Education and Training Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to Part 2, which is the debate on clauses 63AAA to 70, “Amendments to other legislation and revocation”, and Schedule 4. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Mr Chair, as you have just described, there is a total of whatever 70 minus 63 plus 2 is—so about nine clauses here. They’re all very short. They variously amend the Ombudsmen Act to add the Charter Schools Authorisation Board and, also, a sponsor of a charter school to Schedule 1 of the Ombudsmen Act. They also amend the Public Audit Act to include the Charter Schools Authorisation Board to the list of entities listed in the Public Audit Act. They also amend the Public Records Act, again to add the Charter Schools Authorisation Board to that. That’s because we’re creating a public entity in the Charter Schools Authorisation Board that will have some responsibilities, and therefore it has to be accountable under those various pieces of legislation.

There are also further consequential amendments to the Education (Early Childhood Services Network Approval) Regulations, which stand separate from the principal Act. They will be revoked.

The only other thing I failed to mention at the beginning is clause 63AAA and clause 63AAB—which are not actually battery sizes but clauses of Part 2!—and the intention of those clauses is to exempt charter schools which do not operate for a profit from local government rates. That is the status of most State schools, and if they’re operating a school for not-for-profit, particularly one that used to be a State schools and become a charter school, they should be able to maintain their status of being exempt from council rates.

I’ve got a quick question about clause 63AAA and the amendment of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. I noticed that there’s been quite a bit of media recently about pan taxes that some schools have to get at the local area and they have to pay those. I’m wondering if this amendment here to exempt charter schools from the Local Government (Rating) Act also applies to the pan taxes that State schools have to pay. I know that’s a point of contention with many State schools. I’m wondering if the Minister could give some answer to that, please, because if that’s right, there is a serious inequity between State schools and charter schools that will need fixing up pretty quickly. I’d really like an answer to that, Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. While the Minister gets some advice around what the Hon Jan Tinetti just asked regarding clauses 63AAA and 63AAB in Part 2, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to clauses 63 and 64, which is around an amendment to the Ombudsmen Act 1975.

Clause 64 amends Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Ombudsmen Act 1975, specifically inserting “Charter Schools Authorisation Board” as well as “sponsor”. Now, “Charter Schools Authorisation Board” I get, and “sponsor” I also get. However, when we are looking at Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Ombudsmen Act it says, “Public service agencies and organisations to which the Act applies”. One of the things we heard as part of the Ombudsman’s submission is the dichotomy that this creates. The fact that charter schools, and particularly the “sponsor” here, is applicable under the Ombudsmen Act—but, again, not to the Official Information Act (OIA)—creates a level of dichotomy that the Ombudsman himself said would be adding extra bureaucracy and a barrier to the way that any parent or anyone could potentially request information.

My understanding is that, under normal circumstances, a school or institute can be subject to the OIA and they simply request this via the right agencies, but the fact that charter schools cannot be subject to the OIA but the charter school, and particularly in this case the sponsor, is still forced and is obliged under the Ombudsmen Act means that, in some ways, anyone who would like to get information on the charter school has to then go through the avenue and the medium of the Ombudsman. You kind of create this additional step in terms of the process.

I would like some advice from the Minister in terms of whether he has had a look at the Ombudsman’s submission and what he thinks in terms of this particular trickiness that has been established between the two. So, yes, this would be specifically around the way Schedule 1, Part 2 of the Ombudsmen Act applies to the sponsor.

I want to talk about new section 119, inserted by Part 6, in Schedule 1, and it relates to the amendment that is being debated this afternoon that deletes clause 6, that states that section 119(6) overrides the protections in Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act.

The reason I want to raise this is that pretty much all of the discussion we’ve had so far has been about people who work in schools as being teachers, but there are a number of other occupational groups in schools, as we all know—school caretakers, cleaners, and others—and the effect of the bill is to really take away existing rights that they enjoy under Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act. School caretakers and canteen workers and cleaners and cleaning contractors all have collective agreements that rely in some part on Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act. Part 6A essentially identifies what it refers to as “vulnerable workers”—that is, workers who are employed in sectors where restructuring of an employer’s business occurs frequently, whose terms and conditions of employment tend to be undermined by that restructuring, and who have little bargaining power.

What Part 6A does is that it gives employees a right to elect to transfer to the new employer, to elect or not; it gives those who have transferred a right to bargain for redundancy entitlements; and if redundancy entitlements in that instance cannot be agreed with the new employer, to have the redundancy entitlements determined by the authority. Those are significant rights for this group of workers. There are a lot of people who do these jobs in schools who may well be affected by the establishment of charter schools. The loss of rights basically consists of the fact that the bill only gives them the right to transfer on conditions “no less favourable overall”; whereas Part 6A guarantees the same terms and conditions of employment or better. Now, there is a difference between those two things.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Sorry—which part are you referring to here?

Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act, which is, basically, overridden in Schedule 1, Part 6. New section 119, inserted by Schedule 1, Part 6.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Gotcha, thank you. Yes, I’ve got that. Thank you for explaining that.

Part 6, new section 119. The reason it’s important is that it takes away the right. The first is that, under Part 6A, cleaners, caretakers, canteen workers, and so on are guaranteed the same rights or better, and by taking away the protection of Part 6A, basically, they’re only assured of conditions no less favourable overall. That is a different thing, and it’s very likely, I believe, that this provision would lead to considerable dispute and argument and litigation if it were passed as written. Also—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, Mr Twyford—the only schedule we’re discussing here is actually Schedule 4.

Well, Mr Chairman, earlier this afternoon I raised matters in my contribution about Schedule 1, and our colleague Barbara Kuriger, who was in the Chair at the time, ruled that we were not going to discuss that in Part 1 and that we would have to deal with it later. So, with respect, sir, you can’t have it both ways. We have to be able to discuss these schedules, either in Part 1 or in Part 2, and Barbara Kuriger ruled that we could not discuss Schedule 1 matters earlier this afternoon.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): All right, given the time of night, I’m happy to let the member carry on given that that was the instruction then. I’ll give largesse for that now, so carry on.

OK, thank you, Mr Chairman.

💬 Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. There’s just a couple of things in there I’d like some clarification on. You said, “given the time of night” and “for now”, so at what point can we expect absolute clarity on this? I’d hate for there to be any confusion given the possibility of having a different presiding officer at the resumption of this debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Yeah, well, and that’s fair enough. My intention was to actually discuss this with the previous presiding officer so I could give that instruction at the beginning. I am taking cognisance that we have only got less than probably 10 minutes to go, so rather than—to keep the order of the committee, and I’m sure the Minister in the chair is quite able to, if he has the opportunity, either defer this or not answer this or answer it. So carry on.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The second point that’s relevant here is that the bill does not give the worker the right to elect to transfer or not. That is a right that is enshrined in Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act, and it is taken away by this bill. It removes an element of choice. I thought this bill was all about choice, but apparently not for a significant group of workers who are going to be affected.

The bill also overrides the right of workers to maintain their collective employment relationship with the new employer. Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act stipulates the transfer not just of the existing workers but also that they take their relevant collective agreement with them. Of course, that is impossible under this bill, not only because Part 6A is taken away but because this bill outlaws multi-employer collective agreements.

Those are the main points, and I really ask the Minister: what possible justification could there be for confiscating existing employment rights for a very specific group of workers in this bill, other than kind of a vindictive desire to weaken employment rights of vulnerable workers. I can’t see what could possibly be the justification, but if there is one, I’d like to hear it.

I respond to Jan Tinetti’s question about the pan tax, and I have to admit I needed to look this up, but people may be interested to know that some councils in some parts of New Zealand are imposing a special charge on property owners, including schools, for the number of toilets that they have. Economics being a real thing—although you wouldn’t always think it to hear from then other side—people are responding to incentives, and schools are actually talking about reducing their numbers of toilets in response to this tax.

That’s why you shouldn’t tax things so much, folks. It can lead to a reduction in places to pee. So it’s very important that we get this right. We are not explicitly exempting charter schools from the pan tax; we’re giving them the same exemption that State schools have. Depending on the council, they will face the same challenge that State schools would have. We’re not trying to differentiate them here; we’re just putting them in the same position as State schools.

Lawrence Xu-Nan asked about the changes to the Ombudsmen Act. All I can say is that we’ve extensively debated the policy behind the Official Information Act and its application to charter schools. These are consequential amendments designed to put in place that policy and they are necessary to do so.

I hesitate to engage in a policy debate about employment law, but what I can say to Mr Twyford is that there’s certainly no vindictiveness here. Perhaps he’s measuring the minds of others by his own, but that’s not how we think. On this side of Parliament, we are interested in creating better opportunities for children and being able to organise the school and the terms of employment of the adults for the greatest benefit of the children. We think that’s a very worthwhile desire that doesn’t require any sort of vindictiveness or speculation of it.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to thank the Minister for that answer about the pan tax. It is something that very few people know about, but it is a big bugbear to schools that they have to pay that. I’ll just give an example of that, Minister, and I’m sure you’ve probably seen the same thing that I’ve seen, but Greytown School—which I know my colleague over here will be very interested in—has 33 toilets and is paying $37,000 in pan tax. I also just want to make members aware that it’s not just the pan tax that they pay; it’s also rubbish collection and it’s a whole lot of different things that different councils will charge. It is worth looking into to make sure that inequities don’t exist.

I deliberately didn’t talk about things that were in Schedule 1 earlier because of that ruling that was made at the time, when we were told that we were not talking about Schedule 1 at that stage. I do want to just return to talk about an amendment that I had put forward around the early childhood network planning that was in place.

Look, I know that this legislation is going to pass, but all of the amendments were written in the great faith that this would actually improve the situation for this particular bill. The one that was in Schedule 1 was an amendment to new clause 111 in Schedule 1, which I had put in there, and it was to replace words in subclause (2) to say that the conditions no longer apply in relation to the approval on and after commencement, except where a centre applies to establish within a 1-kilometre radius of another already existing early childcare centre.

The reason that I developed and came up with this particular amendment was because we had heard from people in the select committee about the number of centres that were being established within very close proximity to each other. We heard that there were centres that were closing because other centres were sprouting up and were looking flasher, even if they weren’t delivering as good or even delivering a similar quality of education, because they had that shiny new bling situation about them. It was a specific fear for our centres such—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to report progress. At the same time, I will consult with my colleagues and I’ll ensure that the member gets the first call next time.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Education and Training Amendment Bill and reports that it has made progress on the bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The House now stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 24 September 2024.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.