and we heard that the fees would change accordingly. While visiting staffrooms across my electorate as the MP for Hamilton East over the past few months, I certainly heard feedback from teachers who were not happy with the teachers’ council’s resolution. The teachers’ council is independent of Government, so I think that’s an important aspect for the previous speaker and others just to be aware of. Now, the teachers’ council made that decision. The teachers quite clearly expressed to me their disappointment with that decision. As a member of Parliament I fed that through to various channels that I thought needed to hear it, but it was a decision for the teachers’ council.

Now, as we’ve heard—and I don’t want to relitigate that—there’s been a court ruling, and so this piece of legislation is here to basically bring about a solution. The Minister outlined the solution. I’d like to finish by acknowledging the leadership of the Minister, the excellent Minister of Education, in bringing a solution to the House which I expect, as a former teacher, teachers will be happy with. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party is opposing the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill. It has been rehearsed that the Teaching Council is the statutory body. It’s an independent statutory body. Not only does it handle the certification of teachers; it investigates teachers’ misconduct, handles professional complaints, and provides professional leadership. But this bill is retrospective. This bill will have an impact on teachers’ incomes.

There was a 30,000-signature petition expressing some concern, and there was an 11,000-signature petition calling for a review of the teachers’ council. I don’t often agree with Nicola Willis—but her point about there needing to be some consultation with teachers and also with the unions.

It is not good law when you have the Government making retrospective laws, which is one of the reasons that the Green Party is opposing it. Previously, because Government subsidised 60 percent of the teachers’ council costs in terms of doing that work around professional misconduct and providing leadership of the profession—and then, suddenly, as a result of that High Court decision, putting in place this bill to enable the teachers’ council to receive the fees that it charged, and to retrospectively validate the reception of those fees without having a good consultation exercise, we don’t think is appropriate. We are opposing the bill.

I’m standing on behalf of ACT to oppose this bill, and there are a few reasons for this. Teachers have faced many, many increases and more pressure within their workloads and the things they have to do in this year with COVID lockdown and with the pressures of mental health issues within schools. More and more is expected of them and it seems they are constantly having to fight to feel valued and appreciated. And when you are adding on to the costs of them to be registered, and half the teachers don’t even understand what the Teaching Council is there for, you can see why they resent paying this fee.

I spoke to multiple teachers to ask them, you know, how they feel with this situation, and not one of them could tell me what the council was there for and what the council did for them. And the ones that did kind of said they wished that the council would just be there for disciplinary action and registration and leave the rest out of it, because, to them, they feel like this is giving the council an open cheque book to do whatever they like, and the teachers will be there to pay the bill.

I just had a little bit of a look at what the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association had said. They’re saying that “Teachers understand the need to have a registration body that ensures the profession retains [a] high standard [but] They need their council to be cost effective and they need to trust … it will work for teachers [and] not against them.”

It feels like there is no stability, and teachers have no idea what is going to come next. If we just allowed councils to do whatever they like and they know the teachers will foot the bill, I cannot see how this is good law. So we oppose the bill.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this piece of legislation. From what I’ve read and from what I understand, it is a very small and tight piece of legislation that simply validates the fees that were previously paid by teachers to the Teaching Council. So what we heard from the Minister was that there’d been no change in the fees since 2010, and more recently the fees had been changed from what was a three-year payment that teachers made when they were renewing their registration and they did it that way, then it was moved to an annual payment for teachers to pay with an increase in cost. And we know what the subsequent issues have been since then and through the findings of the court.

What it does, as I’ve said, is it validates the fees that have previously been paid and it means that for those who have paid their fees since February 2021, rather than the council having to refund the additional amount of fees back to teachers and then teachers then turn around the next year and pay their annual fees, it just allows them to hold on to that and, I guess, basically credit a bit towards each teacher’s next instalment of their fees. So I don’t think there’s much more to say on this. It’s a very tight bill, so I commend this bill to the House.

I just want to take a quick call just to re-emphasise the points made by my colleagues that the National Party stands very strongly alongside our friends in the Greens in opposition to this bill—

💬 Simeon Brown: And the ACT Party.

And hopefully the ACT Party too—sorry, I wasn’t quite listening. Look, this is a tight bill, as has been traversed across the House already, regarding fees. I’m sure, if I remember rightly, when this Government was formed, it said it wouldn’t introduce any new taxes. Well, you can call it a fee, but, effectively, it is actually a tax. It is another cost being foisted on hard-working New Zealanders, just when the cost of housing’s going up; fuel’s going up; electricity—if you can get it!—is going up; and I see Stats New Zealand today is also saying that the cost of food is going up.

But what strikes me as utterly extraordinary is that we are here legislating—well, we’re not; they are—for a retrospective fee increase that a High Court declared was illegal. I mean, this Government is riding roughshod over court declarations. If that’s not arrogant, then I don’t know what is. With your leave, Mr Speaker, I would like to read out an email, if I may, that I received from a teacher in Christchurch a couple of days ago. I think Dr Webb should probably take note of this, because this person is a constituent of his. “Last night, I received this unbelievable email from the New Zealand teachers’ council, who have convinced Chris Hipkins to change the law, allowing them to charge the fees they want and potentially go to yearly registration. This was after the council lost in court. So now the Government seeks to change legislation, fast-tracked according to the PPTA. The fees after the law change will also be backdated and additional money sought from teachers.” This person goes on to say that staff across schools across New Zealand are feeling deeply unappreciated by this Labour Government. I’d also add to that teachers, midwives, doctors, nurses, farmers—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Back to the bill.

I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker. I was actually just winding up, other than just to re-emphasise—

💬 SPEAKER: Winding me up or winding your speech up?

I beg your pardon. I was winding my commentary up, Mr Speaker. Ha! Just wanted to place on the record that this is not small change. These fees are significant. They are big. They are going from $220 every three years to $157 every year. That, to us on this side of the House, is totally unacceptable.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this terrible piece of legislation, the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill. Members on the other side who are getting up and saying how proud they are—I heard Jamie Strange from Hamilton saying this is an elegant solution, an elegant solution, to be passing retrospective legislation to impose a tax, an unlawful tax, on to teachers. The High Court ruling said that the Teaching Council decision to set a fee for issuing a practising certificate amounted to an unlawful tax. They should be hanging their heads in shame, but no. They come into this House and they call this an “elegant solution”. Hear Jamie Strange—how proud he is of his Minister to be introducing retrospective legislation. This legislation is retrospective. This legislation is, basically, trying to turn back the tide—turn back the tide—on a case which the Teaching Council has lost.

We have to remember that this is the Government that said they were going to turn the Teaching Council into a representative body which was representing teachers, last Parliament passing legislation where they were saying they were going to give democracy back to the Teaching Council. Well, here we are where we’ve got this Government running roughshod over teachers, imposing fees on teachers, imposing unlawful taxes on to teachers, increasing costs on our teachers, and then passing legislation, clause 5, which says the Teaching Council fees and costs may, basically, set whatever they like, because one of the things the High Court found was that the Teaching Council failed to consult before imposing annual certification. So let’s not worry about consultation; let’s just put clause 5 in there, which lets them do whatever they like.

I’m looking forward to hearing from the submitters on this piece, which is around do the teachers unions—are they happy with the fact that the Teaching Council, under clause 5, is essentially going to be able to just put in place whatever fee structure they want, over whatever time frame they like, and whatever way they like? [Interruption] Well, is there a select committee process? I hope there is, because, actually, this needs to go to a select committee—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member should listen to the speeches at the beginning.

Absolutely—absolutely. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, look, I look forward to the submissions from the teachers unions and the teachers on that exact point, because, actually, are teachers going to be happy with the Teaching Council being able to, essentially, set fees and costs in whatever way or fashion that they feel like? Because that is what clause 5 reads, to me. I’m sure they’re going to have very, very strong views over that and what seems to be taking away the ability for actual, proper consultation to be taking place, and the consultation—because, actually, what this is about is the Teaching Council effectively being able to fund their affairs. Actually, if it’s a democratic institution, which is what this Government in the last Parliament said the Teaching Council should be, where teachers should be in control and they should be able to run it, why would this Government now take away the ability for that consultation to be taking place?

This High Court found the Teaching Council wasn’t acting in accordance with the law. This High Court case found that they were failing to consult when setting fees. So what’s the Government’s response to that? “Well, actually, maybe they just shouldn’t have to consult at all. We’ll just take away any consultation.” What’s the need for consultation? Because apparently, according to this Government, the Teaching Council knows best. The Teaching Council knows exactly what the fees should be, what time period they should be, and, actually, who cares about what the teachers think about how much the fees should be and how the governance and the affairs of the Teaching Council should be run and what that money should be going towards?

This legislation is a massive overreach, not only retrospective—retrospective legislation from this Government. This is retrospective in the fact that it’s overriding a High Court case but then going the next step and saying, “Well, actually, we’re not only going to override the court case, but the fact that they were having to consult in the first place—we don’t really like that, and we’re just going to get rid of that requirement into the future.” Well, that’s unacceptable, and I think our teachers up and down the country are going to have a lot to say on that very point, because they can see what is going to come if the Teaching Council, because of what they’ve already tried to do, running roughshod over teachers—if they’ve already tried once, pass this legislation and you will see more and more of the Teaching Council imposing its own views on a whole range of issues and a whole range of matters, and that is something which is incredibly concerning.

This is a Government which stands up and says that they’re kind and caring. Well, it’s not kind and caring to get rid of the consultation requirements, which the teachers of New Zealand should have in place and should be able to have their say on what a body, which this Government says should be their body—well, it’s not theirs any more. This is Chris Hipkins’ Teaching Council so that Chris Hipkins can effectively run roughshod over the teachers, and I think this is something which is completely unacceptable. I’m proud to be on the side of the House where we’re saying, “No, we’re not going to accept this retrospective legislation. We’re not going to accept the Government just coming in and undoing a High Court case just because they feel like it, and then, basically, saying, ‘Well, actually, the teachers’ council was right all along. We’re going to get rid of the consultation requirements.’ ”

So I’m proud to be on the side of the House where we’re saying no to this piece of legislation, and my message to teachers and to the teachers unions and the organisations up and down this country and to parents is to make sure they have their say, because this is probably the last time they’ll ever be able to. We oppose this piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, I’d just like to use my short call—I think the reasons for this legislation being introduced have been clearly outlined by previous speakers, including the Minister, and so I’d just like to address some of the concerns raised by the other side.

One of the speakers on the other side alleged that this legislation was going to introduce an unlawful tax. Now, the finding of unlawful tax came about in the High Court judgment, which I have also read. The High Court judgment said that it was an unlawful tax. This bill does not implement an unlawful tax; this bill allows the previous fees structure to be implemented in order to give certainty to teachers and educators and to the Teaching Council. It is not the same thing. It is not the same thing as introducing an unlawful tax. So we are not introducing an unlawful tax; we are sorting out a situation following a court case, which sometimes happens. It sometimes happens. Sometimes legislation needs to be brought in after cases are brought, similar to a judicial review.

The other side has also said it’s retrospective. It is retrospective, and the Minister said that. The reason it is retrospective is because, if we did not introduce this piece of legislation, the Teaching Council would need to go through an extremely long, lengthy period involving almost every single teacher in the country, organising refunds and then asking for additional payments.

💬 Simeon Brown: What’s wrong with that?

I’ll tell you what is wrong with that. It takes our teachers away from their important work as educators and sorts out a more simple solution to allow them to continue with their work. So that is why we have that element in the bill.

They’ve also alleged, quite amazingly, that it’s a new tax. This is not a new tax. It is quite common for professional bodies to require a fee when they are regulating the profession that they are a part of. It happens in many, many different contexts, and it does not amount to a tax. And, in fact, the Teaching Council has been charging an amount not changed, I believe, since 2010. So that is why we’re introducing it in that way.

Also, it does not allow the Teaching Council to do whatever they like, and the reason is that judicial review functions exist for every single law that is passed in this House, and when that is not followed—the letter of the law is not followed—they are allowed to challenge it in judicial review. And so therefore this is a common-sense response to an issue which has been raised, and I commend this bill to the House.

Oh, thank you, Mr Speaker. I thought I would take this call, in light of the fact that Te Paati Māori has chosen not to take their call, and support the excellent contribution of Camilla Belich, who points out that it’s absolutely normal for a professional body to charge its members fully for all of the services it provides. And by a quirk of the law, there are only limited functions that could be charged for here and this is a simple tidy up. I’m surprised the National Party is taking that position, because it’s a position which existed under its own watch. It’s a simple tidy up. And as for the retrospectivity, they might want to read a bit more carefully, because it only relates to the ability to hold on to the money and credit it to a new fee rather than going through a complex refund process.

💬 Nicola Grigg: A new fee, like a new tax?

If Mrs Grigg were to read the bill and the departmental disclosure statement, it would go a long way to improving her speeches. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take this short call in support of this bill. But first, can I acknowledge the speakers in this part of the House, who very articulately pointed out the importance of this bill. Now, previously I’ve heard the members on the other side of the House complaining about how many times this Minister has to make amendments. This is a hard-working Minister. When you work hard, you do things, you change things, you amend things—that’s what the hard-working Ministers, that’s what the hard-working people do. So just like my colleague Jamie Strange, I’d like to commend the Minister for bringing this bill to the House.

This bill is narrow in scope. It actually doesn’t do any of the things that the people on the other side said it would, because they are scaremongering. This bill validates the previous fees. It retrospectively validates the fees that existed before the court fees. This is a very important point—this is the point that they keep ignoring. It’s not a retrospective fee increase. Two different things: this bill is not about addressing matters that need an urgent response. It does not attempt to resolve every possible legislative issue relating to the Teaching Council—

💬 Maureen Pugh: Point of order. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just wonder about the consistency in the rulings around reading speeches.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Is the member serious in raising that? The member knows that it is absolutely out of order and disorderly for her to do that, and if she doesn’t know, she should read her Standing Orders.

💬 Simeon Brown: Point of order. I seek leave if the member on the other side would like to table his notes.

💬 SPEAKER: The member will leave the Chamber.

Simeon Brown withdrew from the Chamber.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. A lot has been said about this bill. I’m not going to focus on what has been said already, but I just wanted to clarify that this bill does none of the things that members on the other side said it would, because it’s two things: it’s confusing—they are playing scaremongering shamefully and I look forward to having this bill in our select committee, chaired by our amazing chair, Marja Lubeck. We are willing to engage with submitters, because we have nothing to hide. We have nothing to be scared of. We are willing to engage with every submitter, with respect. Finally, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment Bill be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Instruction to the Education and Workforce Committee