Education and Training Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee on the Education and Training Amendment Bill. We start with Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 4 to 62A, “Amendments to principal Act” and Schedules 1 to 3. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Well, thank you, Mr Chair. I’m very pleased to get to this stage of the Education and Training Amendment Bill. I look forward to discussing the legislation and its accordance with decisions agreed by the House in the second reading.

Part 1 is mainly concerned with the introduction of charter school legislation. Later parts to the bill also include changes that relate to early childhood education and network planning. I look forward to hearing what people make of these changes and responding to any questions that members may have.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate of the committee of the whole House. I want to take my first call here this morning to talk about what we intend to do as the Labour Party in this debate and to talk about, overall, where we reached with the bill. You will see that, on the Table, there are a number of amendments that we have made and are asking the Minister to consider. None of these proposals for amendments have been made lightly. They are genuine attempts to improve a bill that, as a caucus, we determined was actually rushed. It has a lot of flaws in it and faults in it, and even announcements that have been made in the last couple of days point towards that, particularly in the charter school space, as schools are coming to terms with the fact of what does this actually mean, particularly those that are converting schools. When you look at the announcement that was made yesterday by the Minister, I’m guessing there’ll be a number of schools, now, that will look at that and say, “There is nothing in this. There is no reason why we would want to change from becoming a State school into a charter school.”

We intend to go through those in groups, in those proposed amendments that we have there. We have signalled for a start that we will be dealing with—and just to give the Minister a heads-up about where the line of inquiry will go to, we’ll start with the intent to look at the industrial side of things. Our spokesperson for workplace relations, Camilla Belich, will sort of lead that part of the debate off. We want to look at the network-management side of it, which the Minister did say was a small part of the net provision for early childhood, which the Minister did say was a small part of the bill. I would contend that that is not the case, particularly by the number of people who did actually make submissions in that area. I do have a few questions that relate to that. Then I’ll delve quite deeply into the charter school amendment itself. Starting with the charter school—and the reason for that is that our spokesperson in that area does have to leave early. We thought that it would be prudent to start with those areas and then come back to the network management, and then come back to the charter school itself.

I just want to make some opening statements, before we carry on, to say that we absolutely, wholeheartedly have the stance that charter schools are an unproven, ideological idea. They have had much research around the world, and it’s very disappointing that the one part of research that the Minister has used constantly, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) research, has been dismissed by several researchers and academics around the world, because it doesn’t have the peer review and the fact that there’s uncertainty—well, there’s not uncertainty; there’s absolute certainty—around who the funders are. Most of those funders that are in that space are actually charter school proponents. Certainly, my colleague Dr Xu-Nan has really highlighted that in the academic world, that’s actually a really big influence over the research—the peer review, and the fact of who the funders are—as to whether that’s actually credible research. The rest of the research, as we know, shows that there is very—well, it’s not even limited; it’s almost a negative impact on the system as a whole. We know that there are more examples around the world—including in New Zealand too—of charter schools failing.

Minister, I guess my first question for you—well, it’s not a guess; it is my first question for you—is: why has there been such a reliance upon that particular lot of research? You talk about it being Stanford University. We know that the research that has actually come out of Stanford University—and not an organisation that’s based there, but the actual Stanford University—shows exactly the opposite in the research and shows that these charter schools have had a negative impact. My question to you, first off, is: why has there been that reliance upon that CREDO research, and what other research have you been looking at, particularly in the New Zealand space, that would show a positive impact, if there is any? Thank you.

I could quote extensive research. However, the House agreed at the second reading on the policy principles, including advancing a charter school model. If any members have any questions about whether the legislation as proposed properly expresses that policy decision, I’d be happy to address them.

Thank you. That points to the fact that there isn’t a lot of research, if any, that actually shows that. That is a big concern when we’re making such a big change to our system. Our system in New Zealand is already completely devolved, as the Minister knows, and that is one of the issues that we have within the system: we have the individual boards of trustees, who are making completely independent decisions on a daily basis. That makes change, as I’m sure the Minister is becoming well aware, completely difficult to actually put in place from the centre.

I really would like to know, before I hand over to my colleague Camilla Belich, and to Dr Xu-Nan as well, what other aspects did the Minister take into account other than charter schools? Knowing that the research is really dicey, what else did the Minister look at that would create the change that we want to see within the education system? Surely, when you’re looking at such a big change, there would be—and this never came through at any point, so I’m genuinely asking this. I really don’t have a sense of what else the Minister has actually looked at in this space. I don’t have an understanding of the research of other areas that the Minister looked at to create the change.

Minister, you talk about choice a lot. There are other ways of creating choice, and, in fact, one of the submitters at select committee, who was in favour of the charter schools, said, “Well, we wouldn’t need to go down this track if we looked more closely at the special character provisions within the Act”, which I thought was very interesting, and I took that on board myself, actually. I would like to know: did you take that on board, Minister? What did you look at in this space? Did you look at other ways that we could do this without such a big change to the system, which I know many people and many academics will tell you will only devolve the system more—a system that is already creaking because of that devolvement. I totally take on board some of the ideas around diversity within the system, but that could happen within the system itself.

I really want an understanding, Minister, from you as to what else you looked at in that space, before I hand to my colleagues.

I can only reiterate that the second reading was the time to debate the policy that the House agreed to—a policy of introducing charter schools. If the member has specific reference to the legislation, the wording of it and whether it gives effect to the policy decision that the House has already agreed to, I’m very happy, but I note that this is the second time that the member has taken a call and she hasn’t mentioned a single clause of the legislation.

Point of order, Mr Chair. This is the committee of the whole House. These are genuine questions that have not been answered anywhere, in any debate, at any time, in the journey of this bill, and I know, in the past, having sat in that chair myself, that it is important to take on what the members are asking. This is our only chance to find out that information. They are genuine questions that we are asking here. The Minister has not addressed this at any—

Hon David Seymour: There have been questions in the House, at select committee, the second reading debate—

Hon JAN TINETTI: Excuse me—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): This is a point of order. It will be heard in silence, please, Minister.

Hon JAN TINETTI: These are genuine questions that the Minister has not addressed at any other point, and I am asking them in order to find out what else the Minister has considered in this particular journey of this bill.

The member is correct: the select committee is the opportunity—there is the opportunity, at the committee the whole House, for members to consider the broader principles, provided they’re in the context of the part that is being considered, and, helpfully, for a particular clause that is being referred to. That would assist the debate considerably.

OK, I will actually defer that, then, to make certain that I get the absolute right part, because it is about the insertion of the charter schools. I do know this bill very well, and I need to get my clauses exactly right, but I would like to come back to that and give the Minister the opportunity to actually answer what I’m asking and not say that it is something that could have happened throughout the course of this bill, because it has been asked and it has not been answered, and I still want that answer. I will come back to that, Mr Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Following on from the previous speaker, I think, in terms of the first portion of the committee of the whole House stage, and just for ease of tracking, as well, I will be discussing the employment aspect of the charter school, and this is specifically around the charter school. With that, I would like to just, first, point out one of my Amendment Papers—Amendment Paper 123—which talks about Schedule 1, and the new Part 6 of Schedule 1, and also the reference to what I believe is clause 59 of the bill, which is also in Part 1.

One of the things that we heard about from the teachers and one of the things that we discussed at the select committee stage is this idea that for a converting school converting from a State school or a State-integrated school into a charter school that the employees who have decided to move to the new charter school or to the converting school will be given the option that is no less favourable than their current employment. This is in Schedule 1 of this bill.

Now, the question I had then when we were discussing this at the select committee stage was: well, what about if, then, right after the conversion is complete—and we have seen that, yes, indeed, those employees have been placed on employment terms and conditions that are no less favourable than what they have currently—what happens—and I know this from my own previous experience—when there is a restructure and those staff are then made redundant and they have to reapply for the same role? Whether the sponsor would still be held to the same set of conditions as set out in Schedule 1, new Part 6, clause 119. The response is uncertain, which, for me, was really, really concerning, because—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Could the member at the Table just be aware that he is standing between the Speaker and the Table—just House management, please.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Sorry, there are quite a few papers on the Table.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, carry on. Sorry to interrupt.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: No, no, thank you, Mr Chair. When we were looking at this, the response that we got was that it is uncertain. I can speak from experience that this has happened in multiple institutes but also in terms of organisations that I’ve been involved in where such a tool has been used as a tactic to work around what intention, I’m sure, the Minister has when it comes to the converting school.

My first question to the Minister is whether he will consider my amendment, Amendment Paper 123, around this, where, when we are moving into a converting school and the charter school—that the sponsor of the charter school and the terms and conditions that these employees are moving into cannot be varied because of redundancies or organisational restructures for at least two years from the conversion date. This is in the insertion of subclause (2)(b) to Schedule 1, new Part 6, clause 119(2).

This would just give some reassurance for those employees who are going over, and also then give them sufficient time to consider whether they want to stay in a charter school—is this for them; are there other elements, such as professional learning development, that isn’t as comparable to a State school or State-integrated school, for example? It also gives them sufficient time to evaluate whether a charter school environment is appropriate for them without fearing that they will be losing their job or that they will be restructured out of a system and having them replaced on much lower and, potentially, precarious terms and conditions as a result of that. It just puts in some sort of precautions in the bill to prevent such a scenario. I would ask the Minister if he would consider this amendment. Thank you.

Thank you very much to Lawrence Xu-Nan for addressing a specific part of the legislation. I understand the concern he’s raising. While there will be a “no less favourable” clause—so, if a State school with State school collective agreements were to become a charter school, those people who currently are employed by the State school will be offered a job in the new charter school on no less favourable terms. I think that’s a fair deal.

Mr Xu-Nan’s question is, effectively, “Will the employment of that person be guaranteed in perpetuity regardless of what change and conditions the school faces or what goals they have for the education of their children?” The answer is: no, the children will come first. If the goals of the school change, if the demands of the circumstances change, then charter schools must have flexibility in the employment of adults. Ultimately, that reflects the fact that we believe that it is important that schools are run primarily for the benefit of children. Adults are there to support their learning, and they’re paid for doing so, but, I guess, employing for all eternity on certain conditions is not a goal of the education system.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m pleased to be able to make a contribution to this bill, although I’m not pleased about the content of this bill, but I will speak to it, as the Associate Minister of Education has requested. There are a number of clauses in this bill which I think are objectionable from the purpose in which they set out to achieve establishing a charter school network in New Zealand, for which we have not yet heard definitive reasons as to why this is necessary when we have an extremely flexible education system in New Zealand, different forms provided, different alternative education being able to be provided under our existing system, and we know that charter schools cost more. Despite that, the questions that I also have are around the functionality of this bill.

Now, we know this has been a rushed process. We know that in the advice that we received from the Ministry of Education, they didn’t have time to do sufficient consultation in relation to this bill. We know that the Education and Workforce Committee process was extremely short. We know that the Minister put in an amendment, which I want to speak to, and we were only able to have public submissions for two days—two days—on an amendment from the Minister that would take away fundamental rights of teachers and people working at charter schools.

I do have some questions for the Minister about that. Why, Minister, did you decide unilaterally, without advice from your officials, as is clear from the information that we have seen and that has been provided to this House, to take away the right—as is set out in Part 1, which we are debating at the moment—for teachers and employees at charter schools, like all other workers in New Zealand, to be part of a multi-employer collective agreement. What, Minister, are you so afraid of—that teachers working together, working with their sponsors, will be able to achieve—that you would make decisions that would take away rights that would possibly breach our free-trade agreement with the UK, our free-trade agreement with the European Union, and our International Labour Organization conventions that we have signed up to and incorporated into domestic legislation, and on receiving that advice, decide to proceed with this particular move?

Why, Minister, did you decide to do this when your officials provided you with at least two or three other options that would have limited the effect of multi-employer collective agreements—which I also disagree with—but wouldn’t have been as bad as the option that you put forward, which in your paper is called the “(The Associate Minister of Education’s proposed option)”? Why did you decide to go ahead with that option? I know that you have said, in response to questions previously asked at select committee and in the House, that it is because you have developed—independently, as far as I can tell, without evidence to support this—a dichotomy that places teachers against students. I have seen no evidence to suggest that the rights of teachers are at odds with the rights of students. In fact, as a New Zealander, and as most people who have either been in a school or are parents would know, the rights of teachers and teachers being happy and satisfied in their profession is directly linked to the performance of students.

So, Minister, I would ask you: why do you and members of your party continue to put out lines pretending to establish some kind of culture war between the rights of adults and the rights of children, when we know the teachers of New Zealand are here in their jobs to do the best for students? They’re not there for the money. They’re not there for the glory. They’re not there because everyone thinks it’s such a fantastic job to do. I know teachers; I know they work hard, and I know that they deserve the same rights as every other worker in New Zealand. In this part of this bill, you are taking away these rights. You are making up allegations that there is a difference between protecting the rights of children and protecting the rights of teachers. The evidence shows that this is not true.

I ask the Minister to explain to this committee, explain to the teachers of New Zealand, why you’ve decided to do this for no apparent reason and no furthering of the charter school policy as far as I can see. There is a lot of flexibility that can be maintained within a multi-employer collective agreement. I haven’t heard a sufficient answer to that and I think New Zealanders deserve one.

Just before I take the next call, can I just remind members that the very liberal use of the word “you”, as was in that speech—please refer to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ll return back to my question to start with, and I know that the Minister’s very keen to talk about the part of this bill that sets up charter schools. I could go through this. It’s Part 1, clause 4, subclauses (3), (4), (5), (6), (7) and clauses 5, 6, and 7. All of this is related and I could go through it, but all of this part relates, apart from the very first or second subclause of clause 4 where it talks about early childhood—all of this relates to the setting up of charter schools, every single part of it. And that’s where my question is coming to—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): So what part are you actually talking to?

Hon JAN TINETTI: OK, let’s go to Part 1, clause 4(3), setting up of the authorisation charter school agency to start with. In that question, I want to know—because the setting up of the charter school agency is setting up of charter schools full stop—what else did the Minister consider when he looked at charter schools? Or was it, as I suspect, only charter schools that he looked at? Did he look at setting up or making changes to the principal Act around special character? If he did, why didn’t he pursue that further? Why did he only land on charter schools?

That is where I have never had a clear answer around this. I don’t know what other research the Minister used. I want to have a clear understanding of what it is in the Minister’s head that puts charter schools over special character when, in fact, people that came and submitted who were in favour of charter schools said they were only doing this because special character part of the principal Act had not been changed. My understanding from that was that they wouldn’t even bother with charter schools if we looked at the special character part of the Education and Training Act closer. Why did the Minister land on charter schools?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Following on from some of the previous speakers, I would also like to again address one of my other amendments. This is Amendment Paper 102, and this is to do with new section 212ZCA in clause 40. Like the previous speaker the Hon Jan Tinetti has mentioned—which we’re still talking about—this is the employment element of this particular bill. I just wanted to address what the Minister mentioned before in terms of saying that a school’s or a sponsor’s or a charter school’s primary responsibility is for teaching, and I just want to contextualise why, for me, this is really important in terms of my own background.

With regard to this particular bill, like I mentioned before, I have worked for a private training establishment which was for profit. I can assure the Minister that when it comes to for-profit educational institutes, which, despite what the Minister has said, is a huge money-maker—I should know, because I used to work for one of them—education for students absolutely is not within the company’s or within a for-profit educational organisation’s interests. It is about making money. I appreciate what the Minister mentioned in terms of the students coming first, but we have seen across studies throughout the world that having good, qualified teachers who are happy in their employment directly results in better student outcomes, and better attendance for the students, as well.

Picking up on what Camilla Belich mentioned before, the idea that pitting the right of the teachers against the educational outcomes of the students is something that isn’t even considered when it comes to being a teacher. However, it is considered when you are looking at pitting between a for-profit employer or, in this case, a sponsor and an employee/teacher. There is a very clear reason why we are highlighting this. Going back to my Amendment Paper 102, which is the deletion of new section 212ZCA, we have not had sufficient time, and I have also not seen within the regulatory impact statement the kind of genuine, tangible impact—not just the things that the Minister has mentioned or has spoken about publicly, but genuine research and data that suggests that having a multi-employer collective agreement has affected student outcomes and student achievement.

So, to the Minister, what evidence is there, as in tangible data, and not things that you’ve said publicly or in a press release or a public release, that this does genuinely affect—not from the employers. Where is the facts that there have been tangible detrimental effects on student learning by having multi-employer collective agreements? We are without that evidence, and, for example, like I mentioned, we received Amendment Paper 49 from the Minister on 23 July. The select committee was meant to close the deadline for submissions on 25 July, and we then had to extend it out to 29 July because of this Amendment Paper with some big amendments on it. That has not given the public sufficient time to feed into it, as well, so we then had insufficient time at the select committee to weigh this issue, and also with no other data to go with it.

In light of that, I would ask whether the Minister would consider removing this clause for the time being on the basis of a lack of research, and then consider that if there is something that genuinely is present. Both in terms of my Amendment Paper 102 as well as the previous speaker Camilla Belich’s amendment, we propose a removal of this particular clause around the ineligibility of unions to initiate a multi-employer collective agreement. Now, I understand what the Minister has also mentioned before, which was that the staff themselves can do it. But, no, this is a requirement that the unions can initiate, and I think the unions should be able to.

I thank again the member Lawrence Xu-Nan for his reference to a specific part of the legislation—specifically, new section 212ZCA in clause 40. This is a clause that would be added to the Education and Training Act, and he’d like to remove it. For the benefit of people watching this, that is a part that says that a union can’t go along to a charter school and force employment terms under a multi-employer collective agreement. The reason for doing that is that we believe that charter school operators should have as much flexibility as possible to employ teachers and adults and staff in a way that is most likely to improve the outcomes for children. Now, if you put an extra constraint on that and say that you also have to satisfy what the unions want, you’d have less flexibility to satisfy children—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Where is the data?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And the member says, “Oh well, what’s the evidence for that?” I’d challenge him: what’s the evidence that allowing unions to interfere in schools is going to improve the outcomes? I don’t think he has any, but I do thank him for asking a question about this specific legislation.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I want to follow on from my colleague Camilla Belich in speaking to a number of clauses in Part 1 of the bill that deal with the employment rights of teachers. As Camilla Belich, I think, put it in her contribution, it’s our view that the Associate Minister has created this false dichotomy, suggesting that there is some kind of contradiction between the interests of teachers and the interests of students. I would put it to the Minister, actually, that he is projecting his own and his party’s deeply entrenched anti-union bias in this legislation, which will be to the detriment of the schools and the students that will be affected by this bill when it becomes law.

Lawrence Xu-Nan referenced new section 212ZCA in clause 40—and I want to speak in support of the Hon Jan Tinetti’s amendment that would ensure that a charter school is subject to any collective agreement that covers its learning area, unless agreement is reached with unions representing its employees to establish a new contract. This directly confronts the one of the key provisions in this bill of the Associate Minister that would, basically, ban multi-employer collective agreements for charter schools. As has been explained, that is in contravention of New Zealand’s commitments, not to mention our reputation internationally. We’ve made commitments with the EU and the UK free-trade agreements and at the International Labour Organization on this matter. It is an unwarranted restriction of the human right for workers to bargain collectively, but apparently that’s not of any great concern to this Government or to the Associate Minister.

A related amendment in the name of the Hon Jan Tinetti would delete new clause 53A. This amendment would remove new section 601A from the bill, removing provisions that allow for the board of a State school to force an employee at that school to provide services to a charter school. This also goes to the employment rights of teachers that are being infringed.

This is why we say that this legislation is basically a very expensive taxpayer-funded experiment in the deunionisation of our education system based on the prejudices of the ACT Party, and we think that’s extremely unfortunate.

Schedule 1, clause 119—another amendment from Jan Tinetti would replace current subclause 3 with—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Excuse me, to the member: we’re not on Schedule 1 at the moment.

Hon David Seymour: Wrong part, mate.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Oh, I beg your pardon, you’re right, we aren’t. The next one I want to mention is another amendment that would delete clause 53A. This amendment would remove the new section 601A from the bill, thus removing provisions that allow for the board of a State school—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Sorry, the Hon Phil Twyford. The Minister is just asking which number amendment you’re referring to.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I actually haven’t got that in front of me, but I will get it and come back to it. OK, I’ll leave it there, thank you.

Point of order, Madam Chair. My point of order relates to Speaker’s ruling 66/2: “There’s a convention that, in [the] committee [stage], the members in charge of the legislation should not take unfair advantage of the live mic” in front of them, and in two instances now, during the speech of my colleague the Hon Jan Tinetti and during the speech of the Hon Phil Twyford, the Minister has used the mic in front of him to make quite loud interjections, which have in fact changed the speeches of my colleagues, and they have needed to speak about something else—

Thank you for the point of order. I’ve just taken over as Chair, and I will keep an eye on it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to talk about clause 40, new section 212ZCA, and—this is part of my amendment that I have put on the Table—“Replace new Section 212ZCA with the following: ‘Charter schools are subject to collective agreement. A charter school is subject to any collective agreement that covers its learning area unless agreement is reached with trade unions representing its employees to establish a new contract.’.” The reason that I have put this amendment on the Table is that, as I said, these are genuine attempts to improve what absolutely became clear to us in the select committee was a very rushed process but also one that we were very concerned about, with the fact that it was taking away basic employment rights.

Now, in a State school, as it is at the moment, the collective agreements do exist, and in the collective agreement, teachers can choose to sign up to the collective agreement or not. It seems to me that with this piece of legislation, that choice is being taken away from teachers. I’m quite surprised about that because the whole idea that was put to us was that this was supposed to give people more choice, but it seems that choice has been taken away from teachers. I get very upset when I hear that because it’s almost like the teachers are the evil enemy of the education system, when in fact, all of us in this Chamber know that that is not the case. We know that our teachers work hard. We know that they generally will follow what the direction is of the Government of the day, because they want the best for kids. As my colleague Camilla Belich said before, no teacher goes into that role wanting to become rich out of it, wanting to have an easy life, because if anybody in this Chamber or anyone watching thinks that teaching is an easy life, it absolutely is not. It is one of the hardest jobs when you are faced day by day with young people’s lives and their futures in your hands.

Now, the collective agreement is something that protects those teachers and the slim protections that they have in their role. And they are, but the collective agreement is something that unifies the teaching workforce. Now, the other fact that I would say about a collective agreement in a State school is that a teacher that chooses not to be on the collective agreement cannot be paid less than that collective agreement. I cannot understand why we would not want the ability to have that within the charter school system as well. It makes no sense to me that we would take those rights away from our teachers. The amendment ensures that collective agreements automatically apply to charter school employees unless a charter school chooses to opt out and negotiate a new agreement with unions. And that, of course, is the ability to be able to do that too. That is up to the charter school—let’s use the early childhood sector as an example—just as it is within the early childhood sector right now. On that conversion across when the charter schools are put in place, the collective agreement exists as the default unless the charter school opts into another agreement.

Now, Minister, my question to you around that is: why not put that in the legislation? Why put not less—favourability, basically, or something like that, it said? Why put that when you’ve already got the base there of the collective agreement? Now, this is following on from what Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan said before, but this takes it to that next step. This is the ability for the collective agreement to come across, and then the charter schools can choose to negotiate their own collective agreement, but it gives the teachers the choice to be in that or not. It also gives them that protection at that point. They don’t have to worry what that means—“less favourable terms”—because, Minister, I have had some legal people that have come to me and said that that’s not as clear-cut as what you might think that might be. I genuinely want to know why that is not in this bill.

OK. Just in relation to the last three speeches, all of which in different ways have focused on new section 212ZCA, which restricts unions from initiating collective agreements—or at least multi-employer collective agreements—with a charter school, we could have a big philosophical debate, but the fact is that the House, at the second reading, agreed that this would be a feature of charter schools, that they are not subject to union contracts, and I’m confident that the wording of the legislation as set out gives good effect to that policy agreement of the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the Minister for actually also engaging with our questions as well. I’m going to take one more call when he comes to looking at some of the employment and also staffing elements of this, before I consider wrapping this up and moving on to the next part, which is the early childhood education element.

My question to the Minister is around the limited authority to teach (LAT). This is clause 35. This is also one of my amendments—Amendment Paper 118. I understand what the Minister’s intention is—and please also, Minister, correct me if I’m wrong—that, by having limited authority to teach, or teachers who are doing that, they are able to provide the flexibility and all of the things that the Minister mentioned, in terms of what the charter schools are supposed to have. One of the things, when we’re looking at the ability to have the limited authority to teach currently within the legislation, and particularly within the primary legislation, is that they are temporary, or they have to be reviewed on a year-to-year basis. They are very specific.

What we’re seeing here—and this is referring not only to clause 35 but also elements of clauses 43A, 43B, 44, 45, and 46. What we’re seeing is that the Teaching Council must give a limited authority to teach sort of, I guess, ability or recognition for employees of one or more charter schools. That itself, other people may have feelings about, and that is often “Well, you know what, this is what the Minister is looking for. It is what it is.”, but what I am concerned about is that, when a teacher in a charter school with limited authority to teach is on a permanent basis, they are not subjected to anything else that the teacher with the teaching qualification would be subjected to.

In effect, they all function as teachers, so the one that I’m particularly looking at is the fact that those with LATs would be exempted from being in front of the Competence Authority. I think, although they are still going to need to be part of the disciplinary and all of those by the Teaching Council, the Competence Authority fulfils a really specific area for that. This is, again, something we’ve heard in various submissions. It’s like: “Why aren’t they being subjected? If they’re going to be teaching permanently, why aren’t they also being part of this Competence Authority?” My Amendment Paper here—and I would ask the Minister to consider it—is around removing clauses 43A, 43B, 44, 45, and 46, so that way the teachers at a charter school who are going to be teaching on a permanent basis, as indicated in this bill, will then still be subjected to everything that the qualified teacher will be subjected to—i.e., the Competence Authority.

One other thing I would like to speak to in terms of this amendment is on the basis of another Amendment Paper I think I saw the Minister put out, just to specify in clause 35, new subsection (3) of section 92, that after “limited authority to teach”, insert “unless the limited authority to teach is suspended under section 498 or 500(1)(d)”. Right now, it’s not entirely clear that those who have their LAT suspended will still be eligible to teach. This additional amendment would just provide that level of clarification. Thank you.

Tēnā rawa atu koe e te Heamana. Ki a koutou katoa i te Wiki o te Reo Māori, tēnā rawa atu koutou mō āke tonu.

[Thank you, Madam Chair. To all of you during Māori Language Week, greetings to you for ever.]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak this morning on the Education and Training Amendment Bill. Obviously, I oppose this particular piece of legislation in front of us, and I have a number of contributions to make today based on opposing this bill. But I have some questions for the Minister and I’m going to start with the impact on the rainbow community, and part of it is an appeal to the Minister, because over his time in Parliament he has been an advocate for the rainbow community. He has attended the Pride Parade in Tāmaki-makau-rau, Auckland. He well knows the statistics that impact tamariki, mokopuna, rangatahi, and young people from the rainbow community, the poor mental health statistics, the high number of suicides, the impact on whānau, and the challenges that young people face to truly be who they are.

Here we are today putting through a bill on charter schools, an experiment on our tamariki and mokopuna in this country. It opens up an opportunity for organisations and schools like Destiny Church and Brian Tamaki to actually build their congregation and spread their hate. Charter schools allow their ideology to be built and to be grown amongst these tamariki and mokopuna, amongst these young people and amongst vulnerable whānau that they prey on.

Here I have a quote from the Minister, albeit that he has been an advocate for rainbow people in the past. This is about David Seymour, and this is Newshub on 20 May 2024: “David Seymour stands by his apology to Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki over the past charter school application”, that Hekia Parata, in her time, declined. Minister, why do you think she declined that application, particularly at that time—a decade ago? Was it because she saw the lack of safety for our children in that school? Did she see that without restrictions Brian Tamaki would lead his movement to continue the hate that he places on the rainbow community? I come back to your quote and your apology to Brian Tamaki, “You applied for your excellent independent school in South Auckland to become a charter school and we said no because the authorities, the establishment against that was too strong. I want to say to you today that I’m sorry for that decision. That was wrong.”

Minister, how was that decision wrong? I want you to answer that question in this Chamber and explain to those young people, those rainbow young people and their whānau, how that decision was wrong and explain to them how by opening up access for Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church once again to apply to be a charter school—and by the sounds of it they want to be the first cab off the rank. Here you are apologising and offering your support. Minister, how are you going to protect the safety of those children?

As we go around the country, we see damage to property—which I’ve raised with the Minister of Police—and the removal of rainbow pedestrian crossings. We see Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church standing outside other schools shouting hate as young people go to their school and as their whānau drop them off. How, Minister, are you going to ensure that this isn’t going to spread? How are you going to ensure that these young people are protected from that discrimination? If you’re searching for which provision I’m speaking to, it’s section 212F, in clause 40, which outlines who can apply to be a part of a charter school. Brian Tamaki of Destiny Church has put in his application. Minister, are you supporting it?

I want to take us to new section 212O, inserted by clause 40, “Duties and powers of sponsors”. If we look at subsection (e), it currently says, “ensure that teachers employed in the school have the necessary qualifications and skills to teach;”. What concerns me about that paragraph is that it doesn’t actually mention there—and maybe officials will be able to give the Associate Minister of Education a point where it does point to this—about current practising certificate, and even a teacher that’s going to be operated under a limited authority to teach should have a current practising certificate.

My proposal in my amendment is to replace that subsection (e) with “ensure that teachers employed in the school have the necessary qualifications, skills to teach and hold a current practising certificate”. Now, that’s really important to have that. The reason for that is that with the current practising certificate, it means that those teachers have come under the oversight of the Teaching Council. I’m concerned that the current paragraph, as it’s written at the moment, actually gives them a way out of not coming under the Teaching Council. That means that when we’re looking at the safety of our young people and the safety of our learners, that is not there. So this is a genuine proposal of an amendment to try and tidy that up.

So, Minister, I guess my question then to you is: is that your intent? I’m sure it is, with the introduction of the limited authority to teach (LAT)—which, I think, go too broad. So I put that on the table—that I think it goes far too broad. But that has the oversight of the Teaching Council. Just under this particular part and clause as it’s written at the moment, that almost gives a sideline to a way out of that—I find that and many others do too. I’ve actually had people, Minister, that have contacted me about this one, and some of them are people that are in support of charter schools that have contacted me to say that this seems to be an oversight in the drafting or an oversight of when this was being put together. Again, it goes back to that fact that this has been rushed and you can see that it has been rushed as you go through this. My amendment is a genuine attempt to ensure that there is no way that a teacher cannot come under the oversight of the Teaching Council.

Minister, I ask you to take this amendment seriously and to think about that we want to tighten up anywhere where we don’t have their oversight. That is for the safety of our learners so that they won’t have teachers in front of them that will not have that practising certificate requirement—that that must happen at all times to keep our young people safe.

Now, Minister, I mentioned before that we were going to move from the industrial side of things through to the early childhood. Now, I know that the early childhood part of this comes in both parts, but we’ve got some conversations that we want to have with you and questions that we want to ask. I know that my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan is just jumping, here, to get this part in, to ask that. I think that’s probably the last of the industrial things that we want to ask; there might be some that we come back to later. After we’ve talked about the early childhood part of Part 1, we will then go on to looking at the more nuanced parts of this bill and the new parts that it adds and the issues that we have with some of the things that have been left out of this bill. So I think that’s the last question I have around the industrial side of things at this point in time.

I’ll take a call from Lawrence Xu-Nan. Just in terms of the early childhood education—referring to both parts—it’d be really cool if you can refer to the clauses and then we can be really clear. That’s a general comment, not just to Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, in some ways I am very—I am reasonably good at referring to clauses, I hope.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): It just makes our life easier up here. Thank you.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: For the early childhood education (ECE), which is looking at the repeal of the network management approval process, although it’s a very small section, it’s a really tricky section. There are elements of it in clauses 4, 5, 55, but predominantly clause 59 as well. I would like to first point the Associate Minister of Education’s attention to my Amendment Paper 113 on this, and I would kind of like to talk more broadly about ECE in general.

When we are looking at the regulatory impact statement (RIS) for this, it talks about the fact that there is no other option that’s been considered other than the repeal—I’m looking at page 2 of the regulatory impact statement. There are no other options that were considered, there is no consultation on the proposal, and there are no discussions undertaken with the sector, and this will occur at select committee stage. There have been some comments from other areas like the Early Childhood Advisory Committee and the Early Childhood Council, but let us be clear that the Early Childhood Council is a lobbying for-profit owner of ECE centres, not necessarily representing the majority of the teachers of the ECE sector—just being clear in terms of the function of the ECC. It also says in the regulatory impact statement that there’s insufficient time to understand this impact. So, overall, we’re seeing that there’s not a lot of background work being done on this.

The first thing with this is, if we’re looking at the fact that we’re going to be consulting with the sector at the select committee stage, during the Education and Workforce Committee stage on the ECE portion of the bill, 96.3 percent of the submitters opposed the removal—96.3 percent—and that is just the people who oppose. We’re not even looking at the number of submitters who are on the fence about it; this is purely, straight-out opposing the repeal of the network management process. Based on what we see here in the RIS, and based on what I’m hearing and what the select committee was hearing during that process, my amendment—and although I’m trying really hard to sort of make things work the best way I can, based on the evidence that we have received, my amendment proposes the removal of the references when it comes to the repeal. I’m recommending to the Minister—and I really hope that he will hear from the 96.3 percent of the people who oppose this—not to go through with it. I am proposing the deletion of clause 4(2), deletion of clause 5, deletion of clause 55, and, in clause 59, after subclause (1), insert new subclause (1A)”.

Now, this is the second part of my sort of, I guess, discussion or plea to the Minister to consider—the network management process has only been around for a year, so the regulatory impact statement says it has meant that there’s insufficient time to understand the impact. Now, we have heard the Government mention multiple times that “Oh, you know, we’re doing something because we need a few years to see how things work, etc., and we’d like to collect some data.” It seems inconsistent with what we have here, of something that only happened in one year. I’m not saying flat-out remove it and have no other provision. What I am proposing in clause 59, after subclause (1), is to have a provision for a review. Genuinely, I think it is a good idea to review whether this is something that’s working or not. The proposal is, essentially, adding new section 87A(2), which is to say that the review under subclause (1) must take place and “(a) commence no sooner than 1 August 2025; and (b) be provided to the Minister no later than 1 August 2027.” This will give sufficient time between the three- and five-year mark for the advice to decide whether this system is working or not.

Just in response to the contribution from Jan Tinetti, thank you for putting up an amendment and referring to a specific part of the legislation. It’s certainly true that sponsors must ensure that teachers at charter schools have adequate skills and qualifications to do their job. That’s in the legislation we’re introducing today. But that should be read in conjunction with section 92 of the Education and Training Act 2020, which, of course, remains in force—is not amended by this bill—and that legislation says that teachers must have a practising certificate. The difference with charter schools is that some of them may be required to have child safety but not the Teaching Council’s competency assessment, the reason being they may well have other competencies. The amendment the member has put up—it’s good of her to engage, but, actually, it’s already covered by another part of the Act that we’re not changing today.

In terms of Lawrence Xu-Nan, the fact is that we’ve had the policy debate about whether there should be network management of early childhood education. I just make the point to members that I show up to question time pretty much every day, three days a week, when the House is sitting if you want to ask me a question about these policy questions, but none of you ever have. I’ve never been asked a question as the Associate Minister of Education about any of this. That policy debate has been had. We’re happy to keep having it, but right now we’re debating whether the wording of this bill matches the policy decisions that the House has already made in the second reading. In my view, I’m confident that it does, but happy to take questions about that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask some questions around the early childhood education (ECE) network—in Part 1, clause 55, the “Regulations relating to early childhood services”.

I just would like to also refer to the departmental disclosure statement where it talks about the fact that one of the reasons for removing ECE from the network planning is that the Associate Minister’s heard that it’s cumbersome and it’s expensive for centres to look to undergo the process of applying to have an early childhood centre, when it says, “The network … application fee is $575 (including GST).”, of which a portion of that would come back to the business entity who is looking to apply for network approval. But $575, inclusive of GST, I would argue, is a very, very small portion of what is likely to be an exercise, undertaking the build of an ECE centre, of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would like the Associate Minister of Education to explain to us why a $575 fee, including GST, is such a big issue. When I was the Associate Minister of Education who dealt with all the network planning applications that came across my desk—of which there were many, many—I did not once see the $575 fee, including GST, as an issue, judging by the amount of applications that came across my desk.

I am quite sure the Minister would agree that we want all children to have access to quality early learning settings and prevent unintended consequences of oversupply. What this will do is allow the big players, the big corporates, to just move in wherever they wish to, at the expense, I might add, of community-based—

Carl Bates: Scaremongering.

Hon JO LUXTON: No, I am not scaremongering. Take a call if you wish to highlight that. It would also potentially, aside from your community-based centres, there are those small, individual, privately owned ECE centres. One that I used to own myself would potentially be excluded, because how would there be the ability to compete against these big corporates that can move in as quickly as possible and, therefore, shut out that small-business owner? I would have thought that the Minister was in favour of those small businesses being able to thrive and succeed, and this could be detrimental to them. I’d be really interested to have the Minister’s comments and answers to those questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Further on this question of the removal of the network management provisions in the bill, I want to speak to clauses 4, 5, 55, and 59, and I want to respond to and question the Associate Minister of Education on his claim that he has now made repeatedly that at the committee of the whole House stage of this bill, he doesn’t have to answer anything other than whether or not the precise wording in the draft provisions reflects what was voted on in the second reading.

We’re debating what was considered at the second reading and what the select committee has come back with, and the Minister doesn’t get to, basically, absent himself from any discussion about the policy intent of a particular provision. How can we scrutinise and debate the precise wording of these provisions, as we are supposed to at the committee stage, without the Minister being required to respond to those criticisms and questions about policy intent and potential consequences, unintended or otherwise? It would make a nonsense of the committee stage if that kind of debate was shut down.

In light of that, I ask the Associate Minister—because it hasn’t been clear in any of the material that’s been provided to the select committee—what is the intent of this provision to get rid of the network management requirements for early childhood education (ECE) services? We know that the ECE sector in New Zealand is a mixed market. It includes lots of non-profits and it includes a thriving for-profit sector, but to ensure that all of those community-based, non-profit, for-profit kindergartens and early childhood education centres thrive, the intent of the network management provisions was to carefully monitor questions of oversupply to ensure that parents and families are getting access to the best possible choice and provision of quality early childhood education.

Now, other than getting rid of regulation—which you would think, when you hear the Associate Minister speak, is a good in itself—it’s not clear, actually, what the desired outcome is here. Yep, it might save $575 for an early childhood education operator that doesn’t need to apply, but what is the benefit for the sector, for the quality of education, and for the choices that are being provided to parents?

I want to speak in support of Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment that would insert a review of the approval process for early childhood education services, and I think that that would be the responsible thing to do, but I invite the Associate Minister to explain what the intent is and what has been his consideration of the consequences, unintended and otherwise, of this provision.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I too want to talk to clause 55 around the repealing of this section, and I too just want to start by saying that I’m really perturbed and actually very upset. It’s quite disgraceful that the Minister has said that he won’t answer questions—or he didn’t quite say it like that; he did before, but he said that it wasn’t what he should be doing here: answering policy questions. That’s not what this time is about. This is our time to be able to really dig deeply into this, and we had a ruling before by the previous Chair that this is our time—as long as we can point to the parts and the clauses in the bill—to be able to determine the policy intent, as well, that we haven’t been able to uncover along the way of this bill. We’re going to keep asking these questions because we’re not getting the answers. I’ll just go back and say that I still don’t have an answer to the very first question I asked, which was around the charter schools and what else was actually looked at in that.

I do want to talk about clause 55, and that is around this repealing of the early childhood education legislation. I just want to point members in the committee to the Early Learning Action Plan 2019-2029, and objective 5 from that was “Early learning services are part of a planned and coherent education ecosystem that is supported, accountable and sustainable”. In that, it does talk about the communities that are “under-served while some areas have experienced service growth beyond demand. This impacts on service by ability and parent choice. More active management of the network would help to ensure all children have access to quality early learning settings and prevent unintended consequences of over-supply.”

Certainly, during the Education and Workforce Committee, we heard that in many areas in the country there was oversupply. We heard about centres that have had to close because they were within a very short distance of a number of other centres. We heard of teachers who were having to go in who would have a lot of young people, then suddenly a new centre with all the bells and whistles would open, and then they would not have as many children in their service because the centre with all the bells and whistles was more attractive. This is exactly what the objective of the Early Learning Action Plan was aiming to address. It was aiming to address that oversupply but also—more importantly—it was aiming to address where there was limited supply in some areas. Now, those areas are—as it states in here—under-served areas of deprivation in some cases, but it was in also rural areas as well.

It is something that has been part of the schooling sector’s ecosystem for almost ever. In the schooling system, a new school generally doesn’t spring up unless the Ministry of Education has determined that there is a need in that particular area. Unfortunately, up until now, with the network management provisions, that has not been the case in early childhood, so that is why this plan was put in place—and it does say it is from 2019 to 2029. I have a concern that, with the repealing of this legislation, a strong signal has been sent to the sector that this plan is now irrelevant, and this was a plan that was worked out not only with the Ministry of Education but with the sector, with academics—people who know early childhood education inside out.

So, Minister, my question to you is this. You have said in select committee that you still think that the Early Learning Action Plan is relevant, and you have said that at an annual review hearing. If that is the case, why has objective 5 been totally disregarded, and what do you see that is wrong with objective 5, which ensures that we would have high-quality early childhood education provision across the motu—and repealing this part of the legislation will put at absolute risk that high quality? Those are my questions to you.

Just in response to some of the comments of the members opposite, there’s a book here, the Standing Orders, and it’s amazing what can be learnt by opening it and reading it, particularly turning to page 89, Standing Order 310: “Consideration in committee. (1) A committee of the whole House considers a bill to determine whether the bill properly incorporates the principles or objects of the bill as read a second time by the House.” I’m just going by the rules of Parliament. That’s what it says. If you want to have a policy debate, ask a question, use a general debate speech, have me at select committee. There’s so many opportunities. If the members opposite cared about these policy questions that they have not taken—have not taken. I make the point that, if you would like to have the policy debate, you can, but it’s pretty simple.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Because your policy’s based on ideology.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: This Government doesn’t believe in central planning, and Jan Tinetti is heckling away saying it’s all about ideology. Well, she’s about to get some. You see, the thing is, there was a time in history when people believed what Jan said frequently. They believed that Governments could decide which businesses should open where and how big they should be allowed to be. If a business wanted to grow, then it had to ask permission and get a licence from the State. The Russians tried this to a large extent. They actually tried to run the whole economy that way, and what they found was that the people in Moscow didn’t know how much to order from each factory, and they ended up with enormous shortages and enormous oversupplies for the simple reason that people in Wellington do not have the knowledge.

The member might like to refer to The Use of Knowledge in Society by F A Hayek. Seldom is the required knowledge given to a mind or small group of minds. That is the lesson of the 20th century. That is why we don’t do central planning. That’s why we’re not trying to decide whether or not an early childhood education should be able to open or grow in an area from Wellington. That is why we are going to let parents decide if they should send their child to an early childhood education centre. That’s why we think parents who know and love their children should be able to choose, because we’re economically literate, because, unlike the Labour Party, we’ve learnt the lessons of the 20th century, and that’s why, at the second reading, we agreed to get rid of central planning of early childhood education. I’m very confident that the legislation here absolutely—

Hon Member: What makes you the expert?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: “David Brent” at the back there says he’s the expert. Actually, on this matter, I might be. The fact is that we agreed at second reading to make this policy decision, and we’re making it.

I call the Hon Phil Twyford. I do consider now that the Minister has answered the question about the reasoning around the networks, so can we make sure that we broaden it out to any other specific clauses that members want to talk to.

I want to respond directly to what the Associate Minister just said. He referred the struggle between capitalism and communism in the 20th century as some kind of justification for actually tinkering with a law that is genuinely designed to ensure that a mixed market of early childhood education provision in New Zealand works for parents, for families, and for students. Somehow the pronouncements of Hayek and this member’s selective adherence to neoclassical economics is somehow a justification for the change that’s being made in here. That is absolutely ridiculous. On this side of the Chamber, we will continue to ask questions about the provisions in this bill at committee stage. The Minister does not get to brush them away dismissively by saying that the second reading voted for this bill. This is the committee stage; this is where we get into the details—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can I just say to the member: I have no problem with the members asking questions. I just feel that, despite the philosophical difference, the member has given a reason around the network. I’d like to broaden the questions out to other questions people might have.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes, indeed. The Minister also said that—actually, no, I’ll come back to it in the next contribution. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to first bring the Associate Minister of Education’s attention to Speaker’s ruling 124/6: “Relevance is determined in a committee stage by the substance of the bill. If it is a particularly broad-ranging bill and more general in nature, then so is the committee stage debate.” I would argue that the removal of a whole process is quite broad when we’re looking at the broader impact. I understand where the Minister’s coming from in terms of that the Minister may consider that his response has been sufficient, but I would still like to point to, from a process perspective, the rationale that the Minister has provided.

One of the rationales that the Minister has provided is removing some of these barriers—fair enough; I understand that. However, we have seen in the data that the number of early childhood education (ECE) services that have opened in 2023 under the new process has in fact increased as opposed to decrease. It went from 67 in the previous year to 72 in 2023. I would like to, again, ask the Minister: what is the evidence and the data—other than hearsay—from places like Early Childhood Council, that actually says that this process, this appeal, or this management process has been creating barriers that have reduced the number of ECE centres that have opened? Clearly we’re not seeing that in the official data.

Now, the second question that I have to the Minister is around the submission by the Children and Young People’s Commission, by Mana Mokopuna, about the concern that they have on the impact that removing this—and with a lack of consultation and proper consultation—would have on children and on students who attend ECE centres. Then, in that case, I ask the Minister: why was there no child impact statement done on this bill? When we asked about that before, we didn’t get any good answer as to why that wasn’t done. If anything, this is the bill to do a child impact statement because it is about education and, particularly when it comes to ECE, it is about very young people, and we’re looking at children here. If the Minister could answer more of a process question of the data itself—because we have seen an increase. What is the barrier that is really referred to here? Why was there no child impact statement being done in association with this bill?

To finish, I would also like to point to my final Amendment Paper on the ECE part, Amendment Paper 121. It is an amendment to new section 548A(2)(a)(iii), inserted by clause 53. The reason that I’m proposing a deletion of this, and the Minister may be able to provide some clarification, is that the clause says—let me find it—that the “(a) data relating to the socio-economic status of children attending early childhood services and their families” can be requested by the ministry, but “(iii) the data does not include personal information, unless the service provider of the early childhood service, who is an individual, has consented to the publication or disclosure of information regarding the service they operate:”.

I was quite perplexed with this particular element, Minister, because, surely, under privacy considerations, the data relating to the socio-economic status of the children and their families would be consented by the families themselves as opposed the service provider. In this case, why is the service provider the person who gets the say, as to whether that data is released or not? My Amendment Paper 121 removes this particular part of subparagraph (iii) but keeps subparagraphs (i) and (ii) because those two make sense. If the Minister wouldn’t mind highlighting—and, potentially, I got it wrong, in which case, you can disregard this amendment—why the service provider is the one who is giving consent on private information, not the families?

Mō taku hē, Madam Chair, nā reira me mihi hoki ahau ki ngā wāhine toa i roto i tēnei Whare mō te rā whakahirahira mō ngā wahine katoa, tēnā rawa atu koutou.

[I apologise for my error, Madam Chair, and so I should also acknowledge the women champions in this House on the significant day for all women, greetings to all of you.]

Madam Chair, I made a mistake. I acknowledged Māori Language Week, of course, in my first contribution today, but I failed to acknowledge that it’s Women’s Suffrage Day, and I just want to thank all of the strong women in this great House of ours.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Thank you, on behalf of the women.

SHANAN HALBERT: I’m disappointed because I haven’t received a response from the Minister to the question that I specifically asked on new section 212F, which outlines who can apply to be a charter school. My question was about what if Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church applies to be a charter school—which I understand they have, they are, and that they expect they will be given the first right, based on the Minister’s apology to them, to become a charter school instantly. Given the sensitivity of that particular group and the concerns that I and the community have on that, I would really encourage the Minister to respond to that question. I understand that, under the Standing Orders, he doesn’t have to and isn’t required to, but actually, if he digs a little bit deeper, I’m sure he can front up to respond to that question.

In addition to that, continuing on that line of questioning, can I refer the Minister to new section 212Y, based on religious instruction and observances. My question there is: will the Authorisation Board allow the Brian Tamaki school to poison the minds of children? We have seen examples of that in our country, and this is, in fact, what I’m most fearful of. It can happen, and the Minister has offered the committee today no assurances that he will take on the duty of care—how he will protect tamariki and rangatahi. I look to schools that celebrate Pride with enthusiasm year on year, and what will actually stop this school from going and protesting outside another school just down the road in South Auckland?

These are the assurances that I’m seeking from the Minister. He refuses to answer my question. He refuses to give a response to the rainbow community, a community that he has been an advocate for in the past. If he wants to sever that relationship with the community, he should just be upfront about where he’s at. But he can’t serve everyone. Minister, you cannot serve everyone in this discussion. I ask you again: is it your intention to give permission to Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church to become a charter school? Based on what I’m seeing in the legislation today, and referring back to those two particular points—

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Madam Chair. There’s such a thing as repetition. I’ve actually been waiting to answer the member’s question, but he keeps asking the same thing over and over.

SHANAN HALBERT: Speaking to the point of order, the Minister has responded twice in the committee this morning since I made that contribution. He has had every opportunity, so I made the assumption that he did not intend to respond to that.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, in my judgment on the point of order, the member is asking a repeat question for the Minister to answer. It’s a repeat question for the Minister, as the member considered the Minister hadn’t answered it.

SHANAN HALBERT: Sorry, just speaking to the point of order, just for clarification, it isn’t repetition. I did ask—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): That’s exactly what I’ve just said. It’s a repeat question that you deemed you didn’t have the answer to.

SHANAN HALBERT: May I complete my call?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yes, you can.

SHANAN HALBERT: Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s great to see that there may be a response from the Minister to these particular questions and the risks that are in front of our community. We are concerned about it. I’ve spoken to young people that are from other schools in South Auckland and on the North Shore in Auckland. They are concerned that charter schools offer an opportunity to put other students at risk in our rainbow community. I’m seeking—I am genuinely seeking from the Minister—his assurance on how he will implement his duty of care to protect rainbow communities within our schools. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The member spent five minutes saying the same thing. I could have got up and answered it by now.

Shanan Halbert: But you didn’t.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, I’m sorry, but actually I was waiting to—

Shanan Halbert: You had two opportunities and you didn’t.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, actually I was waiting—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Let’s give the Minister a chance to answer it.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: He says he wants the answer, but he won’t let me give it. I just make the point that, first of all, there are several gateways in approving a charter school. I draw the member’s attention to new section 212J—the new section that would be inherited—“Criteria for assessing whether proposed sponsor and governing members are fit and proper persons”.

In addition to new section 212F, which the member has replied to, the Authorisation Board would have to consider whether they wanted to see this school become part of the network of charter schools. Ultimately, a Minister would have to sign off on it. So, if you take the strawman of a group of people who actively promote hate and would seek to go and promote homophobic protests outside other schools, I have to question whether the member is really sincere in his advocacy for the rainbow community or trying to hijack one cause to oppose another that he doesn’t like. Of course that wouldn’t happen. It’s completely absurd. We absolutely will not be sponsoring any school that is homophobic or actively attacks people for their sexuality. There’s not a chance of that.

Finally, in terms of what my role in it is, I don’t get involved until the final sign-off, but I have great faith in our Authorisation Board, who are a remarkable group of New Zealanders committed—almost volunteering, frankly—to do this work. They have all children’s best interests at heart as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Labour recognises that teaching requires a unique set of skills, and that fundamental to our belief about a quality public education system is that we should have the best possible training system, and that teachers who teach in our classrooms should be appropriately qualified. Unfortunately, one of the main effects of the Education and Training Amendment Bill is to ensure that someone without any formal teaching qualification can teach our children in a charter school.

I want to speak in support of Jan Tinetti’s amendment that would delete clause 35 which would allow a sponsor of a charter school to “permanently appoint to a teaching position a person who’s the holder of a limited authority to teach.”—an LAT. Following that, clauses 44, 45, and 46, which, basically, if passed in their current form, would have the effect of exempting these people who hold a limited authority to teach from the powers of a complaints assessment committee and exempting them from the powers of the disciplinary tribunal that all other teachers would be exposed to. Clause 45 says that a “Disciplinary Tribunal may not refer an employee in a charter school who holds a limited authority to teach to a competency review.”

I ask the Associate Minister: is this part of his ethos of when he says the Government’s against central planning? Are these provisions, which allow people who are not trained to teach, to teach in publicly funded schools and not be subject to the most basic and most fundamental accountability requirements that are there for all other teachers? When the Minister said in one contribution before the last one, “This Government does not believe in central planning”, actually every other policy announcement by this Government on education has been about strengthening the central planning of our education system; telling schools that they shouldn’t allow cellphones during the day—what is that if not central planning?

So my point is: is it this Minister’s intent to carve out this little experiment within our education system to allow people who do not have any formal qualification to teach and let them loose on children in taxpayer-funded schools. How can that possibly be justified?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I too want to talk to the amendment that is in my name around deleting clauses 35, 44, 45, and 46. The reason, as my colleague Phil Twyford has pointed out, is because these are the provisions that embed the limited authority to teach. Limited authority to teach certificates, practising certificates, are part of the State system now, but this makes a big change to what’s currently in place. Currently, a person can be granted limited authority to teach in a State school when the school has done everything they can to attract a teacher with a practising certificate into that position and they have been unable to fill that position. This makes a change that the sponsor of a charter school will be able to employ without having gone through that process and will be able to employ permanently, which means that there is no review, that that person has that job as a permanent provision, which doesn’t happen within the State school now.

Now, following on from what my colleague Phil Twyford said, that the complaints assessment committee and the disciplinary tribunal would not be able to investigate that person with that limited authority to teach with competency. Competency means that they wouldn’t have the qualities and skills as a teacher. Now, I kind of understand that because no teacher who hasn’t been trained or has the research or the support or the mentoring to go through that training and that couple of years where they get that real support alongside them in that first two years would be able to be at that same competent level. Someone that doesn’t have that practising certificate wouldn’t have that competency. As I had the discussion with the Teaching Council at select committee, when you’re investigating competency issues, often they will lead to conduct issues. I have a concern that we have no ability to assess competency with our external independent body of the Teaching Council. Many people that have been in positions of having to mandatory report or report a teacher to the Teaching Council knows that most of the issues started with competency.

I have a real concern that we are giving these teachers abilities that don’t happen within the State school system, that we’re appointing permanently, that we’re not going through that ability to ensure that there is a genuine need or vacancy in that area, and that people think—and that became clear with some of the questions that I heard in the Education and Workforce Committee as well—that anyone can teach. Again I say—and this is the second time I have said this here—that if you believe that then you’re sorely mistaken because not everybody has that ability to be able to teach, because they haven’t been through that training. That is the intent of this amendment: to actually have the same provisions for limited authority to teach as what currently exists within the State school system; to not create a different pathway which, effectively, is what this does; to ensure that there is an overview of competency so that it’s not leading to those issues of conduct—again, I go back to the fact that I did talk about that with the Teaching Council in select committee.

Minister, again, my question to you is: do you want to see a two-tiered system so limited authority to teach is different in the charter school system to in the State school system? I just want to hark back to what you talked about before, Minister, in that you talked in your evidence that you were giving around business—I want to say that kids are not business. Kids are absolutely not business. We’re talking about children at the centre here and not coffee beans. We have to have the best people in front of our young people. Minister, that’s my question to you.

I wish to speak to an issue that I think falls between a couple of clauses in the bill, and it isn’t quite spoken to. I want to look at clause 40. The particular two sections I’m looking at are 212P and 212QA. It’s an issue that’s been raised by some of my local principals, and I actually think it’s going to apply to many schools across the country. I’m a little surprised that some of our colleagues right across this committee haven’t been asking this question, because it really will matter.

Now, I was up at Laingholm school out in West Auckland the other day, and it’s a great school. They’ve got some fantastic assets there—a fantastic playground, a bike track. The sorts of assets that the community has raised the money for and the community has built and the community has gifted to the school. If anyone owns those assets, it’s the community. Laingholm school is a little bit more special again because it’s kind of one of the few open spaces in the Laingholm community, so it happens to double as the local playground. People come in and use the grounds during the week. Looking at section 212P, the title says that the sponsor is to control management of the charter school. As far as I can see—and section 212P(1) says, “A sponsor has complete discretion to control the management of the school as the sponsor thinks fit.” That’s a hell of a lot of scope for a sponsor.

Then going on over to section 212QA, it’s referencing schools that have previously been State schools where the land is owned by or leased to the Crown. Then what happens is that, as far as I can understand it, the sponsor takes over the assets of that school under a lease—the ownership of the assets doesn’t necessarily pass over to the sponsor, but the sponsor leases the assets—but then, at the same time, going back to section 212P, “Sponsor to control management of … school”, the sponsor can kind of do with those assets as she or he wishes, or they, or whatever. I need the assurance from the Minister that the assets that the community fund-raised for, the assets that the community built, the assets that the community looks after—the assets that the community uses—will still be freely available to the community as they are now.

Now, we’ve heard stories of what happens to charter schools in other countries. The gate gets locked at 3.30 and the assets of the school cannot be accessed after that time without paying a fee. Sometimes they get locked at 3.30 on a Friday afternoon and only opened again at 8 o’clock on a Monday morning, so no one can use the assets of the school over the weekend. But those assets do not in any sense belong to the sponsor. In fact, if anyone owns them, it is the community. I can find no space in this legislation for the community to be able to have that guaranteed right to use the assets that they did all the work to build.

Now, perhaps this wouldn’t matter so much in some of the big city schools where there might be parks and playgrounds available. Perhaps it might not matter so much in some areas of the country, but it surely matters to Laingholm school in West Auckland. I want an assurance from the Minister that the awesome community at Laingholm, should someone in that community decide that the school ought to be a charter school, that if that school is faced with becoming a charter school—and frankly it’s within the Minister’s target range. He said schools were about 200 pupils, and Laingholm is a school of about 180. I want a guarantee from the Minister that the community of Laingholm will continue to be able to use the asset that the community worked so hard to build for their own local school.

Thank you, Mr Chair. As we wrapped up with the early childhood section, we’re going back into the charter school element, and I will address some of the more substantial parts of the charter school bit, because I have a number of amendments on section 40. I still want to kind of talk about some of the outer areas in some of the other clauses first, and also just also for easy tracking and also for the Minister, for easy tracking purposes as well. The first two amendments I would like to speak to are two very small amendments I would like the Minister to consider. One of them is Amendment Paper 112, and then the other one’s Amendment Paper 115.

Now, in terms of Amendment Paper 112, it is purely from a format basis. We’re seeing the way that the charter school aspects are inserted into the principal Act. It’s very much based on the comparable equivalent within the principal Act. If you see “a principal”, it is “the person in charge of teaching and learning”. If it is “a board,” it then becomes “a sponsor”. This particular amendment addresses certain elements when the principal Act talks about the board of a State school, but the addition only refers to “sponsor”, but not “sponsor of a charter school”. I went through the bill and identified all instances where the comparison—it is just purely for consistency—would then be “board of a State school” or “sponsor of a charter school”. That’s just for consistency’s sake.

The second amendment is around something that the Minister actually mentioned before. I thought it tied in really nicely to this. It’s around the network of charter schools that the Minister talked about, and this is clause 7(2). In clause 7(2), there was a reference to the principal Act as well, and it talks about in section 88(4) of the principal Act, after “board” insert “or sponsor.” If you’re looking at the bill itself, it then implies that the network that is being created is a network combining both State school and charter schools. I thought that, for clarity, rather than using “and” for this particular part, it would be better to use “or”. This Amendment Paper amends it so that it clearly sets out the different criteria for establishing and managing a charter schools network from State schools and would then be a more accurate reflection, as opposed to “and”.

Those two small amendments aside, I would like to sort of address one of the areas that actually the Minister himself announced this morning, which is around attendance for charter schools. Now, as we know, attendance is a core element of this bill as well. However, what I was confused by is the fact that clause 42 of this bill—this is my Amendment Paper 120—doesn’t require charter schools to collect attendance records. There’s actually no mentioning of charter schools having the need to collect attendance records. My Amendment Paper here for clause 42 simply adds, “after ‘principal of a State school’ … insert ‘or the person responsible for teaching and learning in a charter school’” as a way of capturing that charter schools are indeed, very much functioning like State schools, required to collect attendance.

What we do see in an earlier section—and this has to do with clause 14—is that sponsors can appoint attendance officers; that I get. However, one of the things around sponsors being able to appoint attendance officers, based on the principal Act, is that as a board appointing an attendance officer, there are a lot of powers and also obligations of that attendance officer associated with that role in the principal Act. [Time expired] Mr Chair, can I just finish talking about my amendment?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, carry on.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Thank you, Mr Chair. In the principal Act, section 49(3), there’s actually a lot of additional powers such as being able to detain a child who appears to be between the age of five and 16. An attendance officer also has additional rules even to the point of things like filing reports and also prosecution, questioning the parents on why a child is outside the school hours. That is associated with the higher accountability to the community that the board has that the sponsor may not have.

While we’re looking at being allowed to have attendance records collected, in my Amendment Paper 120—that’s an amendment to clause 42—I think we also need to address the potential clarification that needs to be provided in clause 14 around the powers of attendance officers being appointed by a sponsor. For my Amendment Paper 117, it adds an additional clause 3A, which suggests that subsections (1) to (4), where an attendance officer has the power to detain a child who appears to be between the ages of five and 16, don’t apply to the attendance officer appointed by a sponsor. The reason for that would be to sort of still give sponsors the ability to appoint an attendance officer, but then limiting that attendance officer power to just providing that attendance and also do the role that is needed within the confines of that charter school or the charter school network, as opposed to being much, much broader than that. I will also ask the Minister to consider those two amendments around attendance.

One other thing that I thought, given that I have a little bit more time, I would like to talk about as well is around actually the sense of community. I would like then to also point the Chair and also the Minister to my Amendment Paper 114, which is a correction around clause 4(6). Now, this particular clause 4(6), by amending the definition of “school community” in the principal Act, it actually gives the sponsor the ability to define what the sponsor would consider a school community. I think somewhere there’s a level of contradiction, because if the sponsor is able to define what the school community—and then later on, as we’ll discuss, a sponsor then requires one person from the school community to support their application. Then the sponsor can basically tell someone, “Now you’re part of the school community, support me.” It seems slightly out of line in terms of a conflict of interest. I would ask the Minister in terms of some of the rationale and whether he would consider this amendment as well.

The other part is when we’re looking at the school board being able to determine the definition of a school community, that is on the basis that school boards have at least a minimum of three parent-elected members on that school board who will have the relevant experience and expertise when considering who could be part of a community, whereas the sponsor may not have. The sponsor may have, but it is also possible the sponsor may not have. Again, I’m not sure why in this case an insertion is needed in clause 4(6) to be able to allow sponsors to define that. My recommendation is also a removal of this particular part.

I have mentioned a number of Amendment Papers. There are five in total; that is, Amendment Papers 114, 117, 120, 115, and 112. I would really appreciate some guidance and feedback from the Minister. Thank you.

Right, just responding to questions from Deborah Russell, which appeared to be around what happens to property of a State school that was perhaps fund-raised by the community—she gave an example of a school from Laingholm—I just draw her attention to page 43 of the bill as reported back. New Subpart 2 of New Part 6 in Schedule 1—new sections 118 and 117, for that matter—sets out that, in effect, property remains with its owner if it was part of a trust that had fund-raised for the school. If it is State property, it remains vested in the State but is leased back to the charter operator. The charter operator does not actually take ownership of any property unless they themselves build it with funding that they get from operating the school later on.

Second of all, Deborah Russell asked about the ability to make rules over the property, and she quoted, I think, new section 212P. She is right to point out that it says the sponsor has discretion in operating the school, but in the subsequent three sections that she did not refer to, it says that in making any rule, it has to make what’s termed in the bill a “bylaw” and, in making that by-law, must consult the staff, the students to the extent appropriate, and also the school community. Those concerns that Deborah Russell raises, I think, are valid, but there are parts of the legislation that address it. We have thought of these issues. I think the caricature that she gives of charter schools overseas is not only a little unfair on those schools overseas but also not really relevant to the policy we’re putting in place here in New Zealand.

Then we come to Lawrence Xu-Nan, the MVP of the session so far, who raises quite a number of issues. For example, he talks about the need to keep attendance records. Charter schools will be contracted for levels of attendance. In fact, we released some of these details publicly today. It’s not in legislation that they have to keep attendance records, but they will be contracted for attendance performance, and the reason for doing that is simply around flexibility. It’s not that that’s not our policy, but it’s not in the legislation.

As the member has pointed out, he’s also made the argument that the charter schools should be able to appoint attendance officers, but they shouldn’t have the powers to actually make kids go back to school as attendance officers appointed by State schools do. I don’t really think that’s fair. It seems to come from a presumption that charter schools are somehow less accountable or worse than State schools. I don’t think there’s a reason to think that. They certainly should have the full powers to appoint attendance officers and get the kids to go back to school if they’re not attending—one of the most important reasons for doing this.

He then talks about defining the school community. All I would say is that that is something that I’m sure will become clear over time, but to start ruling people in or out of being part of a school community, I think, if you look at the way schools operate around New Zealand, is really quite unfair and inevitably will lead to people being excluded that should be included and vice versa.

There was Amendment Paper 114, which I’ll just come back to. I hope I’m getting all of the—oh, that was the school community one. There’s also Amendment Paper 120, which he spoke of, which I’ll try and come back to if I can. Oh, that’s the one I’ve actually addressed, sorry, in relation to attendance records. There was also, I think—no, I think I—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Amendment Papers 115 and 112.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Sorry, 115 and 112?

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Yeah.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: OK, I’ll try and get back to those for you. There was 112—that was the one about whether should we turn the word “sponsor” to “sponsor of a charter school”. I think it’s pretty clear from the definition section of the bill what “sponsor” means. I don’t think we need longhand throughout the bill. I think that would just be untidy drafting. It was also said that we should have the word “State school network and charter school network”, but that belies the policy intent, which is that charter schools actually are part of the State network. State schools can convert and take on the obligations to accept people’s enrolment from that area and so on. This is a good example of what I’ve been saying. This stage of the debate is all about whether the wording meets the policy intent, and Lawrence Xu-Nan has given an example where I think indeed it does.

There were some earlier comments about teachers, which I’m not going to get into the policy—[Time expired]

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Would you like to continue, Minister?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, please, Mr Chair. I won’t get into the policy debate, but I’d just make the point that, like any profession, there are teachers that are very good; there are teachers that are not so good. The question is not: do we want the best teachers? The question is: is registration with the teacher council always the best way to identify the ones who are very good? Sometimes, but not always.

Maybe, as an example, some educators I was speaking with recently were saying, “Look, one of our main kaupapa”—given it’s te Wiki o te Reo Māori—“is language revitalisation. One of our biggest challenges is that, because our mission is to have more te reo speakers, we start with a limited number of them, and we need to spread te reo as rapidly as possible.” They were actually interested in how they can get more competent reo speakers in front of the children. They say, “Look, if we have to go through more hoops that we have to jump through with teacher registration, that actually makes our task harder than it would otherwise be.”

Now, some people might say, “Don’t care. You’ve got to be registered.” OK, you can have that position, but are you prepared to take the cost for that? Sometimes these things aren’t always as black and white as people like to lay out, but charter schools, as the policy intention is and as is set out in this legislation, are going to have greater flexibility to get the best person in front of the child, as judged by the sponsor under this legislation, which says they must have the skills and qualifications to do the best for the children.

All right, members, we’re reaching that stage of the debate where a lot of the broader issues have been discussed. What we are looking for—and it’s up to the members—are quick-fire questions of the Minister. It takes all parties to do that, but if that’s the way they’re operating, I’ll give them continual calls if we’re doing it that way.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just following on, I’ve got a couple of areas that I just want to ask some questions around. The first one is just following on from the Minister’s answer there around the registration.

My understanding from this bill is that the intent is that they do have to have a limited authority to teach, which means that the teacher does have to go through the registration board, but you talked about, Minister, an example of a school where they’re saying that that’s a barrier that’s being put in front of them. Is that the intent here, as I said to begin with, with that clause that I want to see replaced that has the practising certificate? Is the intent not to have the practising certificate, not to go through the Teaching Council of Aotearoa? That changes the whole landscape if that’s the case from that example that you have just given, so I’d like some clarification on that, please, Minister.

Aside from that, I want to move to new section 212ZF(1)(a) that would come in after new section 212F, inserted by clause 40. This is, I believe, one of the most egregious parts of this bill: that there is no mechanism for a State school who decides to become a charter school to convert back to a State school if they find that that’s not working for them. I find that quite egregious, because we talk the whole way through about choice, but this is limiting choice by not doing that. Minister, I want to know whether that’s an oversight or whether that was your intent that, once they become a charter school, there is no pathway back to become a State school again. I have put up an amendment there to add a new section there that the school community or mana whenua can, at any time, initiate with the Authorisation Board a community intervention to begin the process of reconverting a charter school back into a State school. I believe that that offers the ability for choice, for the school to continue to have that choice that if they do become a charter school and it isn’t working for them, that they have that ability to come back into the State system again. I just want to know whether that was your intent to hold them at that and take that choice away from them or whether that was an oversight.

Two questions there—the first one being about the registration, the second one being around this ability to be able to reconvert to a State school.

As I addressed earlier, all teachers must have a practising certificate. In the case of a charter school, they must at least have a limited authority to teach, and in this case that requires them to be completely vetted for student safety but not visited for competence by the Teaching Council of Aotearoa, because their competence might be judged in other ways. As I mentioned, being able to teach te reo Māori might be something that some people thought was a priority to get those people in front of the children as quickly as possible, to aid in their kaupapa of language revitalisation.

In relation to what would happen if a charter school decided it no longer wanted to operate, that will be a contractual matter, but I would envisage under this legislation that the contract would allow the charter school to cease. At that point, the State would have the option of re-establishing a State school should it want to, but just like anywhere else in New Zealand, if you want to have a State school established, then you need to go through the process. One of the reasons that we’re doing this is there are many communities who would like to take control of their destiny and their children’s destiny and establish a school, but they find that it’s almost impossible to do so, hence we’re introducing charter schools.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s good to be able to make a contribution on Part 1. I want to touch on section 120. This is in new Part 6, which is inserted into Schedule 1, which I understand is the part we are debating, and I understand that it hasn’t been traversed fully yet by the committee. I have an amendment in relation to this, which is to ensure that when employment information is provided to a sponsor, this is done in a way which is consistent with the Privacy Act. I think a big concern with this bill is the fact that this particular provision in relation to the transfer of information to a sponsor came about, by my recollection, after the public submissions were held. The Minister is welcome to correct me on that, but it wasn’t traversed in public submissions. It is something that was suggested late in the day and we have concerns about this.

The reason we have concerns about this particular provision is because, essentially, what this does is provide all the information that an employer holds on an employee. For example, if you think of the jobs you’ve had in the past and all the information you had to give to your employer—for example, medical records, information about your family, when you’ve been sick, disciplinary matters, matters in relation to other personal information that might come about in your employment—is usually all held on file by an employer. In this particular provision, obviously there would be an argument to say that on the conversion date of a State school or current school that is not a charter school into a charter school, the person who becomes the employer, as the sponsor, would have a decent argument to say, “I should have that information because that person’s employment has transferred to me.”

That is obviously not necessarily something that I would disagree with. The thing that is objectionable, I think, under this particular legislation is the time period in which that this particular information is transferred to the new charter school. It’s not on the conversion date. It is either the conversion date or three months before the conversion date. Three months before the conversion date is basically giving information that could be highly personal to someone who is a third party to your employment relationship and allowing them to have that information. Three months prior to the conversion of a school might be the exact period of time where someone who’s employed by an existing State school that converts to a charter school may be considering, “Do I want to keep working here?” Obviously, if you listen to the Minister, a charter school is innately different from the model that they will be working under. They are having to consider whether they will maintain their employment, whether they go to another school, or whether they try to find a job. They might not want their personal information to be held by third party.

I think there’s a justification for it, as I said, on the conversion date, and that’s why the amendment I have put forward is to either transfer that information on the conversion date or require written permission from that particular person to allow that new employer and sponsor at the charter school to have that information. I don’t see any downside with this, because if you’re unsure, if you think, “Possibly I might decide that I want to stay at the charter school but I might also be looking for another job.”, you might say, “OK, I’ll let them have my employment file because the high probability is that I’ll stay in this job and maybe I’ll leave later on. I’ll see how it goes.” That, I think, would be a situation that might arise.

The problem we have here is that that isn’t what’s included in the bill. We’ve had various concerns raised around privacy in the bill and also transparency in relation to the Official Information Act (OIA), and I do know that there are concerns that members will want to address. I think the OIA part might be in Part 2, but there are significant concerns that the Ombudsman raised around transparency. This is a privacy consideration. I don’t think there has been time to consult with the Privacy Commissioner. I would be interested to know if the Minister has sought advice from the Privacy Commissioner on this point. I’d be interested to know if this was prima facie a breach of the Privacy Act, because, essentially, if you look at the amended—[Time expired]

I appreciate the member engaging on this. I think what’s important here is that this is employment-related information. If we’re committed to ensuring that the terms of employment are no less favourable, as I’m sure people are very interested in seeing happen, then you need to have employment-related information, and that means things like payroll and terms and conditions of their employment. The idea that this is going to be medical health records is misleading. That’s not what we’re suggesting. What we are suggesting is that employment information should be. If you don’t use this exclusion, then you are subject to the Privacy Act, so it’s a narrow exemption from the Privacy Act for employment-related data that is useful for getting a person’s terms and conditions right. I can understand the concern, but I think the member has exaggerated the risk here.

I thank the Minister for his answers on that particular question. I would like to ask the Minister, then, whether he would be willing to support an amendment to specifically exclude medical and disciplinary information from the definition of employment information under the Act, for the purpose of making sure that the Act actually—the bill when it becomes an Act—does what he says it will do and just provides information on payroll and just provides information that the new sponsor would need to have. Anyone who’s worked at a school—and we do have present in the Chamber members who have done that—knows that employment information regularly includes the employee’s personnel file, and that does include that information. If it is so narrow, as the Minister suggests it is, will he accept an amendment to the Act to make sure that that information isn’t passed on?

The short answer is no, because it’s employment-related information that is relevant to employment. The person might actually later be aggrieved that there are conditions of their employment that the new employer was not aware of because of the restriction the member proposes. I can understand what she’s trying to get at, but I suspect that if they’re trying to have a bespoke definition of employment information in this legislation, it’s liable to cause more harm than good.

Thank you again to the Minister for his answer. I can’t reconcile the two answers the Minister has just given. The first one appeared to be that it wouldn’t include medical information and would just include payroll information that the employer would need in order to know who they’re employing and what they’re paying them, which I don’t think anyone’s objecting to. Then, when I suggested my amendment, the Minister said he wouldn’t like a bespoke definition of employment information in this bill. Would he accept a different definition of the information—perhaps the information to be transferred, or relevant employment information, therefore making sure that it was specific to the Act and only included the information that was available? I’m sorry, but I cannot reconcile his first answer, which was that medical information would not be relevant and his second answer, which was that it may be relevant and we don’t want to make sure it’s excluded.

I think we can close that off with few words that the member herself just said—only the information that’s available, from whom to whom, for what purpose. She’s trying to create a definition that unfortunately is going to create more difficulty than harm. At the moment, it is information that is relevant to a person’s employment, and that means information that will be useful for ensuring that the terms and conditions of the new employment are suitable for the person and no less favourable than the employment conditions that they had previously. It’s a justifiable purpose of this bill and of charter schools in general, and that’s why we think that, actually, as it reads, it reads well and should remain as it is.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just first of all picking up from what Camilla Belich mentioned. This is something that was discussed in the Education and Workforce Committee, and we brought it, and we’re in full support of Camilla Belich’s amendment because we weren’t entirely clear—and, in fact, it raises additional concerns during the select committee stage when we were hearing about this particular issue. I would be happy to have other members to explore this particular issue further.

I want to first pick up on a couple of things that the Minister has mentioned before. One of them is around the teaching of te reo Māori and limited authority to teach (LAT). Now, one of the things in the principal Act under Schedule 3, section 16(1) is around the fact that the first thing for you to determine whether an LAT is needed is to see if there’s a skill that’s in short supply; in which case te reo teaching is. However, what we’re seeing in terms of the LATs that the Minister has proposed here is a blanket charter schools can employ LATs permanently, and that particular section of having to check that they’re in short supply first has been removed from that particular level of consideration.

I guess the question for the Minister is: if we were having a scenario where a charter school has multiple applicants and then one of them is a qualified teacher and one of them is an LAT, and then the charter school needs to determine—because, understandably, potentially, LATs, compared to qualified teachers, may require less remuneration—does that mean that there’s no obligation for charter schools to prioritise and advertise for qualified teachers first before opening to LATs? I don’t really mind—the Minister may have an idea. Happy to hear what the Minister has to say.

The other thing the Minister mentioned was in terms of part of the contract and attendance being one of them, but then what we are seeing under the contract section of new subpart 40—and this is particularly around new subpart 6A, new section 212L—is there is actually no specific aspect that has been mentioned around attendance. If the Minister wouldn’t mind just clarifying: would that then be a guarantee that the attendance requirement will form part of that charter school contract?

Just in terms of what others have mentioned previously, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to one of the amendments that the Hon Jan Tinetti has mentioned in terms of reversion. Now, we have heard from the Minister previously in terms of the fact that we don’t want to make sure that charter schools don’t give it a try before wanting to convert back. Understandable, but I also think that is unfair for those schools who are thinking about converting to not have the mechanism to convert back because there is a concern or fear that if there is a mechanism for back-track that then they’re not going to do a good job of it or giving a good go of that.

I think, as the Minister himself has mentioned, people who want to apply, who want to convert, are really keen on that. They’re going to try their best to do a good job. The Minister mentioned there’s going to be higher accountability, which is great. In that case, why not have a mechanism that just rounds it off? It’s not saying that we are going to be looking at people wanting to convert back immediately. We’re just saying there should be a mechanism in place, because the only mechanism in place right now is that the school then will have to close and then reregister as a new school. Again, having gone through a reregistration process, it is not something that happens very quickly as well.

In addition to the amendment by the Hon Jan Tinetti, I would also ask the Minister to consider my Amendment Paper—that’s Amendment Paper 103—around creating a new section that’s 212ZFA; a new section that puts out some of the processes around conversion that is comparable to the establishment of a charter school or a converting school going into a charter school. I would invite the Minister to consider that. I think I don’t have enough time to mention my next Amendment Paper.

Just in relation to the closure of schools, I addressed that. There’s nothing that I haven’t previously addressed there.

In relation to limited authority to teach, I think the whole tenet of charter schools as agreed at second reading is that charter schools have maximum flexibility in how they operate, in return for hitting high targets. If you look to section 212L(5)(c) in clause 40, that will tell you that there are performance targets and outcomes that the sponsor must meet in relation to the operation of the school. Those targets, of course, will include attendance, I can assure you. Is that in the legislation? No, it’s not. Why? Because we want to have flexibility around what targets are set as the schools are contracted.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to raise another point which I don’t think has been raised, which is around a situation where there’s a conversion of a charter school—I think it’s new section 212T, inserted by clause 40.

When there’s a single school in an area—for example, in the area that I live in, there’s one high school that is zoned for that area—some situations will occur when that particular school becomes a charter school. This is something that we discussed at the Education and Workforce Committee; my colleague Jan Tinetti has an amendment on this. The concern that we have—and I wonder if the Associate Minister of Education will answer whether he will consider this amendment—is if the State school was the only local school in the area and the parents in that area do not want to send their child to a charter school. I mean, even the Minister can imagine that situation where, for whatever reason, the parents in that local area are not keen on the new charter school—maybe they know when Labour gets in it’s going to be changed again. For whatever reason, they might decide that they don’t want to enrol their child there.

The amendment is that, in that situation—do the children, and should the children, get preferential treatment to another school? There is actually something that the Ministry of Education, I understand, can do in this situation, and that’s direct enrolment to another school. I think that this is a very reasonable suggestion. It came up in select committee; it’s something that people were concerned about. If you’re only zoned for one school and it becomes a charter school—and this will be relevant in Auckland where there are a lot of school zones; it will also be relevant in smaller communities in rural New Zealand where there’s only one school—why must you be forced to attend a charter school if that’s not what you as a student, or perhaps your parents, want? In that situation, why can’t you receive a special directional enrolment from the Ministry of Education?

If it is truly about choice, as the Minister has said the justification for charter schools is, then why not allow those people a choice to attend a different school that might be more suitable to their particular needs?

I think if the member Camilla Belich truly believed that, her party wouldn’t have introduced zoning in 1999 and kept it for 15 years—they’ve been in power since. The truth is many people are zoned into a school that they don’t wish to attend. Many people travel a long way in order to go and get a better school. A lot of people pay for after-school tuition. A lot of people pay private school fees. A lot of people actually buy their house in a location designed on getting into a school. That is the system that that member’s party has left us with. What we’re proposing is that a community that’s not happy with its school has the opportunity to convert it to a charter and do it differently. If that happened, it’s because the Authorisation Board has judged that, actually, they view charter school conversion as an improvement. I have great hopes that in good time, even that member will grow to love the concept.

Thank you, Mr Chair. We’ve still got quite a number of very important areas that have come up with this bill that we really want to investigate. One of them is—and I’m not going to do this; my colleague Phil Twyford will do this—around the use of the Official Information Act, and that is something that has been of big concern. The area that I want to look at now is also another, I said before, egregious area, and I think this is one of them as well that I’ve heard a lot of concern about. I actually believe that many members of this this House will have heard the same concern, because I’ve had lots of colleagues that have come to me to say this, and that’s around new section 212G in clause 40: the Minister may direct the board to apply to convert a State school to charter school. There’s a lot of fear out there around that.

We heard in select committee “Oh, it’s only to direct to the Authorisation Board to put an application in.” That still seems completely wrong when you’re talking about whether the community wants that to happen or not, that the Minister has this all-enduring power. I do have an amendment here, but I do have a couple of questions as well, Minister. My amendment is around actually replacing this and deleting new section 212G, but replacing part of new section 212F to make sure that there’s an alignment. I really want to get from you a sense of why that has been inserted in the first place. When you have talked about community choice and community not being happy with how the school is running, why have you, Minister, put in this bill that you have the ability as Minister to be able to direct the board—or the Minister of Education has the ability to be able to direct the board—to apply to convert the State school to a charter school? That does not fit with everything else that has been said around why this bill is so necessary.

To me, and to a lot of people out in the community who have been expressing their concerns, they believe that this part is a really big overreach, that it is taking away their community choice, and it’s taking away their desire to have their local school. So, Minister, again, I really want to know why you have put this in there and how it is not an overreach of a community’s wishes for their local school.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to go back to the question I raised earlier with the Minister. It was succeeded by quite an important exchange between the Minister and my colleague Camilla Belich, which I didn’t want to interrupt.

The Minister gave me an answer around the assets raised by a community, but I don’t think the answer is adequate and I’m going to say why. Going back again to clause 40, inserting new sections 212P and 212QA—it’s assets that have been fund-raised for by the community, are held by the school, and then are leased as part of a charter school to a sponsor, and the sponsor has the power to control the management of the school. I’m worried that that would enable sponsors to lock the community out of the assets that they fund-raise for. The Minister pointed me to new section 212P(4). In order to lock the community out, I think, the sponsors would need to make a by-law to do so, but before they could do that, they would have to consult its staff, the students, just to the extent that the sponsor considers appropriate, and the school community regarding the proposed by-law. That consultation is great, but it is not a guarantee that the community would continue to have access to its assets.

Is the Minister prepared to guarantee that where a community has raised money, has worked to build, has created assets for a school themselves, those assets will not be locked away from them by the sponsor of a charter school? Not just consultation about it, but a guarantee. Laingholm school wants a guarantee that the assets that the community worked so hard to build will continue to be there for the community to use after school hours, in the weekends, during the school holidays. The way this legislation is written, the sponsor can do all the consultation they like and then say, “Sucks to be you, Laingholm.”, and shut the community out. Will the Minister guarantee that that will not happen to this important school in my area?

It’s not just Laingholm school; Fruitvale School has an excellent bike path. The community fund-raised to build that, and that school wants to retain control over its bike path so that it can enable kids to get in there and use it at the weekend. Those schools, those two schools and another one down the road at Woodlands Park School, they’ve all got swimming pools, swimming pools that at the moment the school board and the principal make available to the community. That’s really important in West Auckland. There is only one public swimming pool in West Auckland—only one public swimming pool that people can access easily—so in terms of kids getting access to a swimming pool during the summer break, it depends on the principals and the boards of those schools making their swimming pools available. Will the Minister guarantee that, should those schools be converted to charter schools, those assets will continue to be available to the community?

At the moment the sponsors have free rein over it, and the Minister has said the sponsors must consult, but how good will that consultation be? We need more than just an instruction to consult. We actually need a guarantee that the families and the children in my area can continue to access the community assets that they’ve had access to for years and years and years. Schools are an important part of community institutions, and the Minister needs to respect that. I want a guarantee, Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The Chair’s just informed me that he wishes to report progress. I asked if I could reply in 30 seconds, and he said that it’d be interesting to see if I could. Let me try.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Fifteen gone.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Ha, ha! It’s very simple. If somebody made a proposition for Laingholm school to convert to charter status and they said “We’re going to lock everybody out. We won’t guarantee any rights. We’re going to confiscate community assets. We won’t let them use their fields or their pool.”, and nobody in Laingholm said to the Authorisation Board “I think that’s a bit of a problem.”, that would be the most extraordinary set of events. Here’s what would actually happen. If they wanted to persuade the community to actually convert to being a charter school, they would have to guarantee the community that the community would get the things it values, which it sounds like is access to the fields, the facilities, the things they’ve fund-raised for, including the pools. Let’s just apply a little bit of common sense rather than hysterical, overdramatised performances and talk about how the world actually works.

Debate interrupted.

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 Education and Training Amendment Bill is set down for further consideration in committee next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

The House adjourned at 12.57 p.m. (Thursday)