Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Education) 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 the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

In accordance with Standing Order 267(1)(c), the Business Committee has approved the introduction of this bill as an omnibus bill. This bill makes technical amendments to maintain the effectiveness of our regulatory systems. The bill, firstly, makes changes to the Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Act 1945 to ensure that it is fit for purpose and that the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion continues. The bill amends the Act to recognise the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board as the successor to the 28th Māori Battalion Association. These changes will enable the board to authorise the use of words and emblems related to the 28th Māori Battalion and the 28th Māori Battalion Association under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981. The bill creates a new position on the board to be held by a person of Māori descent who has served or is currently serving in the New Zealand Defence Force. This will preserve the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion.

The bill makes several important changes to the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972. The Pacific Education Foundation Act supports the functions of the Pacific Education Foundation, which was established in 1972 to promote and encourage strong education outcomes for Pacific peoples within New Zealand, and to provide financial support for that purpose. The board of the foundation administers different kinds of supports and grants for Aotearoa Pacific peoples, including the Tulī Takes Flight scholarships as part of the Government’s goodwill package to acknowledge the impact of the Dawn Raids.

Of the important amendments to the Pacific Education Foundation Act made in this bill, the first is an update to the definition of “Pacific person” who can receive support from the foundation. This change is needed because the current definition is too narrow and does not capture the diversity of Aotearoa-based Pacific people. To reflect the changing demographics of Aotearoa-based Pacific peoples, we are replacing the definition of a “Pacific person” in the Act with a new definition for an “Aotearoa Pacific person”. The new reference to Aotearoa reflects the purpose of the foundation—to provide support to Pacific peoples who are living in Aotearoa New Zealand. In addition, the new definition of “Aotearoa Pacific person” refers to a person with indigenous Pacific cultural heritage from a broader list of Pacific places than in the previous definition. This will ensure that the definition reflects the diverse Pacific population in Aotearoa New Zealand and will mean that more Aotearoa Pacific learners and their families will be eligible for support from the foundation.

The bill will also update the Pacific Education Foundation board’s purpose and amend the board’s constitution and membership to enable it to function more effectively. The new purpose section will continue to set out the board’s role in providing financial assistance to promote and encourage the better education of Aotearoa Pacific people. It will now also clarify the important role the foundation has in providing information and advice to the Minister of Education, the Ministry of Education, and other education agencies on matters related to the educational success of Aotearoa Pacific people.

The bill makes three changes to the board’s membership to strengthen its independence and community representation, and to ensure continuity between membership terms. This includes replacing one of the public servant members with an additional Ministerappointed community member, and increasing the length of time that a board member may be appointed from a term of three years to a term of up to four years.

The bill will also amend the Pacific Education Foundation Act to recognise the unique and important relationship the Crown has with the New Zealand Realm countries of Tokelau, Niue, and the Cook Islands, and with Samoa through the Treaty of Friendship.

Finally, the bill will update the foundation’s authorised expenditure from $500 to $10,000 per year, as it has not been updated since 1972. This change reflects the current value of the authorised expenditure. Together, all of these changes will enable the Pacific Education Foundation to better support our Pacific learners and their families and communities.

The bill also makes technical amendments to the regulations that impact the education centre. This includes the amendment to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 so that the police-vetting requirement for employees at childcare centres, such as mall or gym crèches, are consistent with requirements from the Children’s Act 2014 and the Education and Training Act 2020. The bill also updates the Children’s (Requirements for Safety Checks of Children’s Workers) Regulations 2015 to include a reference to the Kiwi Access Card as an acceptable form of identity, reflecting the name change of the 18+ card.

I am pleased to be introducing this bill to the House. It will update and modernise our education regulatory system and make meaningful changes that uphold the mana and legacy of the Ngārimu VC and 28th Māori Battalion, and support the work of the Pacific Education Foundation. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, we’ve all got the déjà vu situation because here we are again, under urgency, passing a bill. Again, some noble intentions, but misses the main point of the fact that our kids can’t do reading, writing, and math.

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: Oh, don’t belittle the Māori Battalion.

And Kelvin Davis, you should be—you at home won’t be able to hear that, but I’ve been heckled by Kelvin Davis, I think still Associate Minister of Education with an interest in Māori education, I believe, if that’s still the case. So I’ll get to that in a minute.

But, look, we’re not going to be supporting the bill today. We’ve got a few questions. It may well be that after select committee and the committee of the whole House, we will review our position, but there are some questions we have that I want to outline.

Firstly, the Pacific Education Foundation. It’s not clear to us, from the Minister’s speech or from any of the bill notes or the departmental disclosure statement or the explanatory note, why it is that the discretionary amount that is able to be spent by the foundation is going from $500 to $10,000. We’ve got some questions around why that isn’t just better set out in the legislation, because as it currently stands in the legislation, there is a list of authorised expenditure by the foundation. There may well be some things outside of that that they wish to spend money on, and that may well be fine. But the question I think we have is: why is it not the case that we just add those extra things into the listed authorised expenditure in the bill?

So it would be good during the committee process to hear from submitters, and of course the foundation itself, to get more details on exactly what they have spent in the past and where those shortfalls are in the bill that don’t allow them to spend money on those things, because at the moment, they are only allowed to spend $500 on those additional items. So $10,000 is a significant jump, and it would be really good to get more feedback on exactly what that expenditure is, and then from the Minister and officials as to why those things could potentially be better added into the authorised expenditure listed in the bill. So those are just some broad points that we’d be very keen to hear some more on.

Of course, as the Minister mentioned, the bill makes some changes to the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund. Again, we don’t have any problem with this. I guess the question we’d have is around the additional position on the board, just to hear from submitters and also the scholarship fund itself to find out more around why that’s necessary.

I think one of the key issues that—I’m not going to go on for longer than I need to, because it’s not a very big bill. I guess the key question, for me, when I look at this, especially as it is around Māori achievement, is if you take a look at the last five years and the track record of this Government when it comes to Māori achievement, we really should be concerned. After five years, the educational outcomes for Māori students have gotten worse. Again, only about 33 percent of Māori students attended school regularly in term 3 last year; only 63 percent of Māori students attained NCEA level 2 in 2021, which is a decline from 69 percent in 2017.

These are very concerning. And here we have, again, a bill—some noble intentions but isn’t addressing the root cause of Māori and Pasifika achievement. We are very concerned about that. We can see the inequities; we can see the fact that it depends on your socio-economic background as to how you do at school, and that should not be the case. There should be more consistency in our schools when it comes to the curriculum and when it comes to assessment.

One of the things that I am particularly concerned about that is not addressed in this bill is the fact that there were some experts who wrote to the ministry just recently who said that when we don’t have a curriculum that’s set out year by year, the tendency is to underestimate students’ ability—and especially Māori and Pasifika students’ ability. That is one of the problems with a system where you don’t have year-by-year curriculum and core content knowledge outcomes: that when teachers assess children, they assess them below what’s possible, especially Māori and Pasifika students. And that’s why they’re calling for a year-by-year curriculum.

Nothing in this bill around achievement for Māori and Pasifika—again, a missed opportunity. When you look at the statistics, they’re not good. As I said, it matters in this country which socio-economic area you come from as to your educational achievement. That should not be the case. We need far better equality in the education system so that it becomes a great equaliser; we need a much bigger focus on outcomes and on achievement.

Again, another bill under urgency showing quite clearly this Government’s priorities, which are not achievement; which are not addressing the serious concerns that we’ve got around your achievement if you are Māori, you’re Pasifika, or you are from a low socioeconomic area—or we call it high Equity Index area now.

Those things are core business of—you would have thought—the Labour Party, because those are the people they purport to support. And yet, in the last six years, all of the evidence suggests that educational attainment for those vulnerable communities—and our Māori and Pasifika students—has gone backwards. And there is nothing in this bill that I can see that is going to address that.

And those are the concerns of parents out there. They want to know how their kids are doing, how they’re tracking, how they’re progressing, Are they at curriculum by the time they enter high school so that they can have all of the opportunities of high school and then go on to live the life they want? This bill doesn’t address any of that.

💬 Angela Roberts: That’s not the intent.

That’s not the intent of the bill, but maybe it should be. And that was the point that I’m trying to make. But here we are, under urgency, another bill that doesn’t make any of the points that I think the public expect, which is how are we going to raise educational achievement in this country? Especially for our vulnerable communities and our Māori and Pasifika learners who have been let down in the last six months. And, for that reason, we will be opposing the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill at its first reading, which has been handed to the rather excellent Education and Workforce Committee. It’s an interesting criticism, isn’t it, to hear Opposition widely criticising a bill for not doing what it’s not intended to do. It’s not intended to do a whole load of things. It’s not looking at carbon emissions, it’s not looking at the amount of hot air generated from the Opposition benches. But what it does do is something really important. I’m going to just talk for a very short amount of time about police vetting, because this bill will ensure that police vets for non-teaching and unregistered employees at childcare centres like malls and gym crèches—that they’re obtained before the employee begins work.

Now, it’s taking roughly 20 working days at the moment for police-vets to be completed. I understand from the website that they’re achieving that goal about 99 percent of the time, so it’s pretty good going. But I think we all agree—I hope we all agree—how important it is that police-vets are completed before our most vulnerable citizens, such as children, are exposed to potential harm. So we do need to make sure that those police-vets are actually completed before day one of employment, and that’s one of the things that this bill is intending to achieve. It also is intended to enable that the information contained in the police-vet itself is considered to assess whether the person is a risk to the safety of children, if they’re going to be carrying out work during normal opening hours.

This is a small part of the bill. The bill itself, as the Opposition have said, is not large. It does something very important indeed, and, for that reason, I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, here we are again debating things with little to do with education without hitting the real issues in the education sectors, but, however, we’ll have another go at it.

So we’ve touched on the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Scholarship Fund and the Pacific Education Foundation Act. The amendments to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations seems to be a catch-up on what was in the previous bill. But can I just say there are concerns here that regulatory creep occurs, and so when the previous speaker, Sarah Pallett, talked about 20 days, the previous legislation that we were looking at considered that perhaps contractors should also be considered for police vetting. Can I assure the previous speaker that if you’ve got a blocked toilet or if you have got a power issue or if you have got something incredibly serious that you need to get a tradesperson in for, you can’t wait 20 days. So there needs to be a sense of what is practical also, and it worries me that with regulatory creep and some of the monitoring that goes on, some of that practical sense of what it takes to run an organisation is lost.

I can give an example of that, perhaps, with the unintended consequences of the regulations around nutrition audits which have to be carried out if you provide food in an early childhood education (ECE) centre. Every one to three years, depending on your audit cycle, you have to have a nutrition audit, which costs about $3,000 per centre, and that means that food provision is being cut from a whole lot of low-demographic ECE providers. So I hope the Government is very, very aware of regulatory creep and what the unintended consequences can be and how, in their pursuit of perfect, they may well be stopping “very good” happening.

So the other issue that I think we have to be very mindful of here is that there is nothing addressing the issues for Māori students in the education sector. After five years of Labour, the education outcomes for Māori students in the compulsory sector have got worse: 33 percent of Māori students are attending school regularly. At the end of last year, 63 percent of Māori students attained NCEA level 2 in 2021—a declining rate from 2017.

We see it in the tertiary sector also. Te Pūkenga is failing Māori and Pasifika students. Access for Māori and Pasifika students was less than targeted in 2022. Course completion rates were less then targeted for Māori—

Order! Order! I’d like member to come back to this particular bill. Yes, Māori are mentioned, because we are looking at amending the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund, but that doesn’t actually mean that the member can just talk in general about everything Māori, so please bring your comments back to this bill.

💬 PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I’m sure that the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund is to assist with more Māori students gaining access and also achieving at a higher rate once they are attending, and so—

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: You don’t know anything about it. You need to do some homework before you talk about something such as the Ngārimu VC.

💬 PENNY SIMMONDS: —it is of real concern—and the member on the other side of the House, Kelvin Davis, who interrupted me last time, wanted to speak about how little respect I had for the wānanga, and I had to point out to him that there is probably no tertiary leader that has worked more closely with wānanga in their career than I have, and have the utmost respect for wānanga.

So I’ll come back now to the bill. We are very concerned that this bill makes very, very little difference to the key issues that are being faced by our compulsory sector, our ECE sector, our tertiary sector, and, specifically, nothing in this is going to improve outcomes for Māori or Pasifika students. Thank you. We oppose the bill.

I call on Angela Roberts, but before the member takes her call, may I remind everyone that we should be respectful when other members give their speeches. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m even more pleased now to rise and take a call on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill, and it’s really interesting to hear the people grappling with the concept of something being technical and that that necessarily means it’s minor or insignificant. I think this is a really good example of something that is technical, but it isn’t minor—it is significant—and so it is right that we spend some time on it.

I think something that is demonstrated by these technical amendments is that it’s a really, really good example of how complex our education system is and that the way that we lift achievement for our students is by attending, by looking at the evidence, and by really working with the profession, with teachers, with whānau, and with students to come up with solutions. The only way we lift achievement is by building capability and confidence, not by imposing compliance.

So the purpose of this bill is to make sure that there are fewer distractions because we are attending to those technical changes that are required. It’ll be really great to see this bill come to the Education and Workforce Committee because we know that there is a really important place for the profession—for boards, for teachers, for principals, and for students—to come and make sure that we work through the practicalities of how these will play out in the schools. So it is because of that that I’m really pleased to be recommending this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill at its first reading. It is minor and makes minor and technical changes, and I think the tone of the debate probably reflects that. It’s not the most exciting piece of legislation, but these small changes can make a difference and so are worthy.

So, in effect, it makes changes to four particular areas. One, when there is the requirement for safety checks for children’s workers, it’s ensuring that it’s an additional reference for the Kiwi Access Card as an acceptable form of ID to reflect the change of the name of that card—hardly earth-shattering, but probably important our legislation is up to date. And it makes an amendment to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations to ensure that police-vets for non-teaching and unregistered employees in childcare centres such as malls and gyms and gym crèches are obtained before the employee starts work. That feels actually a little more significant than the previous point, and important, and something we support.

It also makes two small changes around the Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Act to modify the function of the board to “recognise it as the successor of the 28th Māori Battalion Association … for the purposes of authorising the use of words and emblems relating to the … Māori Battalion and the Association under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981”, and creates a new national Māori representative position on the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board, and that that position would be for a person of Māori descent who has served or is currently serving in the Defence Force seems incredibly sensible to me.

And then, finally, amendments to the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972 to enable that foundation to better support Māori learners by updating the definition of “Pacific person” and the purpose and makeup and the constitution of the foundation’s board to enable it to function more effectively and “recognise the unique relationship the Crown has with the New Zealand Realm countries … through the Treaty of Friendship, with Samoa”.

So it’s hard to see how anybody could have any issue with these things, but I suspect, in the detail, there’s always value in the select committee hearing from people who are embedded in these foundations and scholarships and vetting processes, that they may have some wording change or some issues that we haven’t thought of. So I encourage people with those perspectives and knowledges to participate in that process. Very happy to support.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. This is a relatively minor and technical bill. It, effectively, changes the rules around two organisations that have a statutory basis—that is, that law passed by this Parliament is important to their operation. Sometimes when organisations want to change how they operate, they actually need Parliament to sign them off. Now, I think reasonable people could ask, “Does Parliament need to pass so many laws for specific organisations? Maybe people should be left to their own devices and do their business under the normal laws that apply equally to all across New Zealand.”, but the facts are that these two organisations—first, the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund and also the Pacific Education Foundation—have both been established by Acts of Parliament, and if they want to change how they operate, they must make changes.

And ACT is not here to be particularly difficult. We think if that’s what they’d like to do, then Parliament should assist them and allow them to operate the way that they would like to operate. However, I would make a couple of comments about the particular content which is not the way that we would have done it. Again, the bill seeks to modify the functions of the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board to recognise the successor of the 28th (Māori) Battalion (NZ) Association Inc. Well, that’s all fine, but it also says, “create a new national Māori representative position on the board. This position will be held by a person of Māori descent who has served or is currently serving in the New Zealand Defence Force.”

Now, again, I just ask: where does this Labour Government—where does the majority of this Parliament—get off stipulating in law that a person should have a particular ethnic background to qualify for a position?

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: This is what the board wants. This is what the board wants, David—for God’s sake.

And I hear Kelvin Davis saying, “But this is what the board wants.” I know this is what the board wants. That’s why we’re supporting it, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not able to comment as a Parliament, given that the board is asking Parliament to pass a law. As parliamentarians, we get to comment on the law that we’re passing. Now, I know that this is complicated for Kelvin Davis, but if you think it’s a worry that he’s here in Parliament, just remember that he was once running a school where he was responsible for children’s education, so, you know, someone of his cognitive ability can probably do less damage in here than he was to New Zealand then.

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: No, that doesn’t become you, David. All those little put-downs, they’re just disgraceful.

So we actually think it’s OK for Parliament to comment on the laws being made. We disagree with specifying people’s ethnicity for a position—

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: Because you want Pākehās to run the Ngārimu board—how disgraceful. You can’t let Māoris have anything, eh?

—but as I’ve explained, at some length to everyone, except for Kelvin Davis, who’s still rabitting on over there, we respect that it’s what the board would like, but we don’t think that it’s the right way to do business. We think that the right way to do business is to treat people based on their merits and what skills they can offer to a position, rather than their ethnic background.

The Pacific Education Foundation Act is also being amended, and these are quite welcome changes. What it’s, effectively, doing is saying that the Pacific Education Foundation Act can actually apply its, I guess, benefits or scholarships to people outside of New Zealand, and what it’s really doing is allowing this New Zealand institution to help build more bridges with Pasifika people inside and outside of these Islands. And I think, on balance, that’s a very positive thing, because—

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: Why don’t you want to build bridges with Māoridom, David?

Again, you know we wouldn’t—and I know Kelvin Davis is still rabbiting on over there, but, you know, we wouldn’t have chosen to have ethnicallybased scholarships. But if you’ve got them and if we’re viewing what this particular piece of legislation is changing, then I actually think there is a very important policy objective for New Zealand to strengthen our connections with our Pacific neighbours.

I was in Apia with the former Prime Minister, where I was able to meet the wonderful Fiamē Mata‘afa, the recently elected Prime Minister, the first female Prime Minister, of Samoa—a formidable woman committed wholeheartedly to democracy; it was a real pleasure. That trip reminded me that the Pacific is part of New Zealand’s neighbourhood, and to the extent that New Zealand can use its cultural connections, its sporting connections, its people connections, its business connections to help strengthen our ties with our Pacific neighbours, that is not only good for people living in those Island nations; it’s good for New Zealanders as well, because without putting too fine a point on it, if we are not strengthening our connections with the Pacific, someone else will be, and unlike this country, they’re not a democracy. And so I think that this initiative of amending the Pacific Education Foundation Act in order that that particular institution, as it would like to, can better connect with people in the Pacific, not just in New Zealand but Pasifika people right across the region and that an Order in Council can be issued to amend who exactly qualifies for these scholarships, giving more flexibility in the way it operates—those are positive things, and for those reasons, ACT is very happy to support this bill.

But I just make the point that, you know, while we understand this is driven by the organisation, while we think Parliament should be facilitative, while we question whether or not, you know, Parliament should actually be involved in the rules of these organisations at all—and maybe they should just be operating under the general laws that apply to all—given that they are subject to this legislation, we’re very happy to support and facilitate them getting the changes they need to operate their way. However, far be it for me to tell the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Scholarship Fund board how to operate, but we just make the point that at some point, this country is going to have to move back to the simple idea of universal humanity: start focusing on the 99.9 percent that humans all have in common and stop trying to constantly divide ourselves with superficial differences, because the way I grew up, the right way to look at people was actually to treat them equally, was actually to look through people’s skin to what lies beneath, and to recognise that the differences that some people make so much of are only skin-deep. True beauty is on the inside—that it’s absolutely correct that we should be treating our fellow humans based on what is similar and in common, not constantly trying to bring differences.

And this legislation does that. So much of what we hear in this House does that, and there’s never been a successful society that has succeeded by focusing on differences. All successful societies have been those that seek to work and find common ground in order that people can better cooperate.

💬 Rawiri Waititi: Society was built on difference; it’s called colonisation.

And I hear the Māori Party guy blabbering on here trying to interrupt and get on the microphone. What I’d say to him is: I’m sorry, but you’re just a person—you know, you’re not tangata whenua, you’re not special; you’re just a person born in this country with the rights to one 5-millionth of the opportunity it has to offer. Just another person—just part of universal humanity; welcome to humanity and it’s a wonderful place to be. If you could just stop trying to focus on the differences, then we’d all be getting on so much better.

So I finish by commending the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill to this House, and we look forward to further debate on this in later stages. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Always an honour and a privilege to contribute in this House, particularly in this case, the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. I can’t go without responding to that last speaker. There’s actually three lines I got from there: he said the word “simple” and he said the word “the right way”. Actually, his whole speech, the member David Seymour—it is only the right way according to him.

So the points I want to take from this bill: it is a bill updating and modernising our education regulatory system to make meaningful changes, and to that, it upholds the mana and the legacy of Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion, and supports the work of the Pacific Education Foundation. The Budget 2022 priorities have five objectives. One of those objectives talks about Māori and Pacific peoples—lifting Māori and Pacific people’s opportunities for incomes and skills. In terms of where it talks about Pacific people in this bill, it actually defines who Pacific peoples are. And I can take that, from the education Minister’s speech, it tells everybody and makes it really clear that the definition of Pacific people as “Aotearoa Pacific person” refers to an indigenous Pacific cultural heritage. What that clarifies is that it brings them the mātauranga, the importance of indigenous knowledge that contributes; adding value to this nation. Pacific people are here, and we are here to stay—and before we can do any of that, we need to recognise the mana of tangata whenua in this country. This omnibus bill recognises that, and I commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to be able to rise and speak on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill is to modify the functions of the Ngārimu VC and the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund to use words and emblems associated with that, and I generally think that is a fairly good thing. We support scholarships. We support people recognising their lineage and drawing upon that, and being able to provide words and symbols that exemplify that.

I will note the following: I’m an absolutely big fan of our Pacific peoples here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Where I grew up—and I don’t often tell people—was in Auckland, and it is the largest Polynesian city in the world. It is a fantastic place, and, as a country, we are so much richer for having our Polynesian brothers and sisters here in New Zealand.

I do note, about the main provisions of this bill, that it does increase the annual expenditure that the board can make in a year, from $500 up to $10,000. It clarifies the purpose of the foundation, which is to promote and encourage better education of Aotearoa Pacific peoples, and it includes an apology there and notes the Dawn Raids and the impact that that had on people.

It does update the definitions to ensure that more countries from the Pacific are included in this, and I think it’s important that we do pay particular attention to our Pacific brothers and sisters, because I think we’ve probably, under this Government, been a little bit asleep at the wheel. New Zealand does have an important role to play in nurturing these countries and helping them develop, and we have seen that what’s happened is we’ve walked away from that ownership role a fair bit. During COVID, that did happen, and we’ve seen these countries—

💬 Anna Lorck: Oh, Pasifika people were the highest-vaccinated in Hawke’s Bay. Highest-vaccinated—Hawke’s Bay Pasifika people.

—cosy up to China a lot under this Government’s watch. But I will come back to the bill, Madam Speaker.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: All right, please, Anna—it’s too early in the morning.

We do support elements of it—

💬 Anna Lorck: I’m wide awake.

—but, unfortunately, just like the bill I spoke on about an hour ago—

💬 Erica Stanford: All right, she’s worried about Tukituki.

—this is another missed opportunity—and I’m enjoying the banter that’s going in the House and I’d have to support my members’ comments on that one.

This is another wasted opportunity, because we’ve got an education system here that is in crisis. We’ve got 46 percent of New Zealand students who are not regularly going to school. We have got chronic underachievement. One-third of kids could not pass basic reading, writing, and arithmetic tests, and this Government is focused on things that are not going to uplift the education system. This is what we need to be focusing on.

My colleague Erica Stanford and our leader, Christopher Luxon, put forward a fantastic policy last week, and I was glad to see when I spoke an hour ago that the Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti, was here. I hope she took on some sound advice from the member for Tauranga, where she is a list member. She needs to be listening, because we’ve got the answers to education on this side of the House, and this bill, like the previous one, is tinkering around the edges and it ain’t focused on outcomes and it ain’t focused on outcomes for Pacific students. Unfortunately, in New Zealand, Pacific students do not perform well relative to the rest of the students in New Zealand. So if we want to be caring for Pacific students, then we need to be stepping up and making sure that they are learning the basics brilliantly, that they’re learning maths, writing, and arithmetic, and that they’re learning how to read, because they are currently underperforming.

This bill isn’t going to change that, and I did point out to the current Minister, when she was here, that Māori and Pacific kids do worse under Labour than they do under National. Under National—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Now, the member will bring it back to this bill.

I will bring it back—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Thank you.

—to the bill. We need to make sure that we are focused on uplifting Māori and Pacific students, and this bill isn’t going to help. While we do support certain aspects of it around the scholarship fund and advancing that, and bringing more Pacific countries into what is the definition of Aotearoa Pacific peoples, we fundamentally believe that this bill is another missed opportunity by this Government. There are so many more things that the Government on that side of the House and the officials and everyone else at the Ministry of Education could be pouring their resources, time, and energy into. I oppose this bill.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā tātou. Well, it’s been an eventful morning. Geez, I didn’t really start the morning that excited, but the two bills that have just gone—and especially this one here—I’m really excited about.

I’m really excited about the ability to be able to protect the whakapapa of the very name of the person that this scholarship is named after and the award is named after. And that’s why I’m always a little bit—I have concerns when we use our tīpuna’s names in this House because people don’t know how to look after or cherish the names like Ngārimu, who has strong whakapapa not just to Ngāti Porou but also to Te Whānau-ā-Apanui through his mother’s side. And so, being Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Ngāti Porou myself, I get a little bit tetchy when people are dragging names of tīpuna through this House like it’s just a piece of legislation and it’s just an amendment.

I just want to acknowledge that I’m also privileged enough to sit on that particular board, and this has been driven by those who are not members of this House but have asked the members of this House to ensure that we protect the whakapapa and the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion.

I just want to focus on that first of all. Those who gave their lives for this country and for their uri, those who’ve paid the ultimate price for citizenship—those are the things that we’ve got to remember when we’re looking at these particular amendments: is that we’re dealing with actual people. We’re dealing with actual whakapapa. And we’re dealing with actual relationships that iwi have amongst themselves and with themselves in terms of the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship.

I wear this hat in recognition of those people that went there, and my grandfather, who went and fought in those wars in the very places that surround the walls of this House. They have represented us there, and this is about ensuring that their legacy has been protected under law.

You know, the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion—we want to create that new national Māori representative position on the board. If you don’t know it in context, these are the things you need to know. We’ve got one 28th Māori Battalion member left—one—Sir Bom Gillies. So I want to acknowledge him, who is the living face of the thousands of Māori and the thousands of people—and our Pacific whānau—that went over to fight in those wars; wars that actually didn’t belong to tangata whenua or tangata moana or tangata Tiriti. Those were not our wars, but we were sent there.

We’re going to support this bill. I don’t see anything controversial in it. Like others in this House, I don’t see anything controversial in it. It doesn’t make sense to find something controversial in it.

The Pacific Education Foundation Act—I just want to acknowledge our tangata moana whānau and their contribution also, not only to the wars but to Aotearoa. And so I acknowledge the whakapapa there. Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngārimu—just in the name, Te Moananui-a-Kiwa, is the connection that tangata whenua have with tangata moana. So this is about ensuring that tangata moana and tangata whenua are protected in this bill, in terms of the ambitions that they have for themselves.

Also, tangata Tiriti—I want to acknowledge Gerry Brownlee, who is the head of that group, the tangata Tiriti o Aotearoa, who advocate for tangata Tiriti, who ensure that there will be a more harmonious, equitable, equal society when it comes to the unification of tangata whenua, tangata moana, and tangata Tiriti to build an Aotearoa hōu [the people of the land, the people of the ocean, and the people of the Treaty to build a new Aotearoa].

So, just in closing, e hika mā, kei te mihi atu rā ki te hunga kua riro atu ki te pō. Nā ko rātou Te Hokowhitu a Tū, he nui ngā waiata kua waiatahia, he nui ngā haka kua hakangia e rātou. Nō reira kei te mihi atu ki a rātou, kei te mihi atu anō hoki ki ngā whanaunga a te moana, ō tātou tāngata moana. Kei te mihi atu rā anō hoki ki ngā tāngata Tiriti kei roto i tō tātou Whare, kei waho hoki i tō tātou Whare, e ngākaunui ana, e koroingo ana, e tūmanako ana kia waihanga he Aotearoa hou, kia ngāwari ake tā tātou noho ki runga i tō tātou whenua. Nō reira e te Pīka, e te Whare, kei te mihi atu rā ki a tātou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[So, just in closing, friends, I acknowledge those who have passed on into the night. They are the Māori Battalion, a lot of songs have been sung, and lot of haka have been performed by them. So I acknowledge them, and I also acknowledge our relatives from the ocean, our people of the ocean. I also acknowledge the people who are here under the auspices of the Treaty, both those inside our House and those outside our House, who are committed, desire, and hope to build a new Aotearoa so that our lives in our country are simpler. So, Madam Speaker and the House, I acknowledge all of us, greetings and thanks to everyone.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the previous speaker, Rawiri Waititi, on a call on this bill, the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. Now, these sorts of bills are used commonly to improve regulatory systems, making sure that we have effective, efficient, and aligned with best regulatory practice legislation. That is what the bill does. But we also heard from the previous speaker that it’s about much more than words; it’s also about protecting whakapapa and the mana of the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial. So that is what this bill does.

It will also make amendments to the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972 to ensure that Pacific learners and their families are better protected. It will do so by changing and making amendments to the current definition of “Pacific peoples”, which is too narrow and doesn’t really capture the diversity of Aotearoa-based Pacific peoples. My colleague Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki spoke very passionately about that already, previously. So updating the purpose, the make-up, and the constitution of the Pacific Education Foundation Board will enable it to function more effectively and to provide advice to the Minister and Ministry of Education and other educational agencies.

There are also amendments in this particular bill with regards to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, and that is about the police-vets for non-teaching and unregistered employees in childcare centres such as mall and gym creches, and that needs to be done before the employees actually start work. It will also require employees to consider the police-vet once it is received, to assess any potential risk to the safety of children.

So this bill does a multitude of things, predominantly updating and improving our education regulatory system, making these changes to ensure we uphold Ngārimu VC and the 28th Maori Battalion—its legacy, its mana—and that it supports the work of the Pacific Education Foundation. I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I stand today, too, to speak to the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill in its first reading. As we’ve heard this morning, the National Party is opposing this bill, but we are not as opposed to the content—some of the content in the bill—but the process that we are going through in this, using the opportunity of urgency to push through these bills, and with shortened report-backs. I think that speaks to the contempt for democracy that this Government often exercises.

We’ve heard much about the three clauses in this bill that talk to the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund, the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972, and the health and safety at work regulations, and we had quite a bit of pushback from Kelvin Davis when he was in the House about the lack of knowledge of the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund. So, unfortunately, he’s not here to hear, but I did actually do a little bit of research—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Point of order. I believe that members should not refer to people being absent from the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If the member could continue on with her speech and not refer to those who are not here. Thank you.

The 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship—a very, very noble entity, and definitely of huge benefit to those who do take advantage of it. It’s about supporting students who are undertaking study or vocational education and training, so some of the issues and the scholarships that they do support are very wide ranging. But I thought one of the things that impressed me the most was that the applicants must demonstrate the characteristics—their characteristics—which also align with the characteristics, and the values of those, who were in the 28th Māori Battalion. So, in order to qualify, the applicants must apply those characteristics and demonstrate how they actually will deliver. But the scholarships are available for three vocational education and training scholars—very generous, $10,000 each; three undergraduate scholarships—$30,000 each; one master scholarship, which is valued up to $20,000; one master education research scholarship—again, up to $20,000; and one doctoral scholarship, valued up to $40,000. There’s no question of the value of the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund, and, so, as I said, the National Party supports those minor changes that need to be made to that bill.

The Pacific Education Foundation Act, again, is going through some minor changes, and we look at some of those authorised expenditures that they already have, and there were some questions around the need to increase that expenditure from $500 to $10,000. They’ll be things that the select committee will turn its mind to. We know that they support the education and training of Pacific peoples and that’s, again, a very noble thing. They grant financial assistance for a whole range of various things to support education of Pacific peoples, including for the purchase of equipment or material for the provision of bursaries; the provision of postgraduate scholarships; the provision of books, clothing, and other equipment for special bursaries or scholarships; and, among other things, the payment of costs to administer the affairs of the foundation. They are, again, providing a very good support network for Pacific students.

I guess the crux of this and the opposition that the National Party feels to this bill is: how is this bill going to lift the achievement levels of Māori and Pasifika students, and how is this bill going to get students back into the classroom? So, in terms of the wider population of Māori-Pacific students, this bill is going to have very little impact on the poor attendance rates and the poor achievement rates of Māori and Pacific students which is, of course, why we are opposing this bill because our attention has been focused on that rather than some of the tweaks that this bill is going to change.

The health and safety and work relations section of this bill has been talked about earlier, and I refer to my colleague Penny Simmonds, who raised the question of tradesmen being called into the likes of creches—the ones that are called the “limitedattendance” childcare centres: the gyms and the mall creches. Those things are very foreign to me—mall creches. We don’t even have malls, so we certainly don’t have a creche that is available to many of our shopping parents.

💬 Matt Doocey: One day.

Yes, one day we will get there, Matt Doocey. But the question was raised about the employment of tradies on site, and I think that’s a question the select committee will clearly turn its mind to, because if it’s taking 20 working days to process a police-vet, then certainly tradies can’t wait that long, so there has to be some practical solution to that. The example was given of a plumber—you know, if you’ve got a blocked toilet, you don’t want to wait 20 days to get a tradie on site; and certainly if the lights go out, you don’t want to be vetting for 20 days to get an electrician on site. So there are some practical implications for the health and safety and work relations part of this bill.

I also wonder whether the risk assessment has been thought about in this, and, no doubt, the select committee will turn its mind to that: when you’ve got someone—maybe one person—turning up amongst a raft of other staff and perhaps parents, whether the risk of that is warranted. But, no doubt, the select committee will turn its mind to that. One of the things that we have also heard about today in some of the speeches is this regulatory creep where they may seem insignificant changes—and especially the health and safety work relations part of this bill—on their own, but the cumulative effect of more and more regulation is stymying the ability of businesses, especially our early childhood centres and our limited-attendance centres, to do their work and focus on the job that they have at hand, which is, of course, to care for those children who are in their care. So we’ve got to be careful, when more regulation is imposed on those organisations, that we don’t overburden them, and sometimes this regulatory creep—you’ve got to look back to see how much of it has been imposed on hard-working people.

It’s been well traversed by my colleagues on this side of the House about the impact that this bill will have on education—which is zero. But I’d like to raise the issue of the amount of investment that has gone into education in the past few years. We have spent, as a country, $5 billion every year in education—extra by the Labour Government—but, actually, outcomes have become worse. It takes a very special talent to be able to reach that kind of a milestone.

The National Party is in support of some of the detail in this bill, but we are not supporting it today, because we see it as a huge waste of parliamentary time, using urgency to push through something of this nature, and also to have a shortened reportback, which, of course, is the democratic process that we enjoy, usually, in having the ability for the public to have oversight of the process. National is opposing this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I come from the region of Hawke’s Bay, where we have a thriving Pasifika community. Out in Havelock North, and Flaxmere, and Hastings, and Mahora, and all those places, we have Pasifika children thriving and striving. And when you want to talk—like the National Party—about not being able to achieve things, this bill gives greater opportunity to our Pasifika people and our Pasifika students so that they can, as part of Aotearoa Pasifika people, have access to grants and support to enable them to have a lifetime of education opportunities. That’s what puts people on the road to success and why Hawke’s Bay has such huge opportunities for Pasifika people in our region. I commend everything we can do to enable thriving education opportunities for Aotearoa Pasifika people. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Instruction to Education and Workforce Committee