Education and Training Amendment Bill

The House is resumed. Good morning, members. Yesterday when we finished, the Education and Training Amendment Bill had been set down for third reading.

I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I want to thank all of the people who have contributed to this legislation. I want to thank my colleague, the Hon Erica Stanford, Minister of Education—and I see Katie Nimon, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, along with other members of that committee, who shepherded the bill through the committee stage faster than usual but with no less care and attention, and made valuable improvements to this legislation. It has been a very good example of what Parliament can do when people are committed to a cause.

I don’t believe that there’s any greater cause for this country’s long-term future than the simple equation of how much knowledge is transferred from one generation to the next, because a knowledgeable and educated population can overcome whatever challenges we may face with the economy or foreign affairs or climate change or public health. An educated population will be able to solve those problems, but an uneducated population that hasn’t learnt the best knowledge from generations before them will be able to squander even great prosperity that this country currently has. That’s why it matters so much and that’s why I think we saw so much commitment from those people involved in this legislation, and perhaps more than any for the enormous detail that has been meticulously put together. I thank the employees at the Ministry of Education, the policy team, particularly Andy and Jen and all those who support them. They have done an absolutely outstanding job.

What is the cause in this bill? Well, this bill has three parts: two of them, relatively simple, and one of them, more complex and, I would argue, ultimately more important. The first is that we are removing the network management requirement for early childhood education centres. This comes from many complaints from early childhood educators that it is absolutely insane that in order to open up a business that people in your community want, you have to go and ask the Government if the people in your community want it as much as you know they want it because you’re risking your money to do it. Yet, somehow the people at the Government are supposed to have a better idea than you do. Members on the other side, we’re going to have a bit of a history lesson later in this speech, so don’t worry, that’s coming. But, actually, there’s a country called Russia, where they tried this approach to economic management for about 70 years; it didn’t work. Even they’ve abandoned it. It’s only the Labour Party and the Greens that persist with trying to centrally plan economies with these kinds of decisions.

Now you don’t have to do network management. If you want to expand or open a new early childhood education (ECE) centre, then you can just do it. But the real judge is the parents. And do you know what the parents say to me? When I go and visit ECE centres and I ask the parents, they say I want my child to be happy; I want them to be safe—

💬 Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Will they be?

—I want them to be growing. I think parents of New Zealand are better—the Opposition is asking: is that what the parents say? Yes. And if the member would like to visit some of these centres or, you know, venture out of academia or out of this House, he might find that is what the parents say. Actually, I think the parents are better to judge it than the Government.

The second thing we’re doing is we’re updating the attendance records. It’s interesting, Madam Speaker. The attendance records actually are set under 1951 regulation, which was made under 1914 legislation. You could almost argue—not quite, but almost—that our attendance regulations pre-date World War I, and this is a Government of the future. We are going to update the way that attendance regulations are made. Every day from next year, every school student management system will be pushing rich data about student attendance into the Ministry of Education’s data warehouse so we can understand who’s not attending and we can start to dig into why, and we can start to work out if the things the Government and schools are doing to improve attendance—and parents, for that matter—are working so that we can do more of the things that work and less of the things that don’t. It sounds simple. To most New Zealanders, to most people in business or running a farm or their household, it is simple; it’s how you do business every day. It’s actually how this Government is going to start getting stuck into the business of getting children back to school.

Coming to charter schools, we’re introducing the simple idea that not every insight into how to engage children in learning and pass that knowledge from one generation to the next can be found in the Ministry of Education or Wellington, or even amongst the wise members of Parliament in this House. Sometimes the best knowledge exists out in the community.

💬 Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Most times.

Sometimes those—“most times”, the Māori Party say, and I actually for once think Te Pāti Māori are right. You’ll notice when I talked about communist adherence, I talked about Labour and the Greens, not the free-market Te Pāti Māori, for whom I have great hope. If they could just get over themselves, I think they could contribute a lot to this House and life in New Zealand.

It’s not surprising, because the iwi leaders forum have written to me in strong support of charter schools, because they know that communities know more about how to engage their children than the people in Wellington most of the time. We’re going to invite people in communities to start up schools and they’re going to get the money the State would have spent on the same child at a State school. It’s going to go to the school they choose to go to if—and this is important—high standards are met. If high standards of attendance are contracted in, if high standards of achievement are contracted in, if they show that they’re using their money wisely with financial probity, then they will continue to get their money and they will be able to use that money for the best effect, to get those children at school engaged, achieving, and learning, so that they can actually learn skills that turn into qualifications, that turn into jobs, that turn into careers, that turn into a sense of achievement and feeling good about yourself. That’s why we’re doing it.

I heard last night from the Labour Party that they would like to shut these schools down. Now, their bark’s worse than their bite. They didn’t do it last time. All the schools carried on, but with one change: that they don’t want them to operate without union contracts. You see, that’s the thing about these charter schools; teachers get paid, like most New Zealanders, on individual employment agreements, and, if they’re good, they can get paid more, and, if they’re not good, they can get fired. Here’s why that matters. We run education for the children. You see, the thing is—I was looking at some statistics the other day—we spent $20 billion a year on education; 60,000 kids are born in this country every year. If you do the maths—it can be challenging on the other side—that is $330,000 per citizen, lifetime education spending. Yet, what do we get for that? I look at the UE, the university entrance achievement, and for the most prosperous, wealthy, and advantaged students, 82 percent get UE; but for the most disadvantaged students, 30 percent get UE.

Now, I said there was a lecture coming. There’s an old book called The God That Failed, and the God that fails is the stories of former adherents of the Communist Party who realised it didn’t work and left. They wrote this book and it’s a wonderful set of essays. I would put it to the Labour Party that, when you spend $330,000 per citizen and the most disadvantaged students are nearly three times less likely to get university entrance than the most advantaged students, your God has failed. Sorry, Labour: your God has failed, because you spent all the money, but the wealthy kids from the good backgrounds are still doing pretty good and the poor kids you were supposed to help are still failing.

That’s why I’m proud to be here in this Government, standing as an ACT MP, setting up schools that allow people to choose their own destiny. Tino rangatiratanga, we might call it—the ability of people to use the knowledge in their society, in their community, to take the funding that the Government would have funded and use it—you’d have provided for those children—for better effect: to make sure that children have that opportunity to feel good about themselves, to learn, to engage, to have it done their way, not to feel unsafe or bullied but to actually go along and build their own future, not only for themselves, each in their own way, but for the future of this great country of ours. That is what this policy of charter schools really means for the future of our country.

I challenge the Opposition: where are your ideas other than more money for our union mates? Not for teachers but for the unions, because that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. Charter schools don’t have to use the unions’ contracts. That is what we are here to end, to give freedom and choice to New Zealanders to make their own future. I’m sorry, Labour: your God’s failed.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I hope lots of people go back and watch that speech, because that was a ramble from way back. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Today is a sad day for public education—a very, very sad day in New Zealand. It’s a day when the National-led Government has put politics before education. It has put politics before our learners, it’s put it before our children, and here we go again. I say here we go again because I’ve just opened with exactly the same words that the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins opened with in his speech in the third reading of the Education Amendment Bill in 2013. This is like a treadmill. We are putting ideology ahead of our children here today.

This is worse than 2013, because not only today have we got back the introduction of charter schools, we also have the repeal of the network planning as part of the early learning network in this country. How sad is that? The early learning network planning was part of the Early Learning Action Plan, and I hold that here because this is a well-respected document, not only here in New Zealand but across the world. It was worked out with experts. It was worked out with our teaching workforce but also with all of the peak body groups. It was worked out with academics in terms of what was going to make the biggest difference for our early learning sector.

Objective 5 is about the network planning, and part of that objective—and part of the network planning—was to give it time to bed in, and to give it time to see the difference that it was making. Not even a year goes by and the Minister’s repealing it. Why is he repealing it? He’s repealing it because the business model people that want to run their businesses in early childhood see that they’re having their business models being hampered by the network planning. We’re not putting kids at the centre.

The Minister—how embarrassing. How embarrassing for our early childhood network in this country that he is talking about Russia and business in Russia. We’re not talking about coffee beans. We’re not talking about inanimate objects here; we’re talking about children’s education. How can that be acceptable that we have an Associate Minister who likens kids’ education to economic studies and economic philosophy around the world? That is embarrassing for this country, and very embarrassing for the members of the coalition Government, I am sure.

Today, with the repeal of that, we put our community-based centres back at risk. We put our Pacific learning nests; our puna reo, our kōhanga reo back at risk. And the Minister’s response? “Oh, well, in Russia, when they tried to stop businesses starting”—

💬 Shanan Halbert: Russia?

“In Russia, when they tried to stop businesses starting, it didn’t work.” Again, I say we’re not talking about inanimate objects; we’re talking about children and their learning.

Now, let’s get on to the charter schools. An absolutely horrific ideological experiment that has failed in this country, in many ways, once before. Now, I’m not saying that there weren’t some individual successes, but, overall, charter schools absolutely failed.

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: You never visited—you never visited them! Been to Vanguard, Jan?

Here we go! We’re hearing that I’ve never visited them. Oh yes, I did, Minister—I absolutely visited some of those charter schools. Have you visited all of them, Minister? I ask you that because that is not right either. Here we go. We’re just going to get in there and say, “Oh, she hasn’t visited them.” That is absolutely wrong.

💬 Hon Member: She’s quiet now.

Yeah, quiet now—absolutely right. It is an ideological experiment that absolutely failed. Did you visit the ones that failed, that put the kids at risk—that we heard about?

💬 Hon Member: No. That’s a no.

That’s a no—that’s an absolute no, because that didn’t happen. The mamae that happened that we heard about in select committee—the absolute horrific-ness that happened for some of those kids. And why is it such a bad thing? Because we are using profit, and profit-making enterprise, to withdraw money from the public education system. And there it is—not putting kids at the centre. That side over there thinks that that’s OK. That’s great that they think that’s OK, because when we see the failure this time and the hurt that will happen to some of those kids, that will be on their heads—that will be on their heads.

It’s causing a distraction to say, “Oh, look, it creates choice and flexibility.” What we do know about education in this country is that, when we devolve in education even further, we create greater inequities. What we have seen overseas with the research that has been seen around charter schools is that inequity has become even greater. We have seen that time and time again, but we will hear from them about research that they will quote, where they will say, “Oh no, the CREDO research says that.” That has already been discredited because of its inability to have a peer review, and the fact that it was funded by charter school proponents. Why would the other side only go to that research? Because there isn’t any other research that shows that this is a good thing. It shows that we are going to be devolving this education sector even further.

Let’s go to the real reason here, because we heard it from the Minister’s speech there just now. This is about busting our teaching unions. In fact, last week when we were talking about this in the House, we had a member from the other side—I think it was Simon Court—who yelled out, “We don’t care about unions; we only care about kids.” Well, I can tell you from experience that the people that become involved in the teaching unions become involved because they want the best for kids. They know that those unions want the absolute—

💬 Grant McCallum: Oh, come on! Who pays the unions?

Here we go—doesn’t that trigger them? Every single time, that triggers them—say that word “union”! But if I said, “Taxpayers’ Union”, does that trigger you in the same way? No, it doesn’t. They are incredibly triggered by unions. They do not care about conditions for teachers, which means that they do not care about conditions for kids, because teacher conditions and educator conditions are our kids’ conditions. The reason, as I said, that people become involved in the unions is to ensure that they are getting the very best deal for their kids.

I was involved in the national executive of the NZEI Te Riu Roa. I did not do that for my own self, or for my colleagues; I did it because I knew that we could get a better deal for our kids, and that we had a strong, strong organisation that could advocate for the best for kids. We talked to academics; we talked to people in the know about what was the best. I put it out there: what does the other side do in that? They don’t want to put children at the centre of what they’re talking about here; otherwise, they wouldn’t be going down this track.

There has been overwhelming public opposition to this bill—90.3 percent of submitters were opposed to charter schools.

💬 Grant McCallum: Just a union campaign!

And here we have the other side just proving my point—Mr McCallum talking about it being a union campaign and completely, completely proving my point. Please keep speaking with your interjections because you are going so far, Mr McCallum, in speaking exactly to my point: that they are tiggered by something that they should not be triggered about. They are absolutely making this about busting those teacher unions. The reason why is because we have got such a strong body there that put our kids at the centre. I go back to say that the people that worked so hard in those organisations know that, if they get it right for the educators, they get it right for the kids.

I go back to that comment—and let’s just put this into context—that was made by that member last week, saying we don’t care about unions; we care about kids. I understand that that member was a civil engineer before he came into politics. That’s like saying, “We don’t care about the engineers; we only care about the bridges.” Imagine if we did that; we’d have all our infrastructure falling over. These people have no idea of the importance of what our unions bring. Having said that, that means they have no regard for our teachers whatsoever.

This has been a rushed process. Even now, we have to finish this off under urgency. Why do we have to finish it off under urgency? Because the arguments against this were so strong and it has taken so long that the Minister knew that he had to finish it under urgency. He gave it a rushed process, a shortened select committee, not giving people the opportunity to have their say.

It is going to be starting next year—next year is rushing it. This is going to have so many problems. We’ve seen it, we know we’re going to have to have it back in the House to tidy up this bill, because we’ve identified the sloppiness; we’ve identified where the issues are. I go back to how I started: this is a sad, sad day for New Zealand public education.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Let us be clear: this bill is not about education; it is about privatisation. This is about privatising further our early childhood education (ECE) sector, which is already struggling. It is about privatising our education sector, which is already struggling.

We have heard from the select committee stage, and from committee of the whole House, about how we tried to get any sort of sense out of the Associate Minister on this bill, and what we got were campaign slogans, politicisation, and the divide and conquer technique.

This week is New Zealand Chinese Language Week, so I would like to enlighten the House on an old Chinese proverb: 鹬蚌相争，渔翁得利—when the crane and the clam fight, it is the fisherman who benefits. Who actually benefits from this bill? It is not the children, it is not the teachers, and it is certainly not the parents that they care so much about. It is the private companies; it is the overseas companies who want to come here and take New Zealand money. It is about the privatised ECE centres who want to funnel the money offshore. It is not about education.

One of the things that we did during the committee stage was to go through the bill, because it was quite a rushed process. We identified a number of issues with the bill that needed some tweaking. A lot of the amendments that were put forward were genuine amendments that would tidy up certain elements of the bill. But what we have seen from this Government is that they actually don’t care. They don’t care what the other side is doing. They don’t care whether there were genuine amendments that were based on common sense, evidence, or good grammar. It is just simply a case of “We don’t listen. We don’t want to hear about it. We’re just going to do what we want to do because this is what our coalition Government agreed to.”, despite the fact that there are severe contradictions between the Associate Minister and the Minister in terms of some of the announcements he’s made regarding attendance.

One of the things you find in terms of the announcements around charter schools is the fact that the Associate Minister said charter schools will have a higher requirement. Well, apparently, when you’re looking at the Equity Index (EQI) and when you’re looking at some of the elements, charter schools only require 35 percent of regular attendance but the Government wants State schools to have 80 percent regular attendance. That’s just one of many examples. The Associate Minister can say that it’s tougher. Great—sounds pretty. That’s not what it actually means.

As we go through this bill, let’s start with the charter school component. Charter schools have been in Aotearoa before. It hasn’t worked. They’ve been reverted back to State schools. They improved outcomes during that stage—now that they were part of the State system. We are hearing that teachers are struggling at ECE centres. Parents are really concerned about where they’re at. Parents are really concerned about how much more they have to pay for ECE because of the privatisation component, because of the fact that when it comes to the privatisation, when you are asking schools to operate for profit, they would put profit over education.

The Associate Minister talked about history and evidence and education, which sounds, again, incredibly pretty, but what we have seen throughout the entire process is that there is not an ounce of evidence that they have considered. We mentioned that during the select committee stage that 90.3 percent of the people who submitted opposed charter schools and 96.3 percent of people opposed the repeal of the ECE network, and people on the Government side of the Education and Workforce Committee could say, “Well, that’s because the unions came out.” Well, I’m sorry but why did the parents some out then? If they think the parents care so much about it, surely they will weigh in and make a submission. Maybe the people who submitted on this were genuine experts in the field with decades of experience that the Government has decided to brush aside and not take into consideration. That is not listening to evidence. That is not caring about the community. That is not caring about what people genuinely think. No, that is just fancy politicisation.

What we also see when we’re looking at evidence is that, again, the Government keeps on quoting evidence that’s been used overseas. They keep on using different reports, etc., but, again, none of that has been substantiated. None of that has had credible peer review. Peer review is really important.

The other thing that I want to address is the idea of creating a non-existent culture war between parents and teachers. That is appalling. We are here talking about our future generations. We’re here talking about kotahitanga. We’re here talking about everyone coming together to work towards the same goal, but what we are hearing instead from the Associate Minister is, like, “No, we only want to hear from X group. The parent knows best. What does the union really know. This is all about the union pocketing the money.” It’s the same ecosystem. The parents need to rely on the teachers to do their job.

Teachers are professionals, going from ECE all the way to the tertiary sector. They are professionals who spent years perfecting their craft. They dedicated years of their lives to the education of the next generation. In any other country, teachers are revered for the work that they do, for the nurturing they do, for our future generations, but, apparently, that is not the case here in Aotearoa. Why is that? Why are we creating this unnecessary cultural war between teachers and parents? It is unacceptable. Why—why are we doing that?

When we look at some of the things we have heard from ECE teachers who are teachers in for-profit ECE centres, we’re hearing about how they can’t even take a break. They are on the verge of “Should I wear diapers alongside my students? Because the minute I take a break, I break ratio.” This is what happens when we don’t resource enough, when we don’t support our education sector enough, when we put profit over the lives of our teachers who look after our students and our future generations and our children. This is what happens.

The Green Party wants to see a thriving public education system where everyone’s able to thrive—teachers and students—and also teachers being able to work with parents, but we are not going to be seeing that with this bill. I’m flabbergasted at the fact that we are allowing this bill to go through under urgency, that we are allowed to divide the education system and put $153 million into a system that has no evidence domestically or internationally that it has worked.

I am horrified at the fact that the governing party, the National Party, is allowing their coalition partners to lead them by the nose and spend all of their money.

💬 Carl Bates: It’s not our money.

No, it’s not that party’s money. It’s the taxpayers’ money that the Government is spending frivolously on a vanity project. I hope, nay, I expect, that the Minister and members of the Government, because they love this school system so much, will be sending their students to charter schools. I expect that. At the very least, I expect those members to be answerable to their communities as to why their schools are no longer getting the funding they deserve.

I’d just like to draw, for those watching at home, some attention to the fact that what we have seen from the Opposition is the pot calling the kettle black—absolutely outrageous. And do you know what? I’m going to say my last sentence first: I am absolutely—absolutely—excited to see us substantiate the evidence, because, if you don’t give this a chance, you will not see what this is going to do for our education system—

💬 Camilla Belich: We gave it a chance and it didn’t work.

💬 Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Give us the evidence.

And, look, this is exactly the point: pot, kettle, black. I’m just going to bring people’s attention to Te Aratika Academy, a charter school that was in my electorate, who were so excited by the opportunity to do something different. When the Opposition became Government and took charter schools away, they had to shove what they were doing inside a box that didn’t fit them. This is giving people a chance to do something different. No one has talked about the parents or the children; this is exactly what this is about. I want to stand and make a point: everyone on the other side has been saying, “Ninety percent of people in the Education and Workforce Committee didn’t support it.” It is not a poll. It has never been a poll.

Now, when it comes to network approval, let me talk about something that has not been covered that well. This is an omnibus bill, and we’ve talked about it at length. What we’ve got is three parts. Now, we haven’t talked too much about the attendance, because it’s non-controversial. This is really important, but when it comes to network approval, guess what happens: the Ministry of Education don’t have the data to make these decisions. The early childhood education centres (ECEs), the kindergarten that want to open up, had to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for a private company to find the data to give it to the ministry—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, I’m just having trouble hearing the speaker, and I can say it’s been coming from both sides this morning. I know it’s an emotive topic. Interjections are fine, but let’s just keep the noise level down so I can hear the speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. ECEs are having to pay thousands of dollars to obtain data to give to the Ministry of Education to make decisions about the network approval. Now, that is not fair to ECEs around the country that don’t have that money and have a real barrier to entering, and we are removing this.

There are all sorts of things we are doing to remove barriers to give people choices, and that is what this bill is about. I am excited to see what’s going to happen, I am excited to substantiate evidence, and I am excited to give parents and students a choice to do something different. And can I tell you, I have had feedback in my electorate from principals at schools saying they are wanting to see what happens next—what else can we do to give schools that maybe want to have a mixed-model approach? This is brilliant, because they are excited at the prospect of what this is going to bring. So, with that, on the third reading of this bill, I commend it to the House.

Thanks, Madam Speaker. This is the coalition Government keeping its promises. This has been very, very well signalled to the electorate, it was taken to the electorate, and I want to congratulate the Associate Minister of Education for shepherding the bill through. The simple concept here is that all of our children are not the same—one size does not fit all—and it gives the opportunity for some diversification from innovation, and I think that that is a great thing.

What we’ve heard from the Opposition is charter schools won’t work, or maybe it’s that they’ll work too well. The Opposition is concerned that it will increase inequity, which must be them thinking it will work too well—and that’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? Maybe it’ll be too expensive and they’re worried about things like pay and conditions, teaching qualifications, and so on, but my appeal, just as Katie Nimon has said, is to give it a go—for the Opposition to give it a go, for the unions to give it a go, to fair-minded Kiwis to give it a go and let’s see how it goes, because we will be watching. We will watch the conversion process. We will watch the consultation, the engagement. We will watch the way in which charter schools engage with communities when they’re set up. We will watch those issues, you know, where communities have raised money for parts of the asset base, whether it’s playgrounds or whatever it might be. We’ll watch the costs. And, most importantly, we’ll watch the performance. We’ll watch how the children engage in those schools, how the children attend those schools—because it ain’t great in the State sector—and how they perform in those schools, what sort of results we get. Those are the important things.

I would say to the Opposition: one of the things that is going to be really important is the quality of the information we get. I note that the charter schools are exempt from the Official Information Act to start with, and that is something which, obviously, we will be wanting to see what the data looks like so that we can all say these things work or they don’t work. That’s what we need to know.

Finally, the Hon Jan Tinetti said that this is a sad day for the State education system. I just say to her and to the Opposition: look in the mirror. Look at what you did. Look at what we saw the performance of the State sector do in the last six years—it wasn’t great. We are working very hard in this Government to turn that around and good progress is being made. Look at the performance, the attendance, the results—and this is about our future—look at the assets themselves, the buildings and so on. It is not great at the moment. That needs to be turned around. We’re working very hard to fix that system. This is about innovation and going forward. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā tātou katoa. Tēnā tātou i te āhuatanga o ngā whare mātauranga o te motu. Tēnā tātou i ngā pūkenga, i ngā wānanga i oti nei i a rātou te whakairo i te ara e eke panuku ai ngā mokopuna i roto i te ao mātauranga.

Tēnā tātou i te mau roa o te iwi Māori ki te ara mātauranga hei whakawhitinga ki te ora mō ngā tamariki, mō ngā mokopuna, heke iho, tūāuri, whāioio, tatū mai ki tēnei rangi.

Kia kaha rā, te iwi Māori. Kia kaha rā tatou.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker, indeed greetings to all of us. I acknowledge us all with respect to the paradigm of the academic institutions of the nation. I acknowledge our lecturers and academics that carved the pathway to success for the grandchildren within the education sector.

I acknowledge us with respect to the Māori people’s enduring dedication to educational pathways to transition to wellbeing for the children, for the grandchildren, descendants, the many, the multitudes, right to this very day.

Have strength, Māori people. May we all be strong.]

Let me start by stating the obvious, which is that this Government has a juxtaposed approach to education—completely idiotic. Two-thirds of them want standardised, cookie cutter, chicken factory, hen education, and they think, somehow, that post an Industrial Revolution age, in the technological age, that’s going to cut it. Well, that just tells me they know nothing about education in 2024. The Minister can laugh, but as I listen to her speak about Māori education and kaupapa Māori education that I just described at the beginning of my speech, I can do nothing but laugh at her.

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: I speak very highly of it.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Yeah, good on you.

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: Well, then what’s the joke?

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Your ideas.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK. That’s enough.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Sixty thousand kids. This fella over here tells us that 60,000 kids are born every year: 30 percent, 60,000 kids—$330,000 each. Oh, it’s a disgrace that the poor kids don’t get university entrance (UE). I described how Māori kids are getting UE at astounding rates in the beginning of my speech. Go back and listen to it, get the translation, and learn something.

💬 Hon Member: Go to school.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Bro, just be quiet—be quiet. Thirty percent of people today, right? Thirty percent of people today in this country under 25 are Māori. What are you doing for them? Don’t tell me; I already know. Don’t tell me.

💬 Carl Bates: No, you think you know.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: No, no, don’t tell me—I already know. Whanganui—what does Whanganui know? What’s happening in Whanganui? Not a lot.

So 30 percent of the people under 25 in this country are Māori and they have kids at a rate of 2.8 per whānau. Work that out—work that out. The Associate Minister claims that the iwi chairs support his idea. They support the idea because the idea is about education models that are built on self-determination. They don’t support your ideas, Seymour—not in the slightest. I’ll take you to the next iwi chairs and we’ll see—not in the slightest.

Community-led education can continue on as long as it achieves high success and standards. Well, the highest NCEA results last year came out of kura kaupapa Māori, a tino rangatiratanga - based model of education—a tino rangatiratanga - based model of education. Kōhanga reo—a tino rangatiratanga - based model of education. Wharekura—a tino rangatiratanga - based model of education. Wānanga—a tino rangatiratanga - based model of education that your Government gave 1 percent of its Budget to—

💬 Hon Member: They’re charter schools.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: —1 percent. They’re not charter schools—sit down, junior. Turituri. Hoki ki te kāinga. [Be quiet. Go home.]

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hey, enough. Let’s just lift the level, please.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Well, tēnā, tino rangatiratanga models of education have been in existence since 1981 and you’ve never supported them. Don’t go fluffing your feathers like you’re doing something good for it now, because you’re not—$6,500 per kōhanga reo is not supporting tino rangatiratanga - based education. It’s a slap in the face, and you’re happy to do it.

Nō reira, I’ll just wind up by referencing the great achievement of the current Minister for Māori education in the appointment of an advisory group. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I wanted to start my contribution by referencing a well-known whakataukī that’s been heard around this Chamber before, and it’s “Ko te manu e kai ana i te miro, nōna te ngahere; ko te manu e kai ana i te mātauranga, nōna te ao”, which roughly translates as “The bird that partakes in the miro berry, their domain is the forest; but the bird that partakes of knowledge, their domain is the world”. This is a very apt whakataukī, but the problem is that if those berries are privatised or if there are certain birds within the forest which are collecting all of the berries that are not sharing them with all of the other birds, that creates additional problems.

I just wanted to sort of touch on a few of the things that have been talked about in this debate so far, and to join in with what was being said by my whanaunga from the Māori Party, as well, because I’m not sure if they were here when the Associate Minister of Education spoke about tino rangatiratanga. Unfortunately, the Associate Minister was confused about tino rangatiratanga and used that term wrong. What tino rangatiratanga is about is also reflected in another whakataukī, which goes “Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi; engari taku toa he toa takitini”—My efforts are not by myself alone as an individual; my efforts are those of the collective—because what tino rangatiratanga is about is collective rights. It comes out of the Treaty of Waitangi, article 2—Te Tiriti o Waitangi—which points to the fact that tino rangatiratanga is about collective rights.

Indigenous rights are collective rights. If he’s confused about that—and he was confused—then that explains the trajectory of this Government and the way that it has approached Māori issues so far.

The Green Party wants to see a well-funded public education system where all students are able to thrive, particularly those with diverse backgrounds, hence why we strongly oppose the reintroduction of charter schools, on the grounds that there is no evidence—I’ve heard nothing, so far, that has been convincing—either domestically or internationally, that charter schools are a successful model for schooling. It has been tried and it has failed.

It is also regrettable that despite the overwhelming feedback and recommendations—and I was listening carefully, because I wasn’t on the Education and Workforce Committee during this bill—that there were 90.3 percent of submitters opposing charter schools, and 96.3 percent of submitters opposing the repeal of the early childhood education (ECE) network approval. The Government, clearly, is not listening to the public and has persisted with this bill.

We also oppose the repeal of the ECE network approval process, considering that the approval process was not only introduced in 2023 but there hasn’t been enough sufficient time—again, another example of this Government not listening.

The other thing that I want to address in this debate, which has come up a few times and I would encourage all members around the House to really think about how we talk about education, is the false dichotomy between parents and teachers. Putting parents against teachers is not going to be good for our children. It is not going to be good for our mokopuna. Our children’s learning conditions are our teachers’ working conditions. If we want to support our parents—and, around the House, I think we all want to do that—we must also support teachers.

That means looking at the issues around pay parity—There are wide disparities between what people are being paid, whether they’re in kindergarten or ECE—and making sure that that is being sorted out. I’ve seen nothing from this Government that would deal with that. The really important issue of ratios—and that has been touched on a few times around the House today—is very, very important, because anyone who is a parent of two, three, or maybe more children knows how difficult it is to look after a group of babies; how difficult it is. Those sorts of decisions should not be profit-driven. The market-base ideology that is pushing this obsession with charter schools and also continuing down the consumerist pathway of market ideology with the ECE sector is incredibly problematic, and we will continue to oppose those things.

Just to recap, it is incredibly important that this Government actually gets their understanding up a lot more about Māori education, particularly about their understanding about what tino rangatiratanga actually means and making sure that we do everything to have a mokopuna-centred education system. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is my privilege to stand and speak in support of this bill in the third reading. I want to thank also those who submitted as part of the select committee process. There’s a been a lot of focus on those that submitted, and treating it as though it’s a numbers game. A lot of the submissions, though, focused on things other than what this is about, and this is about lifting student achievement.

The Opposition are trying to characterise this bill being about the market as opposed to it being about ensuring we deliver opportunities for lifting student achievement here in New Zealand. A number of the schools that’ll come through the charter school model will be non-profit schools, but we don’t hear the Opposition talk about that, because it doesn’t fit their narrative. I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hipkins, is worried about his leadership tenure, because, like the last time we had charter schools, that lot only gave it just over a year. The clock is ticking because these guys don’t give things a chance, and if I was Mr Hipkins, I’d be worried about where that clock ends up.

I wanted to touch this morning on three particular things: first of all, a very technical change that will be liked by local government. It is something that we dealt with in the select committee process. I’m sure that the Whanganui District Council, the South Taranaki District Council, and the Stratford District Council will be pleased that we’ve made it clear that the local government rates are only not payable by a charter school if that charter school is a non-profit school. We made a very clear change to the bill to make sure that charter schools that are for profit, because, remember, the Opposition don’t like to remind the public that there are a large number of these that will be non-profit schools—it is only the non-profit schools that don’t have to pay their rates.

Secondly, I want to just touch on the Network for Learning changes. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Montessori in Whanganui, a non-profit early childhood education facility or organisation, and they have had to move to another place in town. Their lease is coming to an end after a number of years and they have had to move to another place in town. They had to spend $1,000 just to pay for the Network for Learning charge to move into another facility down the road—crazy. These guys want to make it all about “Network for Learning is all about the private sector opening another place.” Well, that is just not the reality.

Thirdly, I want to talk about attendance. This bill enables us to collect data around attendance. Look, I think that, generally, Candice and I are pretty good parents and we make sure that we let the school know when things happen, but I must say we had a bit of an unfortunate week last week. We had a family funeral on Tuesday, of my auntie, and Fordell School rang us at 10 minutes past 9 to ask where Angus was because we hadn’t rung that morning to say, “Hey, we will be at a family funeral.” I’m excited about the fact that we’re going to be supporting schools like Fordell School to collect that data and make sure that we’re feeding that data in. Recognising that attendance at school is a parent’s responsibility, first and foremost, and this bill supports us to capture that critical data. I look forward to this turning into law later today. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I won’t say it’s a pleasure to take a call on this bill, because I think this is probably one of the most terrible, ill-thought-out, and ill-conceived bills that I’ve had the opportunity to comment on in the House. Just first of all, I want to reflect a little bit on the committee of the whole House stage that we had last night and also the contributions that we’ve had today in the third reading, starting with that of the Associate Minister of Education.

Now, this whole thing is very weird, is how I would characterise it. It’s a very unusual situation. We had some really unusual comments coming from the Associate Minister last night. We had him referencing Orwell, baiting Opposition members to try and see if we could come up with a question associated with George Orwell—a very unusual way to approach a committee of the whole House stage. We had him referencing the situation in Russia and, in fact, sprinkling references to The God That Failed throughout his third reading speech. This is extremely unusual behaviour from the Minister, from a Minister of the Crown.

I think the reason for that is because what this Parliament is doing today—I think most New Zealanders would find it very unusual. We have a situation where have someone who is a self-proclaimed libertarian deciding to spend $153 million setting up an alternative education system that’s not needed. Now, Government members might say, “Oh, you know, this is wanted by people who want to set up specific schools for Māori, and this will be supported by Māori.” Well, we’ve already heard that there are multiple numbers and types of schools that already assist and have excellent results in relation to Māori achievement within our State system, so that can’t be the real reason.

Then we think, well, you know, what are the other reasons that this particular system might be set up? It seems totally at odds with the other coalition partners. We’re starting to see a few cracks in this coalition, Madam Speaker—I know you won’t be able to comment on that. We’ve already seen the situation in relation to Israel—people weren’t happy about that, were they? There’s a few things about that. The ferries—we know that there’s a bit of contention there. Clearly, in charter schools as well, we’re seeing that. When we’re discussing it today, we’re seeing a lack of agreement.

Now, I like Andy Foster, he gave a good contribution, but it wasn’t really support, was it? If we’re honest, we could say that New Zealand First’s support for this bill—they voted for it, yes, but it was lukewarm. We know that he has valid concerns about this—transparency for one. Charter schools are not subject to the Official Information Act. We’re giving them all of this public money but they’re not subject to the Official Information Act. We know that New Zealand First has problems with that, and we know that New Zealanders do too. Do you know who else has a problem with that? The Ombudsman has a problem with that, and we heard that at the Education and Workforce Committee. We’re not hearing Government Ministers talk about that lack of transparency today, are we? This is another area.

Even the National Party—now, I mentioned it in a previous reading and some of the other members got very upset that I implied that they might not have full scale support for charter schools, but it’s been quite lukewarm as well, I have to say. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why that is. We have, on the one hand, the Minister of Education announcing a very structured curriculum: we’re going to have structured literacy, we’re going to have structured maths, we’re going to have no phones in schools, we’re going to dictate to schools the hours of the day that you have to spend on student subjects.

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: [Claps]

At the same time—exactly, that’s what Erica Stanford supports; she’s clapping. This is my point: that is what the National Party believes. Like it or loathe it, that’s what they believe, that’s a policy that they’ve set up. That is what the National Party stands for. But what are we seeing in the House today? Not a policy that goes well with that policy at all. We are seeing the exact opposite. We are seeing—

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: There’s accountability built in.

Well, there isn’t much accountability, is there? There’s no Official Information Act request; there’s not a lot of transparency. We can go through the lack of transparency, and I’m glad the Minister brought that up, because that’s one of the major things I want to make sure I save time for—going through the lack of transparency in this bill.

We have a situation here where we’re setting up a charter school programme—and this has been raised in previous speeches, and I did actually go and double-check this—but, at charter schools, you do not need to have teachers employed. When I raised this previously, the Minister said, “Oh, well, that’s the exact same situation as we have now.” Well, no, that is not exactly correct. Currently, in the State system, if you cannot find a registered teacher to do the work, then you might be able to have a teacher, or a holder of a limited authority to teach, who’s able to come in and teach a specific subject—it is not the default. It is very different in charter schools—

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: There’s 2,000 of them.

—where you are allowed—well, maybe that’s a problem with people not wanting to be teachers, and I’m not exactly surprised with the way that you’ve been treating them. I’m not exactly surprised that people don’t want to be teachers when you’re taking away their fundamental rights and are talking down to them and pitting them against students, like your Associate Minister has been doing.

This is the total opposite of what the National Party stands for, and you’d think that there would have to be quite a lot of evidence to support that. Well, we didn’t hear any in select committee. What we heard was 90 percent of submitters are opposed to it. Those on the other side of the House say that was a union campaign. Well, I’m sorry, but I heard a lot of teachers, a lot of individuals, a lot of people who are concerned, at select committee. I think it’s absolutely terrible that, as chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, the chair can get up and say that she doesn’t care about those particular opinions—that it’s not a poll—undermining the contributions that they made. I really disagreed with that.

Anyway, we see that this particular model doesn’t have widespread support and it doesn’t have any evidence to back it up. We heard comments from Government speakers saying they’re looking forward to substantiating the evidence.

💬 Shanan Halbert: It’s an experiment.

It’s an experiment, and, I tell you, it is the worst type of experiment that a Government can make: experimenting on our children. If this doesn’t work, the people who lose out are not the people sitting around this Chamber; it’ll be the vulnerable children who miss out on having a good quality education that they would have got if you’d spent this money in the State system. When that day comes and we see failing charter schools, the place that the Government will have to look to find who is to blame is in the mirror.

The other thing that I wanted to cover is that this has been a rushed process. This has not been a good example of good legislative process from a procedural perspective and also substantively. We had a shortened select committee process. Now, we did try and do our job as best we could, and I want to commend members from across the House for their participation in the select committee—I don’t think their comments in the House have been reflective of the good process that we went through in select committee—but it was short. It was too short. We couldn’t get the information that we needed from the Ministry of Education. We had regulatory impact statements saying they didn’t have time to speak to people; they didn’t have time to get the information that they needed in order to fully inform the committee.

Then we had a terrible situation where an amendment came in late from the Associate Minister wanting to take away workers’ rights from teachers and then try and hide it from the public. We had it released to the select committee, and then we had an email saying, “You’ve got to delete that email. We’ve got to redact that information. We don’t want the public to see that information. We don’t want the select committee to see that information.” And let me tell you, it was a very difficult journey to be able to make sure that this House and this Parliament had all the information available in relation to that absolutely outrageous taking away of human rights.

Now, the ACT Party says it’s libertarian and that it stands up for freedom. Well, one freedom that is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the freedom of association. That is one of the fundamental tenets of freedom. What the ACT Party has decided to do—and this coalition Government, in very lukewarm support for this proposal, has decided to support—is actually putting forward a proposal that gets rid of fundamental rights from teachers. We had it in black and white in the advice that the Minister got: this is in contradiction to our International Labour Organization conventions; it’s in contradiction to our trade agreements—again, the second time this week I’ve had to look at the Government side and say there is something in our trade agreements that you are not following.

If they are the party of trade, if they are the party of business, they will care about these things, but they evidently don’t. They ignore them even when it’s clear—and it’s clear in the advice, which we’ve finally managed to get in our select committee report to be reported to the House and are able to comment in the Chamber on this—that they are ignoring the rights, the fundamental freedoms, of people. This is a bad bill. It’s a bad bill—it doesn’t have any evidence to support it, the process has been rushed, and I do not commend it to the House.

I rise to speak in support of this bill. Isn’t it great that, on this side of the House, we’re intent on making sure we lift the outcomes for our young students. I look at the hard work so far by the incredibly dedicated, focused, and passionate Minister of Education, Erica Stanford. The positive feedback from parents has been overwhelming and I’m thrilled that the spotlight has been put on improved educational outcomes for our young people, because the hopes and dreams of this country in the future rest on their young shoulders.

This bill allows for the introduction of charter schools that have the potential to further lift the bar on those aspirations. An appetite for participation—78 so far, likely counting—shows we’re on the right track to getting educational performance back on track. Charter schools are one way of wanting to lift student achievement and, ultimately, to help deliver a better economy in the future. We have seen declining student achievement in New Zealand, and this bill will help give teachers greater autonomy to support those under-achieving students while having high levels of accountability—accountability; that’s a good thing.

Regarding the early childhood education component of this bill, we’re removing the red tape to make it easier to deliver effective, affordable, accessible early learning services to families, and that’s in complete contrast to the other side of the House who’d rather spend all their time working out how to relieve hard-working Kiwis of their income with more tax. This bill also enables rules about collecting, recording, and providing attendance data. Simply, we want our kids back at school. I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call. I call on Tangi Utikere.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. I join with other members on this side of the House in expressing what is a huge sense of disappointment in terms of this bill that is currently progressing through the House under urgency. I think the fact that it is under urgency really does underscore the rushed sense that this particular bill has followed, not just through the select committee process with a shortened, truncated opportunity for members of the public and the community to share their views, but to be ramming this through a third reading in the morning on Wednesday under urgency underscores it even more.

What we have heard from the Government this morning is “You know what? We don’t need to think about the numbers of submitters that took the opportunity even in a short period of time to share their views on this, because this is not a poll.” That is now the approach, it seems, from this Government: that they’re only going to look at one or two submissions because it suits their own concerns or their own benefits—because “It’s not a poll.”

💬 Katie Nimon: No, we took the feedback from each submission, but we didn’t tally them up.

And now they’re trying to say, “Well, we read every submission.” What we’ve heard from them is very clear this morning that “It is not a poll.” Let’s see how long that particular frame sticks for this particular Government.

Charter schools are a failed experiment and what we’re hearing from Government members this morning is “Well, we’ll just sit back and we’ll watch. We’ll put a few things in place. Yes, there’s no requirement to abide by the Official Information Act for now, at the moment, but we’ll just sit back and watch how this all unfolds.” That is a continued experiment. It is a continued experiment and it is simply history that is repeating itself.

We’ve heard this morning that the crux of this bill is to try and break unions, because we know that, actually, when it concerns unions in the education sector, within the State sector, unions like the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), unions like NZEI, those are particular collectives that do exist for teachers. They exist for school communities, which includes tamariki, ākonga, and the wider whānau that are part of that as well.

This is a Government that is simply indicating “We don’t care about that.” They seem to have a sense of suspicion about the work and activities that unions do. When I first entered the workforce as a teacher, the PPTA was the first union that I joined—actually, when I was at teachers college. For more than a decade, all I found from that particular organisation was support, encouragement, and collegiality. Why is it that we have a Government that is so hell-bent on basically wanting to break down those three tenets in terms of supporting the educational outcome and achievement of tamariki in this country? It is absolutely shameful.

But then, of course, this is a Minister and indeed a Government that have a one-track mind when it comes to this. They want to see schools being able to teach whatever they want, despite the fact that there has been a huge amount of support and progress in the history space to ensure that all tamariki in Aotearoa New Zealand will learn about what it is that makes this place so special. Yet this is a Government that wants to, effectively, remove that as an opportunity.

We hear about innovation. Well, I’ve got news for the Government: you will not only find innovation in your proposed charter schools, you will find innovation in public schools all around this country. Perhaps it’s just that they don’t get out and have a look at the classrooms. Perhaps it is that they don’t actually get out and about and share and understand what it is that’s being taught, because they seem to think that innovation is only something that you’ll find anywhere outside of the State sector. We know that the Government are doing this because this is going to benefit profit-making corporates—profit-making corporates—and we hear no retaliation, no pushback from members opposite, because they know it’s true. They know it’s true. This is a failed experiment. We do not need to give this a further chance. We look around the world; we hear around the world; we reflect on our own experience here in Aotearoa New Zealand that it has not worked.

In the committee of the whole House stage, I asked the Minister: what would it mean for a family who is in a zoned area and their school decides to transition or convert over to a charter school? The Minister said, “Oh, well, if that’s the view of the community—they would have gone through the process—that’s the end of it.” We are forcing into play particular decision making that actually is removed from a community or whānau level, and that is an absolute disgrace. Colleagues on this side of the House have said that it is a sad, sad day for public education, and it is. It’s purely because this is a Government that has a one-track mind and wants to rush this through under a rushed urgency and process. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I’d like to focus my comments on this bill on the kids. Ultimately, education is there for the children. That’s what it’s all about. What really confuses me is why there is so much opposition to another form of education being provided to our children. Some children—but not all children—thrive under the same system. Some children thrive in the State schools—that’s great, but they don’t all do that. Some thrive in integrated schools—and that’s great, but they don’t all do that. Some in a private school, but they don’t all thrive there. Some thrive in Māori immersion schools, and that’s great as well. What are they so afraid of? Ultimately, it’s about where the student will get the best education. Charter schools now provide another opportunity to that. We just look at our current system: it is not delivering for the students of New Zealand as it should.

In fact, we’ve heard a lot about the submissions that were made to the select committee, and we got a wide range of them. Yes, the majority of them were clearly an orchestrated campaign coming from the unions and the teachers to come along, but there were a couple of very interesting comments I picked up. One was from the University of Otago College of Education, and this beggars belief when it says to me one of their key principles is “Success at school cannot be reduced to achievement in literacy and numeracy.” Just think about that. Ultimately, it’s not their main focus. Then, actually, another submitter said the same thing. The Aotearoa Educators Collective said the same thing: that “Success at school cannot be reduced to achievement in literacy and numeracy”. No wonder some of our students are struggling so much.

What I would like to highlight is—and I think I’ve mentioned this before—that there are some people with some great foresight on the other side of the House and they made some great comments, actually. One of them is in the House tonight—except, this morning, I should say—and one of the great quotes is: “The charter school model presented an opportunity for us to work with whānau and switch them onto learning. We provided a wraparound solution to re-engage Māori parents and their children into learning.” That was the Hon Willie Jackson—the Hon Willie Jackson. Actually, he received great support. I have here a headline: “Labour MP backs Jackson on charter schools”, and his quote was: “The bottom line is, why would you stop something that’s working?” To the Hon Peeni Henare: I thank you very much for your support. On that note, I’d like to say—

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Catch up, brother!

Ha, ha! On that note, I’d like to say I look forward to this bill being introduced and I commend it to the House.

No one really asked for this legislation—only ACT. Charter schools were a bargaining chip in the coalition negotiations, part of the price of ACT’s 11 votes for this coalition Government. It is, as my colleagues have said—and we’ve restated it throughout this legislative process—a very expensive ideological experiment in de-unionisation by a party that is utterly obsessed with the teacher unions. I don’t understand why, but they are.

A price tag of $153 million when there are so many things in our public education system that could usefully use that money—schools not accountable through all the normal mechanisms, like the Education Review Office (ERO), for the quality of their performance in teaching our young people, a sort of subset of the school system that is not accountable for public money; bizarre, as the ombudsman said when he came along. It is almost a constitutional principle that the Official Information Act applies to organisations using public money, and charter schools won’t be accountable in that way. They won’t have to teach New Zealand’s world-leading Curriculum, and, bizarrely, weirdly, they won’t have to employ trained teachers.

Now, there has been a lot of talk about the evidence, and the Associate Minister, the Hon David Seymour, asserted again this morning in the House that somehow the choice and flexibility that he thinks charter schools will offer will improve learning outcomes. There is no evidence globally. There is a mountain of data, of peer-reviewed studies, on this. There have been a lot of experiments across, particularly, OECD countries over the last 40 years, who have thought that charter schools might improve learning outcomes. There is zero evidence to support that they do make a positive difference, and, in fact, Sweden has just chucked out a 30-year experiment in charter schools. They did it longer than anyone else, and the Swedish education Minister and their Opposition spokesperson on education both publicly stated that it was a failure and they regretted it and it actually harmed generations of students that went through those charter schools.

Do we even need this kind of mythical choice and flexibility that the Associate Minister thinks charter schools will deliver? Experts came along to the Education and Workforce Committee and they told us that New Zealand schools, self-governing schools in this country, have all the flexibility that they need to innovate. We have the diversity. We have special character schools, we have kura kaupapa, we have private schools, we have integrated schools, and I don’t know if members of this House heard her a few months ago, but Claire Amos, the principal of Albany Senior High School, went on the radio and said that, in her experience—and she would know, because she’s an education trailblazer if ever there was one—a principal and a board working together have all of the flexibility in the current system to innovate.

💬 Hon Erica Stanford: She applied to set one up!

She says she doesn’t want to—

💬 Hon Member: Own goal!

She said she doesn’t want to. Claire Amos has publicly, on record, said that it’s not necessary.

💬 SPEAKER: That’s all very good, but can we just go back to a bit of order. Thank you very much.

Now, in the Associate Minister’s speech this morning, it was very revealing. He responded to comments that I’d made last night that the charter schools experiment won’t survive the next Labour-led Government. He pointed out that a number of the schools during the last failed charter schools experiment have survived. He said, “Sure, they’ve been incorporated into the system as special character schools.” But the point is: to him, these special character schools were actually charter schools with unionised teachers. That’s what he said this morning, and that reveals what this is about for this Associate Minister.

It’s about de-unionisation. That’s the main thing for him. He’s utterly obsessed with the teaching unions. The point is that, when those charter schools were folded back into the State system, they had to teach the Curriculum—they have to hire trained teachers, they are accountable for public money, they are accountable to the ERO for the quality of their practice. So, in actual fact, they are no longer charter schools, but David Seymour revealed what this is all about for him; it is simply a way to carve out part of the public education system and kick the unions out. That’s what it’s about for him.

I said earlier that there’s no evidence to support the Associate Minister’s claim that charter schools will deliver improved learning outcomes, and that’s right; there is no evidence. There’s also no evidence to support the idea that different governance models—the ability to run your school like a private corporation, the ability to self-manage your property, and all the other things that these charter schools will have—make any difference to learning outcomes, and there is a mountain of international peer-reviewed studies to support this. There is evidence, however, that hiring tertiary-trained teachers to teach your students does make a discernible difference. It’s the only thing, on all of these issues that we have been discussing, where there is clear evidence that it makes a difference.

I have huge respect for the educators, the principals and the teachers, and the school communities in the communities that I work for in West Auckland. They’re incredibly professional. They’re highly motivated. They have a huge heart for the children that they work with, and they’re doing an amazing job for our children and our families, but they need more resourcing, particularly to deal with the high numbers of kids going through our schools today with special learning needs, behavioural problems, and neurodiverse learning challenges. Our schools need more learning support coordinators. They need more teacher aides. They need more teachers, and those teachers and all of the other education staff need to be better paid so that we can retain their skills and talents in this country.

There is a constant resourcing challenge in education, as there is in the health system. No one, including the principals and teachers in my local schools, would claim that our system is perfect. They want more resourcing and they want a better system. They want more professional development. They want better assessment tools, ongoing improvements to the Curriculum. Our education system needs innovation and it needs investment, but this charter schools bill is not it. It is an expensive fringe, ideological experiment in de-unionisation and privatising our education system. It is the last thing that our public education system needs.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d just like to quote a few things—four quick points to close this great bill out. Te Kāpehu Whetū principal, Raewyn Tipene, said the school moved to the State system when charter contracts were cancelled. She said it involved a lot more bureaucracy—“We came back to mainstream and it was horrendous.” If I quote from Alwyn Poole, he said, “Our current state education system can be genuinely labelled a ‘failed experiment’ on a massive scale - and especially for Māori, Pasifika students from lower-income families and those locked into choiceless geographical location”. The state-of-the-art Stanford University CREDO study in the USA—Mr Twyford said there was no evidence—said the results are remarkable.

Finally, from my own electorate—well, actually, the Hon Minister Tama’s electorate, in Hamilton West, but we kind of share the glory a little bit—“Te Kōpuku High was established as a Partnership or Charter School funded by the Ministry of Education in 2016 as a result of an agreement between the National and ACT parties. We opened our doors to the first cohort of years 7 to 9 mokopuna in 2017.” Some of you will know the principal—Hemi Rau. “Partnership Schools were operated by sponsors and enjoyed greater autonomy than State Schools. Our main sponsor was Kia Ata Mai Educational Trust. … The primary purpose of the Trust is to initiate, develop and support Māori educational activities. In 2018, Te Kōpuku High became a Special Character school after the Labour-led coalition government removed Partnership Schools as an educational option.” And here’s the interesting thing: “Despite a change in status, we have rigorously safeguarded the integrity of our original teaching and learning programme.”

Finally, I’d just like to say it’s a good day for our colleague over in the ACT Party Cameron Luxton. I was inspired by his maiden speech several months ago in this House, where he said that the main reason he is in this House is for charter schools. If you want to know a little bit more about charter schools, I encourage you to read his anti-fragile maiden speech. I commend this bill to the House.