Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)

on behalf of the Minister of Education: I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2).

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): 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 Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I will move that the committee report the bill to the House by 2 May 2022.

In August 2020, the Government passed the Education and Training Act. This was comprehensive legislation that brought together education legislation into a single Act. This House has already considered education amendment bills this year, including the Education and Training (Teaching Council Fees, Levies, and Costs) Amendment Bill, which was passed in November. During the debate on that bill, I said that I will be bringing further changes to the Teaching Council to the House. The bill we are debating today contains these changes, which I will return to shortly.

The bill before the House today is the next step in a programme of continuous improvement for the education sector. The bill contains both new policies and minor and technical amendments to existing provisions in the Act. The bill amends the Police vetting provision in the Act. The bill amends the Act to align it more closely with the safety checking regime set out in the Children’s Act 2014. The Children’s Act requires all workers who have regular or overnight contact with children to have undergone a comprehensive safety check, which includes a Police vet before beginning work. The bill requires all non-teaching and unregistered employees to have been the subject of a Police vet before beginning employment, rather than the two-week period employers have to apply for a vet currently. This change is aimed at ensuring children are safe while engaging in education.

The bill streamlines the disciplinary functions of the Teaching Council by reducing the number of matters that must be referred to the disciplinary tribunal, and allowing them to be resolved more quickly by the complaints assessment committee. A number of other minor changes have also been made to the legislative provisions relating to the Teaching Council. These changes include making it explicit that the council can prosecute breaches of registration and certification requirements, and that it can regulate teaching in all languages of instruction and not just English and Māori medium settings.

The bill better supports the wellbeing and safety of our tertiary and international students. It ensures that provisions for wellbeing and safety codes and the dispute resolution scheme for tertiary students are fit for purpose. As well, the scope of the dispute resolution scheme was broadened so that the scheme operator can consider breaches of the code alongside financial and contractual complaints. The bill changes how the Government regulates fees charged by tertiary education providers for student services such as health, sports, and recreation services. This will allow the Government to ensure these settings better respond to student needs and system changes. For example, it will enable the Government to consider future changes to better protect fair fee arrangements for tertiary students or to enhance student voice. The bill simplifies qualifications and other credentials by streamlining the way qualifications are designed and used. Under the bill, industry will be able to establish their own national curricula through workforce development councils to be incorporated into the New Zealand Qualifications Framework. The bill also provides for micro-credentials and removes training schemes and training packages. In addition, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) will be able to publish information on any quality issues relating to providers, which will increase transparency for all students.

The bill makes two amendments relating to national student numbers (NSNs). First, the bill will allow NSNs to be used to ensure employers and students receive appropriate resourcing and support for work-based training. Currently, national student numbers cannot be used when funding is not administered through an education provider. This amendment will allow agencies to better administer these resources and to seek recovery of funding if necessary. Secondly, the bill explicitly authorises national student numbers to be assigned to students studying in overseas jurisdictions where New Zealand has entered into an arrangement for the teaching and assessment of NCEA. Currently, these arrangements include the Cook Islands and Niue. The bill amends the mandate of the Education Review Office (ERO) to enable it to review professional learning and development accessed by schools, kura, and early learning services. Enabling ERO to review professional learning and development will improve our understanding of its quality and impact in individual places of learning and at a system level.

The bill also makes a number of minor and technical changes to the Act. These amendments include specifying the free kindergarten associations currently recognised for collective bargaining purposes, removing the requirement for the Secretary of Education to review and approve school strategic plans, and enabling NZQA to exercise discretion about whether to cancel the registration of private training establishments in relation to immigration breaches. In 2020, the Act introduced new provisions that enabled network management for licensed early childhood services. The network management provisions have a delayed commencement and will come into effect on 1 August 2022. Network management approvals will examine the need for an early childhood service and the suitability of the applicant.

I have released a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that amends the network management provisions. The changes set out in the SOP create a more sustainable, higher quality and more diverse network of early learning services. New national and regional statements would be introduced for early learning network management, which will include priorities for early learning provision following input from the early learning sector and Māori. Providers will have access to information on supply and forecast growth, demand, and need. The amendments will further improve the quality of services by introducing new requirements around demonstrating capability and strengthening the fit and proper test. The changes will protect children and create a more learner- and whānau-centred early learning network. I have referred the SOP to the Education and Workforce Committee so it can be considered at the same time as the bill. With great excitement, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m happy to take a call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). When this bill was originally introduced, we had a good look through it. There are a number of changes, technical amendments, but on the whole a bill that didn’t look overly contentious. There were some issues that we had, but they could be nutted out at the select committee, as you would expect us to do. However, yesterday morning, very early in the morning, a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was tabled, and this, of course, is highly unusual. You very rarely get a Supplementary Order Paper that is introduced before the first reading of a bill. Now, I understand from the Minister that it just wasn’t ready in time, but usually what would happen is that the bill is withdrawn, amended, and then resubmitted to the House. So we’ve only had this Supplementary Order Paper since yesterday, but I would like to base most of my contribution on what is contained in this Supplementary Order Paper, because we will not be supporting this bill based on the Supplementary Order Paper that was tabled yesterday by the Minister.

The reason we won’t be doing that is because right from the very start when the original legislation was introduced to the House in late 2019, we had many concerns about network planning for early childhood. I’ve read back through all the speeches that we gave, and we signalled at the time that there were going to be issues with network planning. When the Government and the Minister get involved with what types of centres can be set up, where they can be set up, under what conditions, and how many students they can have—when the Minister starts to get involved in that level of detail of private businesses—we signalled at the time that we thought there would be issues.

This Supplementary Order Paper goes even further, and I’ll get into the detail of that because I want to go through it part by part. But, overall, this Supplementary Order Paper for the early childhood education sector is anti-competitive. It reduces choice. It entrenches the existing providers regardless of the quality of the service. It discourages small players from entering the market. It reduces the likelihood of a centre being established in a brand new residential area, and it makes it harder for new centres to establish, basically, anywhere, especially those small, niche community providers who are wanting to get set up. Now, the Minister who was reading the speech today for the Government talked about this Supplementary Order Paper meaning that it would be sustainable and diverse—we’d have a sustainable and diverse early childhood education (ECE) sector because of this. I would argue that this does exactly the opposite, and I will go through point by point.

Firstly—there are two steps to this—the Minister is required to give approval for an early childhood centre to be able to, later on, apply for a licence. It used to be that you would just set up your centre and then you would apply for a licence when you had set up. Now there is a two-step process, and the first part is actually going to the Minister to get his approval for applying for a licence within two years. Now, the very first part of this, in section 17, in new clause 5A, talks about the Minister having a high-level assessment of the relevant attributes of the area to be served, including, without limitation, the demography of the area, the needs of the communities in the area, the needs of the children, and the availability of centres.

Now, it talks about a high-level assessment. The reason it has to be a high-level assessment is that the ministry do not have the capabilities or the IT system or the data collection to be able to understand. Other than a very high-level demographic view, they do not have the ability to know what parents want. Do they want a play centre? Do they want a community centre? Do they want a private centre? Do they want something a bit more niche? That data doesn’t exist, and the education ministry doesn’t have the ability to collect that data. There is no IT system to track it. They don’t know where parents want those centres. Do they want them close to their home? Do they want them close to their work? Do they want them somewhere else? What size do they want? There are many things that parents want when it comes to an early childhood education centre, and at the moment they have incredible choice, but now the Minister is going to be deciding, based on information that he doesn’t have and cannot collect, what type of centre can be opened and where. One of things that’s been slipped in, in this SOP, is that the Minister must take into consideration any other matter that he considers relevant to the application—anything else that he thinks might be relevant, based on data that he doesn’t have. One of the things, also, is that the Minister will be looking at people’s financial arrangements. Again, the ministry doesn’t have the capacity, the bureaucrats available, to be able to (a) actively collect the data and (b) analyse it. So it’s a capacity issue that the ministry just doesn’t have.

What has been inserted into this SOP is a particularly egregious section, section 17A, in clause 5B, and this is the one that I really want to talk about. The big problem and what the Minister doesn’t understand is that, when someone sets up an ECE centre, it’s a long, costly, difficult process. And when you add in extra compliance and the Minister has to decide whether you can set up a centre, it makes banks nervous. The ANZ bank has already said they will not lend to ECEs setting up new centres under the existing legislation, let alone this. This new section 17A allows the Minister to say at the beginning of the process or at any time, “This is the type of centre I want, this is the number of children, and this is where I want it.” Now, at any time in that 2-year process that the centre has got to apply for a licence, the Minister can impose new conditions and amend or revoke any existing conditions. So you can have the rug completely pulled out from underneath you when you’re already halfway through the process. No bank will lend to any ECE provider on these conditions. It’s absolutely ridiculous. So when we talk about wanting to set up new centres and having sustainability, banks won’t lend on this. They already wouldn’t lend on it, but they certainly won’t lend on it now. This a massive problem. The Government does not understand the commercial realities of setting up a new centre.

One of the other issues with this bill—and it’s always been there—is that the centre only has two years to complete construction. So from getting the approval from the Minister about what he wants, they have two years. In most cases, it takes almost two years just to get a resource consent before you even get a spade in the ground, and that’s a massive problem. In this bill, they have gone on to say that, if there are any exceptional circumstances, it may be extended for an extra two years. It talks about things like adverse weather events that are outside your control, but it doesn’t talk about things like hold-ups by the council, shipping delays, or not enough staff. Those types of things don’t seem to fall into the types of things that the Minister will grant an extension on. So you will have providers thinking, “Am I possibly going to be able to get a centre set up in two years? Probably not.” The Government is discouraging centres from building new centres. It’s the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve.

The ministry has said they want to have small centres in more places and not just the big guys. Well, this bill discourages that, because these little guys will not be able to get the finance. The big guys can get the finance because they’ve got their own arrangements. So we will see a proliferation of the very big centres, which isn’t in itself a bad thing—they’re great providers—but if the ministry are trying to get an outcome where you see small providers, niche providers, community centres set up, this bill discourages that and will do the exact opposite. The second part, the really important part, is the Minister can at any time change his mind on the conditions, and then section 17C says the Minister may revoke his approval for a licence if he’s satisfied that the applicant didn’t meet the criteria that were set in the first place—or changed halfway through the process. So the Minister can revoke his approval based on the fact that he changed his mind halfway through, decided he wanted to change some conditions, and the poor provider couldn’t meet it or had his finance revoked or something, and then the Minister can say, “Oh, sorry. Too bad; I’m revoking it.” It’s just absolutely ridiculous. The commercial realities of this, they just don’t understand.

In my last 44 seconds, I just want to talk about the fact that, if an applicant is particularly aggrieved by this, they can take it to the District Court. That’s in the bill—the new part of the bill. The problem is that the Minister doesn’t have to take that into account, and he can grant a licence to their competitor who’s also trying to get the licence in the same area regardless of that fact that you’ve gone to the District Court. So there’s no point in taking this to the District Court if you feel aggrieved by the decision that’s been made, because the Minister doesn’t need to take that into account. He can just grant the approval for the licence to someone else. This is a terrible bill. It’s egregious. It will do the exact opposite of what the Government is trying to achieve, and we will not be supporting it.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). I spoke on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 1) last week, and this bill is different, but it does have some similarities. Both bills follow from the substantive change that was made last term, the Education and Training Bill 2020. I said in relation to that bill that it was a pragmatic bill, and it is good lawmaking to make sure any inevitable issues that come from a substantive legislative change like the one that was introduced last term are addressed quickly and efficiently.

So this bill brings forward minor technical amendments and it also makes the substantive policy change which was mentioned by the member opposite, Erica Stanford. She’s correct that the most substantive change is the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that introduces the network management provision for licensed early childhood services. This was actually provided for under the primary Act; so it’s not correct to say that this was not foreshadowed at all in the primary legislation, although this SOP does detail what will happen.

And I disagree with the member in terms of what this SOP will achieve. The changes will lead to a more sustainable, unified, higher-quality, and diverse early childhood education sector that meets the needs of early childhood teachers and students in New Zealand. So I commend this bill to the House.

My pleasure to talk on this bill, the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No. 2), which, in the normal course of events, was a fairly routine piece of legislation typical of this Government, fixing up little mistakes made in previous pieces of legislation brought to the House in haste and in error, and so there’s a long list of little things that they’ve got to fix. So, align the Police vetting procedures in the Act more closely to the safety-checking requirements of the Children’s Act 2014—they didn’t get it right the first time around. So then they had a bill through the House, which we’ve just passed, but they still didn’t manage to get it right and so they’ve got another bill to fix that. So that’s what we see quite often, and ordinarily that’s OK. But, as my colleague Erica Stanford pointed out, unusually we’ve had—at the same time as this bill being introduced—a large Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) bringing in what is a reasonably significant policy change around early education providers.

And, in essence, what we’ve got is a strengthening of a licensing regime for early education providers, and returning to a situation—a lot of younger New Zealanders won’t recall how the New Zealand economy was arranged back in the 50s and 60s and 70s and early 80s, where the whole of the New Zealand economy was licensed. So, if you wanted to set up a business as a transport business, for example, you couldn’t just open up a business and say, “Here are my trucks, I want to take your stuff from A to B.”; you had to get a licence from the Government to do it. The Government would say, “Well, actually, there’s already a transport business here in Eketāhuna. We don’t think you should set one up, because there’s already a business there. You don’t need to do it.” That’s how the whole country operated, and it was a mad system and it led to—it was all about protecting the incumbents, and if you had a licence, you had a licence to print money, and if you didn’t, you didn’t. That was a corrupting regime because it became not about the skill of what you were offering; it became about how effective you were at getting and retaining a licence. That is the mad arrangements that had New Zealand in a terrible situation by the early 80s, and was all thrown out under a reforming Labour Government. It was the only decent Labour Government in the history of this country, I’m bound to say, but that’s by the by.

Now, years later, in 2021, we have another Labour Government restoring that sort of mind-set to the early education sector. So, rather than coming along and saying, “Well, here, I want to set up an early education offering centre in Eketāhuna”—or Remuera or wherever—“I believe I’m going to provide something that parents will want. I want to help educate and look after these young kids. I’ve got a bright new idea; I’m going to do a better job than the people who are doing it down the road, and people, if they like what I have to offer, will come, and if they don’t they won’t, and that’s what it’s all about. I’m going to deliver a better service and product than anybody else, and people are going to come”, that’s not the option, because, under this proposal, some Minister and some bureaucrat in Wellington will have to step back and say, “Well, actually, there’s already sufficient providers in that area. We don’t think we need you, and the country doesn’t need you. Get lost. We’re not going to give you a licence, based on our data analysis and our assessment of what the situation is.” So that’s fundamentally all about protecting the incumbents—the people who are already there. It leads to a scleretic—sclerotic—what’s the word? It leads to a calcified and hardened situation where there is less innovation and less opportunity for new providers to come in. It’s a dreadful idea, and we will oppose it on principle.

I don’t know why they don’t just be honest and say what they really want is they just don’t want the private sector involved in education, full stop. That’s what they’re trying to do, and this is sort of a halfway step which is a tragedy. So, look, we’ll be opposing this legislation. It speaks volumes of this Government that they introduced a bill and then couldn’t even get their act together to introduce a coherent bill, with this actually in the bill rather than throwing in an SOP at the time that it’s introduced, in a rushed and messy manner. But at least it will enable the submitters in the select committee process to deal with it and engage in the issues, and I’m sure many people in the sector will be very interested in it. But, of course, the moment that you bring in very difficult licensing regimes, then naturally it’s the people that aren’t in the sector who might have got into the sector who are the most affected. The incumbents, quite often, are quite happy to make it difficult for competitors to come along, and so it becomes a very difficult and unhelpful set of arrangements when Governments get more and more involved in making decisions about whether a New Zealander should have a go and set up a new business in any part of the economy, whether it’s early education, whether it’s driving trucks, or whether it’s doing anything else.

Quite aside from the natural requirements and absolute expectations around the many things in the education sector that are special in terms of ensuring quality and qualifications and Police vetting and all those elements which are quite legitimate and separate and should be dealt with in a rigorous way, what we’re talking about here is about the market demand for places in early education, and that is where this Government is crossing the line and, of course, is part of an overall, wider-ranging trend towards centralisation and decisions being made, by officials in Wellington, about what’s best for everybody else. That’s very much a theme that we’ve seen in the polytech sector; it’s a theme that we’re seeing throughout every aspect of this Government—“Wellington knows best.” As we all known, particularly those of us from Auckland who have been locked down for such a long time, there are different views in different parts of the country. People have different priorities and mind-sets, and we’ll be looking forward to hearing from them throughout the select committee process that follows. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to rise and take a call on this piece of legislation. I just want to spend my time focusing on the Supplementary Order Paper that we have before us. As someone who has gone through the process of opening up and starting an early childhood centre in a small, rural town, I found that process extremely easy and smooth to do, and I don’t see that this piece of legislation will change that in any way, shape, or form. If I still owned that centre, I would welcome this piece of legislation, because I had an early childhood centre in a small, rural town—or area—and if someone, a big competitor such as these corporate centres, wanted to come in and open up shop, that would completely put me out of business. As a small-business owner, I see that this piece of legislation will better protect these small-business, niche early childhood centres that the Opposition seems so passionate to talk about.

What I have found quite interesting in the first two contributions from the Opposition is that they barely mention children, and children are at the heart of this matter. Children who attend early childhood centres deserve quality education in quality settings. The other thing they haven’t mentioned is that it’s taxpayers’ money that fund these early childhood centres predominately. So therefore, if I apply to open up an early childhood centre and, for some reason during that process, I either go bankrupt or I suddenly have some serious criminal conviction, it should be entirely within the Minister’s ability to cancel my application and not allow me to open up an early childhood centre, because it is a way of protecting our children and protecting taxpayers’ money. I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, it’s Groundhog Day. We’ve got another one of these education and training amendment bills. When this one hit my desk, it kind of reminded me of exactly the same one that we passed last week, which was the Education and Training Amendment Bill, and maybe because it’s the holiday season and I’ve been thinking of the holiday movies that I’ll be watching with my whānau, perhaps we could name these education and training amendments bills like prequels or sequels to sorts of movies. So, looking forward to this one going to the select committee, I’m not sure if it’s going to be the “Education and Training Amendment Bill: A New Hope” or “Education and Training Amendment Bill: The Empire Strikes Back”, but I’m certainly hopeful for the teachers of Aotearoa New Zealand that it could be the “Education and Training Amendment Bill: The Return of the Jedi”.

The Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) did land yesterday, and we will be taking some time to go through that with our caucus, because there are a lot of substantive issues that have been raised, as well. But I must say that, as the education spokesperson for the National Party got up to respond to the SOP, it just sounded better and better, to be honest. I was expecting some criticism to dissect it, but the contributions just made me think, “Well, maybe, actually this is not such a bad thing after all.”

I think it is really important and really mindful for all of us that we must always place children at the centre of the education system. We must place children at the centre of everything that we do in terms of the way that we organise and establish our early childhood education centres (ECE), the way that we run our schools, and the way that we support our education communities as well. Also, I’m very mindful as well about the discrepancy within the ECE sector as well: the massive pay-parity differences between those that work in the kindergartens compared to those that work in ECEs. I was privileged enough to go to one of the protests just recently to support those calls as well, and one of the things that the teachers told me was that, if you start in the kindergarten, compared to someone that works in the ECE sector, within 10 years, that pay parity gap could be as wide as $100,000 or $10,000 a year, and growing each year, as well. So I feel that anything that will help to make early childhood centres the best possible place for our tamariki is something that we should be working together as a Parliament to do, as well, and that will hopefully come up in the select committee, as well.

I did hear some mutterings to the right of me about crony capitalism, and so I did take the point from the member Simon Court about making sure that that doesn’t happen. I’m certain the member to my right will highlight that—the need to make sure that doesn’t happen—and hopefully that will come out in the deliberations in the select committee.

But, to the bill, there’s lots of different things in here—for example, aligning the Police vetting provisions more closely with the requirements in the Children’s Act 2014; strengthening the Teaching Council disciplinary processes—that would be good; requiring compulsory student service fees charged by tertiary education providers; and enabling NZQA to exercise discretion about whether to cancel the registration of a private training establishment in relation to immigration breaches. But, here, I think one of the issues that we should also think about as well and be mindful of is the immigration breaches that happen not just in private training establishments (PTEs) but also in universities and polytechs as well, and also to remember that, often, students who have a particular class of immigration status don’t necessarily have the support to progress any kind of concern that they might have with a PTE, but also within a university or in a tertiary education setting as well.

Other things in this bill, as well, is amending the Education Review Office’s (ERO) mandate to enable it to review professional learning and development. I would be interested to see how that would look, to see how ERO would go about that, and whether they’re actually the appropriate body to do that, and the sorts of plans that they would do to make sure that that is done properly, because that really impacts the quality of teaching and the quality of teaching practice within Aotearoa New Zealand, as well. There are other things in here, as well, like introducing new types of casual vacancy on school boards when the board’s members are removed for breaching the code of conduct; amending the Act’s regulation-making powers so that the regulations can specify the qualifications held by persons controlling or working as educators in an early learning centre.

So there’s a lot of parts to this to this bill, and it’s going to be really good to get into that detail at the select committee process, and also to tease out all of those issues around the SOP. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)—let’s hope that it’s “Return of the Jedi” and not the “The Empire Strikes Back”. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to take a call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). The purpose of the bill is to make amendments across a range of matters in the Act to give effect to new policy decisions and to make minor and technical changes. While they may seem minor and technical changes in the added Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), ACT believes there is enough to worry about for us, and we will not be supporting the bill.

There are a number of areas of change. I’ll just go through a few. The Police vetting provisions—where the Education and Training Act is amended, it’s all non-teaching and unregistered employees of early childhood education (ECE) services and registered schools must be the subject of a vet before they start work, instead of two weeks in, which absolutely makes sense.

The Teaching Council—we talked a bit about the Teaching Council over the last few months. It’s been noted that matters of teaching conduct are taking too long to go through the disciplinary process. The aim is to strengthen the Teaching Council processes, which makes sense, as it is their core business; a lot of other stuff isn’t. I know a matter that has been dragging on for over two years, and this is unfair on the teacher involved, and the family, and it needs to be dealt with.

On the surface of it, the compulsory student services fees amendment sounds OK, but when we read, “give Government more flexibility to regulate”, we in ACT are justifiably nervous.

The private training establishment changes are to enable the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to exercise discretion about whether to cancel the registration of a training establishment in relation to immigration breaches—seems a bit like overkill. Five cases, 2018 to 2019, affecting a total of about 60 students. Were the cases intentional, innocent mistakes, or even incompetence from Immigration New Zealand? A lot of work needs to be done in that area. It seems like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The bill extends the Education Review Office’s (ERO) mandate to enable it to review professional learning and development. As an ex-teacher, the mention of ERO makes me nervous, and I’ll be looking forward to finding out more detail about this change.

Then we have the new sections around student accommodation, where “a code administrator may authorise any person to do, at any … time, any 1 … of the following things”—and there are seven things: enter a premises, get any person to produce documents, remove documents, inspect the training work and any related materials, and talk with any person. It just seems very authoritarian and warrantless searches and privacy issues, and possibly not justified.

Then we come to SOP 118—that we got yesterday. We’re concerned about this for a number of reasons, and it seems to be another chapter in the agenda of the ECE area, and we have every right to be cautious. If we look at new section 17(2) in the SOP, when applying for a licence, “The Minister may grant approval, but, before doing so, must take into account—(a) a high-level assessment of the relevant attributes of the area to be served, including (without limitation) the demography of the area, the needs of the communities in the area, the needs of the children in the area, and the availability of licensed early childhood services in the area with different offerings (for example, … te reo Māori);”. There are a number of other lists, but the last one is “(g) any other matter that the Minister considers is relevant to the application”. This just seems to be giving huge subjective powers to the Minister.

New section 17A—when applying for a licence, a Minister may, at any time, impose new conditions on the approval or amend or revoke any existing conditions. New section 17B—when applying for a licence, the Minister must specify an expiry date for the approval that is no more than two years after the date on which the approval is given. Anyone prepared to start up and do business in New Zealand in the current climate needs every help they get. They need certainty; this doesn’t provide it.

New section 17D—the Minister may issue statements relating to network of licensed early childhood services, including “(1)(a) the Government’s strategic priorities for the establishment of licensed early childhood services;”. We had a taste of these priorities earlier in the year, and we have reason to be concerned. I could go on, but instead, we’ll wait until the select committee process to ask the questions that we believe need answering, but until then, we won’t be supporting the bill. Thank you.

It’s clearly indicative of the lack of enthusiasm on the Government’s part that they won’t take a call. But as a slight Christmas present, I will not make this a completely long 10-minute speech. Fundamentally, we’ve been hearing from the left side of this House that it’s about putting the children at the heart of this. The problem is that it’s all about, actually, putting the Minister, the Government, and bureaucrats at the heart of education. So, for those listening out there, the Government yesterday dumped an SOP—and you’re going “What’s an SOP?” Well, to sort of riff on the element of education and training: “SOP” is an acronym for a Supplementary Order Paper. It’s an amendment to a piece of legislation. The irony for those of us who are, of course, in politics is that this is the first reading of a completely new piece of legislation but the competence of this Government is sorely on display in that they needed, within minutes—actually prior to the legislation even being introduced to the House—they’ve had to make changes, and not only that, the changes are egregious.

Long and short—probably more long—the Government wants to put more and more control into who sets up early childhood education (ECE). We’ve heard some very poor excuses from the other side: there’s the chance that those setting up ECE will turn out to be very dangerous criminals. I suppose that’s possible. It would be interesting if the Government could provide any statistics of how many people running ECEs have turned out to be dangerous criminals, and as the Corrections spokesperson I might point out that we don’t really put these people in prison anymore, anyhow.

But, basically, the SOP is outlining a whole lot of conditions, rules, and regulations which the Minister exercises. So National opposes this bill, because, as I said at the start, it’s not putting the children at the centre; it’s actually putting the Labour Government. Unfortunately, this is very true to form because we’re seeing this level of control right through the sector. We’ve seen it with the polytechs, we’ve seen it with the health sector, we’ve seen it around water; you name it. The Government wants more and more control. So we oppose this bill. We will look forward to it going into select committee. We hope New Zealanders do submit a lot, because, as others have noted, there’s a whole pile of stuff in here from Police vetting, to strengthening the Teaching Council, disciplinary processes, and so forth. So it’s really important for teachers and educators to be aware.

In concluding, people need to be aware of the mischief that this Government has already created. I won’t ask the other side to spell “mischief”; it might be a little bit of a challenge—it begins with an “M”. But, basically, the bill’s convoluted in itself, and as I say, yesterday, before this was even read a first time, an SOP, an amendment, has already been tabled. As some have noted, it’s a bit of a Trojan Horse, and that’s where we’ve got probably the most focus, and probably the principal reason why National opposes it. So I’ll repeat what I said at the start: the Government cannot make the argument—well, not successfully—that it’s children at the centre. This is all about the Minister, it’s all about the Government, and it’s all about control.

💬 Ibrahim Omer: Madam Speaker?

Before I take the call, could the member clarify whether he is seeking a five-minute call on behalf of the Māori Party, who did not take up their call?

💬 Ibrahim Omer: No, I’m taking a full call—10 minutes.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. I call Ibrahim Omer.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I rise to take a call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)—what cynicism. It’s supposed to be our last day, we’re all supposed to be cheering up with a positive mind-set, but here we go.

The bill amends the Education and Training Act 2020. The bill does have quite a few amendments, but it’s also the next step in the programmes of continuous improvement for the education sector. It contains both new policies and minor technical changes.

This bill also further improves the quality of service by introducing new requirements which will eventually lead to the change that will protect children and create a more learner- and family-centred early learning network.

The Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—my good friend Jo Luxton, who is also an expert in the early childhood education sector, who was also an ethical living wage employer. Talking about it, I’m not going to say much but the SOP amends the network management provisions for licensed early childhood services. I think with that I’m going to rest my case about this, because Jo Luxton is the best person to speak about this. She comes from the sector, she was a living wage employer, and she is the best person to, basically, make this point, and I will take that.

This is a good bill, and I look forward to engaging with submitters during the select committee process. I commend it to the House.

Mōrena, Madam Speaker, and everybody. I stand to take the last call for the National Party on this Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), because last week I spoke in the House with my colleagues again on another Education and Training Amendment Bill—which was not labelled (No 1). Little did we know we had (No 2) coming up! When I addressed the House on that matter, it was quite clear that the principal Act, which had been rushed through in haste, in urgency last year—we made it very clear to the Government that in so doing you’re actually diminishing and depriving the New Zealand public and our education sector of the value and the valued recognition and significance that ought to be given them in making sure to get things corrected. Here we are with an amendment bill (No 2).

The detail of this amendment bill just affirms and reaffirms and confirms the rushed nature and aspect of the principal Act last year, with reckless regard. I do say “reckless regard” because the National Party—we cautioned the Government to take things at cautionary, due diligence pace. Here we are with the (No 2) bill, which is by no means minor and technical and short. It is 73 clauses long, two parts, four schedules, and, dare I say, in total some 44 pages. That is not minor. It is very substantive, substantial, and significant. And these are further amendments, fix it ups. So the substantive amendments to the principal Act are outlined in Part 1, and the previous speaker, Ibrahim Omer, tried to indicate that this is a minor amendment—far from it. In Part 1, there are 67 clauses; in Part 2, there are a further six clauses; and then there are the four schedules that follow thereafter. Nothing minor, nothing insignificant.

Turning to the bill—well, actually, turning to a Supplementary Order Paper to the bill, which has been shut down in haste just yesterday—that Supplementary Order Paper, for the benefit of the public, is an amendment to the amendment bill. So, again, that just depicts—and, in fact, magnifies—that the Government continues to do things in haste, haphazardly, and without the due diligence that is required to those who give service in this specialist area of education and the education sector. A Supplementary Order Paper that is 13 pages long and that has some, well, dare I say it, amendments to the additional—what did I say?—73 clauses, which are amendments. A further approximated—I haven’t counted but approximated—seven amendments to that, 13 pages long. It is my submission that this is not respectful to those who are working in the education sector, and I say it’s not respectful because it wasn’t necessary for it to be rushed under urgency last year. So here we are again looking to fix it up.

I pick up from what my colleagues before me have spoken on—this, very clearly, in going through the detail of the amendment bill and the Supplementary Order Paper, is about centralising. It’s centralising, taking away from the people out in the regions who are running not only businesses but the significant education of the communities whom they know—in this instance, our children and, importantly, always, our children. This is a Government who deems that, as a Government, there is the long reach and the strong arm of the Government telling our communities, telling our people who know our communities best, how and what to do. This is classic centralisation. As said, it’s been seen in the polytechnic sector—another education sector; in our health sector, 21 DHBs. It’s interesting to see how all the MPs, particularly the Labour MPs in communities, are going to actually front up to our communities to explain why they support the removal of our specialised health service, the district health board, from our communities. Further centralisation. We’ve seen it with the COVID health response, Whānau Ora. We have the strong arm of Government telling our people how to do things because the Government knows best. And here we are with the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2).

With the explanatory note, it addresses the areas of aligning Police vetting provisions with safety checking requirements; the Children’s Act—that is important, so important it should have been dealt with in the first instance, under the principal Act, if our children are front of mind and the centre and purpose of this. Here we are: amendment bill (No 2). The amendment bill is also about strengthening Teaching Council disciplinary processes, that’s been dealt with, and I do recall, in the principal Act debate, there was strong debate about that. And again, getting it right, here we are fixing it up. “Greater flexibility for the Government to regulate compulsory student services fees charged by tertiary education providers.” There’s a whole list—in fact, it’s several pages long—and that is a summary of what this amendment bill is about.

The National Party opposes this amendment bill very much not because we undermine or devalue the education sector and the early childhood education sector and those people working within it but because we don’t actually value the Government in haste shoving it under our noses with barely minimal time to look at it. The Supplementary Order Paper—undoubtedly, the Government has the numbers, like it always has on anything that comes before this House, and, as it deems for New Zealanders, will make sure that this passes into law. This bill is going before the select committee, which hopefully—hopefully—the Government will see fit to give our public sufficient and opportune time to have input and to listen to those who know better than those who sit in Government seats.

It’s all very well for a member from the Government to say that that person runs a small early childhood education centre in a small rural town and that the business is doing well. That was before this Supplementary Order Paper, before this principal Act, and before the amendment bill (No 2), which is before the House. Of course it’s incumbent on a member within the Government to agree with what they’re told to say, and that all is well and rosy with this bill. It will be for the members of the public before the select committee to speak to those total of amendments: 73 clauses; 67 of those are substantive and substantial. Only six minor consequential clauses related to the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) sector.

So, in closing, it’s very clear that in the National Party we value the interests of our children, we value the interests of our business operators, our educators, and our local communities, because there are people in our local communities who know better and know how best to serve the needs of our local communities, rather than a Minister on high who delegates authority to officials and the bureaucracy. Leave it for our people to determine what best services their needs. The National Party opposes this. The Government has the numbers and so it is going to pass through to the follow-after stages.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. ’Twas the night before Christmas and ’tis rich that the Opposition calls us out for a lack of respectful engagement with the sector. Can I remind the member about the engagement on national standards and the whakapapa and stories that sit with that particular piece of work that this Government had to tidy up?

This amendment bill is an important one and, coming from experience in my career in the tertiary sector before becoming an MP, you tend to appreciate the technical detail of this particular bill. I draw on a couple of points, particularly two that stand out for me; one is the alignment of the Police vetting provisions in this particular bill. We know the importance of this well. But the importance of it extending into areas such as student accommodation is very, very important to ensure that the people that have the pastoral care and look after our kids and young people—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Can you just come back to the bill.

Apologies, Madam Speaker. I’m speaking to the Police vetting provisions in the bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh, apologies.

—that relate to student accommodation, and the Police vetting Act, under this bill, I understand, applies across to student accommodation. That’s my first point.

Just secondly, in there, is the importance of us having another look and adjusting legislation to support students and young people to have a voice in the disputes process within tertiary institutions and particularly for international students that come through that particular area as well.

It is a technical bill, and as an experienced tertiary practitioner, alongside Jo Luxton as an experienced early education practitioner, we commend this bill to the House.

It is with pleasure that I stand and take a call as the last speaker on this first reading. To bring a bit of Christmas cheer—there seems to be a lot of bah humbugging happening across the other side of the House—this bill is something that shows that this Government is ambitious and optimistic for our education system. This is about improvement and taking up opportunities to make sure that we continue to lead the world with our education system.

One of the aspects that we will be looking at is the next steps in building the structures that are coherent and relevant with Te Pūkenga. It is not about centralisation, actually; it is about ensuring that industry, through Workforce Development Councils, help us to build a qualifications and credentials framework and national curricula that make sure that Te Pūkenga becomes the world-leading tertiary provider that it has the potential to be.

I am very proud to be taking this to select committee and collaborating with educators, students, and industry to make sure that this bill is as good as it can be. I commend this bill to the House.