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

on behalf of the Minister of Education: I move, That the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees and Costs) Amendment 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 on 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(1)(b) and (c).

The reasons for asking the House to agree to a shortened select committee process are fundamentally the same as the reasons why the bill is needed at all. First, the Teaching Council is expected to be fully self-funded through the ability given to the council by the Education and Training Act 2020 to fix fees to cover the costs of its funding. Secondly, the High Court judgment of February this year limited the council’s ability to do this, plunging it into financial uncertainty. It is essential for the council, school system, and the teaching profession that this period of uncertainty is brought to a rapid end—something that only the quick enactment of this bill can do, and the quick turn-around.

It should be emphasised that this is not new policy. The structure, powers, and funding of the Teaching Council were the subject of submissions when the House and the Education and Workforce Committee were considering the Education and Training Bill last year. The principles that underpin these provisions of the principal Act have, therefore, been through the parliamentary process and do not need to be extensively revisited. The intention of this bill is simply to put into place what the House decided last year, having fully considered submissions on this issue.

To enable the Education and Workforce Committee to meet the deadline that we are setting, the motion also includes the usual range of permissions to meet at times outside the parameters normally allowed by Standing Orders. I want to wish the Education and Workforce Committee well in its work.

The question is—

💬 Nicola Willis: Mr—

—the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye; to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.

💬 Nicola Willis: Mr Speaker, is this a debatable motion?

It is.

💬 Nicola Willis: Well, I seek the call.

Well, why didn’t the member seek the call before—

💬 Nicola Willis: I did seek the call, but you didn’t hear me. I was on my feet, seeking the call.

All right. I will take the member’s word that she sought the call. I normally get an indication from around here if someone does as well, but go for it.

Thank you. The previous speaker has put to this House that there should be a shortened period of consideration for this bill, and I stand to oppose that motion because it is my view that this is exactly the sort of issue that requires thorough examination by a select committee.

What we have here is a piece of legislation which seeks to retrospectively validate fee setting by the Teaching Council that has been found by the High Court to be unlawful. Now, the reason that the High Court was even hearing this case was that the teachers’ union, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, was so concerned by the fee-setting behaviour of the Teaching Council and was so unhappy with the lack of responsiveness or action taken by the Teaching Council when those concerns were raised that it took a motion to the High Court—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m going to interrupt the member. This is the narrowest of motions around the length of time and the circumstances in which this select committee should sit. Nothing to do with the substance of the bill is part of this motion.

OK. So Mr Speaker, I thank you for your guidance. This is not a bill that should have a shortened process for hearing submissions, because, actually, every teacher in New Zealand should have the opportunity to submit on this bill, should they wish to. Because it actually affects more than 140,000 of them who currently pay registration fees. I’m concerned that a shortened period for this select committee will preclude submissions being heard to their fullest extent, will preclude the committee from seeking the views and guidance from the range of entities that may be affected by this decision, and, most importantly, what I’m concerned about here is that a shortened select committee process may remove the disinfectant that sunlight can provide when decisions of this sort of made.

A shortened select committee process, as members of this House are aware, means that there are fewer opportunities for members to diagnose why this has happened, fewer opportunities for submitters to bring forth their views on why it’s happened. I think this is a case where, actually, a select committee process that is thorough, that is full, that takes the full time period, would allow for the disinfectant that sunlight can provide.

In particular, what we know that a shortened process of the sort that the Minister outlined implies is it implies that there will be a shorter period between submissions being called and submissions being made. That is hard on submitters. It just means that they’ve got less time to get their thoughts together. It means if they hear—they might not hear for a week or two until after submissions have been called that they’re happening, and then they have to go and find the time to write them. And I put to you: the people who we want to submit on this bill are some of the very busiest people in the country. They are teachers who are spending a lot of time in the classroom, who are then spending time preparing for the classroom, who often have families of their own that keep them very busy. And what we are doing by allowing this motion to shorten the report-back period is we’re allowing for a much shorter time in which those submissions can be got together.

Then what we are doing, potentially, is we are shortening the period in which the committee can actually hear from submitters. And I’ve seen what that means. I’ve sat on select committees where, because you have a shorter period in which to hear submissions, you have to make some really tough calls about who can be heard and who can’t be heard. I’m concerned that this could lead to a situation where we don’t hear from people who are personally affected by having to pay a higher fee to the Teaching Council.

So I think it is incumbent on members of this House to see that democracy does its job, which includes putting sunlight on poor decision-making. A shorter report-back period curtails that opportunity, and I stand in opposition to it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to a shortened select committee time. A normal select committee takes around six months. I have not heard anything today that would convince me why we should shorten a six-month select committee period down to one month.

Teachers are extremely busy people, and they should be respected; their views should be respected. They’re teaching our children every day. They’re also going home late at night, often writing up report cards, marking exams. There is not a huge amount of time for a teacher, within one month, to get their thoughts together to present them to Parliament and actually be able to have the opportunity to be heard in person if that’s what they wish to do. I think this shows the arrogance of the Government, trying to rush through yet again another law. We’ve heard from the Teaching Council. Well, where have they heard from the teachers who will be affected by this? We need to be ensuring that the teachers, who are the main people who will be affected by this law change, who will be forking out hundreds of dollars more every three years—they need their perspectives heard.

We also need to have the perspectives laid out. Do teachers believe that there will be any more benefits that they’ll get from an increase in costs? Is there any point to the law? Not just the teachers’ council perspective should be considered. And that is why we actually want people to engage in lawmaking. That’s the only way that we have better public policy in New Zealand—that we actually engage and allow people who are affected by laws to come in here and share their perspectives. That is what we expect of our democracy: that people are able to engage in the parliamentary process and not have laws rushed upon them where they are being imposed with new costs and they haven’t actually been able to have their say.

That is why the ACT Party stands in opposition to a shortened select committee period. We believe it would be antidemocratic. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

We stand in opposition of the shortened select committee process. As we’ve already heard from our Green Party colleague, there has been significant interest in this. There has been a petition already from the teachers—a significant number of teachers—Eugenie Sage was able to tell us. During this shortened period, every teacher will be teaching. There is no holiday period in that shortened time. So we are expecting our teachers to not only do their job, and we know it’s a very big job. They work long hours, and we are expecting them to put their time into their submissions without even their break period to do it. There will be exams coming up. And we know how much heightened interest there is around this. It’s like adding insult to injury. They weren’t consulted on the first time. That was one of the five findings that the High Court had—they weren’t consulted on. So we’re not going to allow them time to be consulted with this time either. To me, it’s an absolute insult to our teachers to say they have taken a case to the High Court, they have won, it has been found that they weren’t consulted with, and so now, retrospective legislation is going to be put through and they won’t have time to be consulted with again. It’s absolutely insulting to our teachers to do that. So we oppose that shortened consultation period.