Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)

Members, the committee is resumed on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). When we rose for the dinner break, we had just finished voting on Part 1. We now come to Part 2, which is the debate on clauses 29A to 30, “Amendments to other legislation”, and Schedule 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to raise the fact that this is the earliest time we were able to raise a point of order after voting. When we were voting on the bill, before we were seeking to the Chair that there are still substantial sections in Part 1 that weren’t covered, we had both the responsible Ministers diligently sitting in their chairs waiting for their chance to speak on their part on attendance, universities—also noting for the Chair that the Minister dropped a significant amendment yesterday, on the Teaching Council, that we haven’t had the chance to address, as well. This obviously has significant public interest and the public was not consulted. I want to seek your advice as the Chair on when it’s been voted, whether we can still have the opportunity in this section to seek some clarifications and questions for the Minister regarding the relevant parts.

Yes, so it’s not the Chair’s role to direct the questioning. Members have the ability to direct questions to the relevant Ministers in the room. However, if you are able to address your concerns or your questions in Part 2 or the “Title” and “Commencement” stages, then that’s fine as well.

Speaking to the point of order, Madam Chair. An example of that is we had agreed to discuss the freedom of expression component relating to universities in New Zealand in this legislation. It does sit in Part 1. We had an understanding from the Chair and from the Minister to be able to speak to Minister Reti as the responsible Minister in that part. We weren’t given a signal by the Chair at the time to be able to shift into that debate. It is quite a large component on that, and I’m just seeking your guidance and would appreciate consideration to be able to discuss that as part of “Title”.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order.

Just a minute. As I’ve explained to Lawrence Xu-Nan, it’s not the Chair’s role to direct how members wish to question the Minister or the other Ministers who are in the room. So after two hours—I think—if there hadn’t been a question based on those topics, then I think the opportunity is lost. But as I have said, if you can broaden your questions into Part 2 and “Title” and “Commencement”, that is another opportunity where it could be addressed.

Speaking to the point of order, if I may. Madam Chair, I just note that the Chair before the dinner break chose to accept a closure motion in full knowledge of where members had directed their questions, so now to dispute that Chair’s ruling is actually disorderly in itself.

My rationale is to be helpful to members.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): So you are seeking the call now? I call Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to draw the Minister of Education’s attention specifically to some of the questions I have around clause 29A, “Principal regulations”.

When we’re looking at Part 2, the main element of this part is to amend the Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations, and also in terms of what we see in Schedule 2, as well, which is also part of Part 2. One of the key aspects of the school planning and reporting regulations, and one of the things we see here in terms of the preparation of the first and subsequent strategic plan—a key component of that is, actually, when we’re looking at its association and the reason it’s also been delayed, as well, in relevance to the attendance management plan. I actually do want to ask the Minister some questions on the school planning and reporting plan, and how it’s going to relate to the attendance management plan.

Now, on the attendance management plan, I know that we have voted on some of the earlier clauses, so I won’t dwell on my amendment or even the vote, but I do want to check with the Minister that both in terms of something like the attendance management plan but also school planning and reporting regulations, whether there is going to be a broader scope of—I guess a scope that broadens to some of the social impact that’s related to how a school can plan and report on things like truancy and on things like school attendance. The reason I ask this question to the Minister is because we have seen significant investment this year in truancy, which is an important element of any school’s planning and reporting, but, more importantly, as I’m travelling around the country and talking to different schools, I realise that a school’s ability to plan and report is a lot more complex than simply just to say that students need to attend school.

I guess, through this particular part, has the Minister, then, considered, as a requirement for the schools’ planning and reporting, and in conjunction with an attendance management plan, how a school is meant to be given additional resources? They have already identified issues, but giving additional resources that genuinely address things around school attendance, such as the fact that we have one of the highest rates in the OECD—I know the Minister likes OECD data—for school bullying. We’re seeing in the latest report by Asian Family Services, 46.3 percent of parents report that their child has been bullied at school. We know that bullying is a major driver of truancy. We also hear from communities, and particularly rural communities, that the cancellation of school bus routes has been a significant factor when it comes to school attendance and issues with school attendance and students being able to attend.

Tying into clause 29A, I want to ask the Minister: while a school is looking at planning and reporting and attendance, how are they going to address some of these broader societal issues or broader issues that are within the realm of a departmental expenditure by the ministry, as opposed to a school’s own ability to make certain changes?

Part 2, the consequential amendment, is very narrow. It is around extending the date—1 January 2026 to 1 January 2027—for school boards to prepare and deliver their strategic plan. I’ll answer questions around that.

While I appreciate what the Minister of Education’s saying in terms of the dates, the Minister will certainly be aware that anything you put on the table—we can actually ask that. Considering that we are looking at amendments—and we have seen multiple instances, including the fact that, under clause 3, we’re able to discuss maybe more broadly some of the purpose and principles around the Education and Training Act 2020—it is not beyond the scope of a committee stage for us to also ask questions around the Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations in general.

My question, again, to the Minister is: while we’re looking at the regulations in the context of education, school planning and reporting, what is the Minister’s idea of how a school is able to plan and report with the kind of changes that we are seeing currently—which then involves attendance, which then does involve things like curriculum, which does involve things like changes to the way that teachers are able to have the kind of autonomy to be able to fully participate and have the kind of autonomy to do the work, and schools have the autonomy to do the work that they do.

Again, drawing on the Minister’s own release on the amendment that is being dropped in this amendment bill around the Teaching Council, but just drawing on the example that the Minister has used evidence from Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), the OECD report 2024, as a rationale for some of these. We are also seeing, within that same TALIS report 2024, that it talks about the fact that schools and teachers are really struggling with the lack of decision-making authority that they have. Again, when we are looking at school planning and reporting, I ask the Minister: how is she going to ensure that schools are able to plan and report when all of these changes are happening?

Now, the reason I also mention that is I want to draw attention to the Minister and ask the Minister to consider my amendment for clause 29B in terms of the date, because the Minister—you’re right, it does already replace the date from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2027. But in my amendment, I make the argument that with the kind of changes that we’re seeing—and particularly with some of the changes that we’re seeing in, let’s say, NCEA, which isn’t coming into effect until much later—a prudent way of asking schools to be able to have that ability to prepare for the first and subsequent strategic plans, which is 29B, is to delay it by a further year. I do ask, in combination with the questions I asked before, that the Minister consider my amendment that moves the date from 1 January 2027 to 1 January 2028.

Almost everything that the member mentioned is completely out of scope, and I’m not going to address it, for that reason. In answer to his second part, which is in scope—his amendment to change the time—I would note that this change from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2027 was something that the Education and Workforce Committee themselves had put forward and was accepted by the select committee. We agree with it and we’re not going to change it any further.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If I can just help the Minister of Education and take her to clause 30—we’re in Part 2, clause 30. Clause 30 is talking about consequential amendments to secondary legislation, and in there it is amending secondary legislation as specified in Schedule 2, as set out in that schedule. If we then go to Schedule 2, it’s consequential amendments to secondary legislation. In there, in particular, I want to talk about the Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations 2023. This is in scope, for the Minister’s benefit.

My questions are around the change with “replace regulation 7(1)(f) with the following”, which is (f)—that’s the board strategies for giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, “including strategies for: (i) achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students; (ii) working to ensure its plans, policies, and”—and then the word’s crossed out, “local curriculum”, and it’s replaced with “teaching and learning programmes reflect local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori; and (iii) taking all reasonable steps to make instruction available in tikanga Māori and te reo Māori”.

My questions for the Minister are around these consequential amendments that are being made to the Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations, and in particular to talk about the removal of the term “local curriculum” and the replacing it with “teaching and learning programmes”. This is a significant change, because teaching and learning programmes are the how of the curriculum, not the what of the curriculum. I think this is a significant change. It’s important that the public listening tonight are aware that this Government is wanting to remove from boards that responsibility around local curriculum.

Why would they want to do that? What else have we seen recently with the release of the refreshed/rewritten curriculum: the minimising of local Aotearoa histories in our school. Local curriculum is a broader concept that refers to the entirety of what a school does, inclusive of teaching and learning programmes, enabling school boards to match learners’ needs within the community and to the national curriculum. Reference to the local curriculum empowers teachers to implement the national curriculum in the context that is specific and relevant to the children in their school, and this promotes educational achievement.

The process of developing local curriculum is one of the main ways that schools and kura have to build relationships and connections with whānau, with parents, with hapū, with iwi, with mana whenua, and with communities.

When the Minister spoke earlier about the board having no obligations now to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, she talked about the Crown’s duty in terms of Article 3 of the Treaty, but she didn’t talk about any of the Crown’s responsibilities in terms of Article 1 and Article 2. In Article 1, we have partnership; in Article 2, we have rangatiratanga. I want to know how the Minister, in this clause 30, in Part 2, where we are now amending the secondary legislation based on what was voted on earlier, where we have the removing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as well as the replacing of local curriculum—can the Minister please explain to us why she thinks that is appropriate, how this is not minimising that Treaty relationship, that importance of local curriculum, and the national curriculum in its local context? Can the Minister, please—because I believe it is in scope—address those?

To be helpful to that member, that particular part in Schedule 2 that she is talking about has been replaced, so all of the things she was talking about have been replaced by Schedule 2 in my Amendment Paper that we already voted on. In terms of Schedule 2, the only parts we are now debating are the first parts: the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 and the Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations 2023. But where it says “Replace regulation 7(1)(f) with:”, that was replaced with Schedule 2 in the Amendment Paper. We’ve already voted on it, so that is out of scope.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Not quite yet. The Hon Willow-Jean Prime—but I do just want to alert members that we’ve had only three speeches to the Minister of Education, but we want to keep it very tight on this Part 2, and especially the schedules. Thank you.

That’s right, Madam Chair, and I did keep it very tight to clause 30, and I was asking about those consequential amendments to secondary legislation, which the Minister is trying to tell me is out of scope. I am seeking your guidance, Madam Chair: is the Minister correct that that is out of scope? Because I asked a serious—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Did I say that was out of scope?

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: No, you didn’t, did you? Oh, so the Minister—[Inaudible]. Thank you. Well, then—

Hon Erica Stanford: Point of order. I’m sorry, the member just said that the Minister lied—

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: No, I didn’t. I said you were wrong.

Hon Erica Stanford: I heard you say that the Minister lied, and that is not appropriate for this House.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: No, I said she was wrong.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I’m sorry, I didn’t hear it. If that’s the case, I was obviously distracted.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Review it.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: No, review it. I don’t believe I said she lied. What I said was, I think she is wrong to say that this is out of scope, and I was seeking your direction, and you said you didn’t say that, she did—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): We can check. It’ll just take a few minutes to get it. [Consults with Clerk] Yeah, we can’t check it immediately, so we’ll have to come back to it. Willow-Jean Prime.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Thank you, Madam Chair. Given that you did not say that these are out of scope, I would like the Minister of Education to answer my questions that I asked in terms of the consequential amendments to Schedule 2, which is the “Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations 2023” and, in particular, my questions around the “local curriculum”. What does that actually mean in terms of these regulations? Can you please explain all of that in terms of “local curriculum” and the points that I made, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and—I’ll add a couple to that, Madam Chair: did you consult with those schools—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I didn’t.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: The Minister—and those boards, and the whānau, hapū, iwi, mana whenua—your Treaty partners—on these changes that you’re making to these regulations?

Once again, for the member, the bit that she is talking about is being replaced. She keeps mentioning the words “local curriculum”; I just draw to her attention that that part in Schedule 2 has been replaced by my Amendment Paper 428, so she should look at the Amendment Paper for the correct part. This is just a consequential amendment. We’ve already covered this in Part 1. All this does is take that and put it into the regulations as a consequential amendment. That’s important to democracy, to make sure that our regulations and our legislation are the same.

Now, the member asked many, many, many questions and took the entire two hours to talk about this part. We’ve covered it at length and this is a consequential amendment, but I would like to draw her attention to the correct one that she should read from, which is in the Amendment Paper, which we have already voted on. It is no longer in scope.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think one of the things that we were querying earlier was the fact that the Minister of Education mentioned that we have already voted on that. I think in terms of the voting part, this part on Schedule 2 will not be voted on until we conclude Schedule 2. Within the Schedule 2 from Amendment Paper 428 that the Minister is talking about, I do want to acknowledge the Minister for saying that it substantially changes what we’re seeing in Schedule 2 of the amendment bill.

But it then also means that we should again examine this new Schedule 2 as a completely new thing that has not had the scrutiny of the Education and Workforce Committee. I think it is important for us to spend a little bit of time just to unpack the difference between why there has been such significant change between what is in the original Schedule 2 and what is in the amendment that the Minister released yesterday.

Now, in terms of replacement regulation 7(1)(f)(i), “seeking to achieve”, that stays the same. We already covered the part about giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I understand that discussion has now drawn to a close. But I do want to check—and this is where my colleague the Hon Willow-Jean Prime is correct—when we say that what used to be in Schedule 2, in the select committee we changed “local curriculum” to “teaching and learning programmes”. In replacement regulation 7(1)(f)(ii) of the Minister’s amendment, that has changed completely.

More importantly, the references to local tikanga Māori and mātauranga Māori are now gone. That is significant in light of the fact that we are also removing the part on giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. So my first question to the Minister is: does Minister think that Te Tiriti o Waitangi or anything around that is only limited to te reo Māori? What was the Minister’s rationale, then, to remove local tikanga Māori and mātauranga Māori from this particular section?

I’m going to leave that as this first question because I think this is quite a significant change from what is in the bill. Again, we are only able to debate on this for the first time today, without any public consultation.

I’m just going to repeat: this particular part of the bill was debated at length in earlier debates. The amendment has been voted on. What we are debating now are the consequential amendments to secondary legislation. We are not re-debating the issues that have been raised.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Just a minute.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Point of order. But Schedule 2 is within scope of Part 2, though, because it is under clause 30, which is Part 2.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I think the member is starting to challenge my ruling. I just want to be clear, the amendments are to secondary legislation. It is not an opportunity to re-debate things that have already been voted on earlier today.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment to Part 2 set out on Amendment Paper 422 be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Schedule 1 set out on Amendment Paper 364 be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment to Schedule 1 set out on Amendment Paper 424 be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Papers 364 and 428 be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendments to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 403 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 415 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.