Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2)

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to start my contribution by just making a few high-level comments and observations. My view is that this bill is Government overreach because it will enable ministerial micro-management and the undermining of the teaching profession.

The bill is unnecessary and several of the amendments are already in practice. The bill removes some of the key parts of the Act that aim to promote and protect the rights of children and young people, such as those in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELPs), and school strategic plans will no longer be required to be holistic approaches to educating children and young people from complex and diverse backgrounds.

The bill deprioritises Te Tiriti o Waitangi and removes local curriculum—removing local curriculum is a concern. Schools won’t see the immediate impact, but there is nothing good in this bill: the Teaching Council should be independent—National introduced the professional body—and it should not be politicised through ministerial overreach; attendance management plans are already there; and the National Education and Learning Priorities were collectively developed by schools and removing them will narrow the curriculum.

Those are some of my initial observations and thoughts about this bill. I want to spend some time, though, on noting for the House the fact that due to the rushed time frames for this bill, the regulatory impact statement (RIS) notes that they have not been able to undertake consultation on many of the proposals that are contained in this bill. Is anybody in the House surprised to hear that they have rushed the time frames and have not been able to consult with those that will be impacted by this legislation?

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, there is a RIS this time, lucky us!

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: I feel like, yeah, we should probably be happy there’s a RIS that at least states that and is honest about that because that’s not what we experienced last week when pay equity was rushed through in urgency.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Stick to the bill, please.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: It’s all relevant because, of course, the pay equity claims impact the teachers who this bill is about, doesn’t it? The House is well aware of that.

So we have here the regulatory impact statement for refocusing on the Government’s priorities, and it notes here, in the regulatory impact statement, that, really, the Act doesn’t allow for the small set of critical priorities of the Government to dictate what happens throughout the Education and Training Act. So they want to align the school’s statutory objectives with the Government’s priorities and reduce the number of mechanisms the Government uses to set these priorities. In here it notes that resourcing and timing constraints did not allow time to engage fulsomely on these proposals and the options did not consider non-statutory mechanisms for refocusing schools on the Government’s priorities. Really, it’s just giving effect to something that was in the coalition agreement. That’s what this is about. It hasn’t come from feedback that they have had from the sector on it.

Now we have the regulatory impact statement for “Improving accountability and transparency for standard setting and approval functions for initial teacher education”. This is supposed to be independent, but what we have here is the possibility for, and it’s noted here that there’s potential sector opposition because evidence shows “change is most successful when parties buy-in to the … process”, but they were not consulted, and consideration should be given how to “reassure”—but when it is being implemented, so after the fact. The “increased accountability will increase government and ministerial influence”. That should be a concern for everybody.

We do not support this bill, but I do look forward to the submission process and hearing what people have to say. But they should have been consulted.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to oppose this particular bill, and I’ll give the reasons why we are opposing this bill. First of all, we’re looking at changes to section 127 of the Education and Training Act, which is the crux of this bill. Now, one of the things that we hear this Government talk about all the time is the dire situation that we are facing in terms of literacy and numeracy in Aotearoa. Yes, there are definitely issues that need addressing. However, none of the issues are addressed in isolation. You cannot split it out and look at just student achievement only using one particular criteria to look at the student achievement.

What we are seeing is an engineered crisis by this Government when it comes to education, and addressing and skirting around the edges and trying to do anything other than addressing the real issue around the systemic barriers that we have seen in our education system. That was being addressed by section 127 of the Education and Training Act. The reason we have those four priorities is because we realised the issues that are facing our students and our country and our future collectively and holistically. By removing or deprioritising three of them, and by removing the Statement of National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP), it signals to the country that this is a Government that doesn’t actually understand education. It is a Government that has never stood in front of a classroom and understood the needs of our ākonga in general, or just period. This is what we are seeing manifesting through this bill.

Now, if you’re looking at it more closely, during the consultation period, we had a document that says that, overwhelmingly, people did not support the changes to section 127 of the Education and Training Act. We saw 11 organisations—that includes the New Zealand Educational Institute, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, I believe the Teaching Council, and also Te Akatea; some of the most independent and most senior, revered, and well-experienced organisations in Aotearoa—coming out against any changes to section 127.

But what would that change manifest? This is something we would love to hear during the select committee stage. A couple of things: number one, the Minister of Education fundamentally does not understand what statutory interpretation means, and how do you interpret legislation? When you have paramount objectives and we have primary objectives, you need to fulfil the requirement of all of those. But when you push Te Tiriti o Waitangi down as a supporting objective of that paramount objective, it means that the school has the ability to determine and say that, “Complying with and upholding Te Tiriti is not something that we see as achieving that paramount objective. Therefore, we do not need to adhere to that.” That is what a supporting objective does, and that is what’s being proposed in this bill.

We’re seeing the same thing here when it comes to putting down the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBORA) and also the Human Rights Act as a supporting objective, which is incredibly ironic because it challenges and contradicts the other section of this particular bill, around universities—“Yes, we believe in freedom of expression, just not when it comes to schoolkids.” That is what the changes to section 127 are signalling, because what we are seeing here is, under the current legislation, schools cannot, under NZBORA or the Human Rights Act, ask students to not wear certain items of clothing, and particularly taonga. But when we are seeing something like this being introduced, what does that signal to the community and to students on ensuring that they have a sense of belonging in our education system? It doesn’t, and that is a concern.

The Government is putting millions of dollars into truancy without actually addressing the fundamental levers of why our education system has not provided this kind of support to our students and to our future generations.

When it comes to the removal of NELP, which I have mentioned before, the removal of NELP also meant that we are fundamentally going to remove some of the action plans for certain communities that are much needed, including the action plan for Pacific students and Pacific education. Because of that, we will not support this bill, and will look forward to the select committee stage.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). I’m supporting this bill on behalf of ACT because this bill contains many initiatives that the ACT Party campaigned on for some time. It’s really great to see that this bill has come before the House. I know that this bill is going to be referred to the Education and Workforce Committee. As a member of that select committee, I look forward to working on this bill in the select committee process as well.

We know that education plays a very important role in shaping young peoples’ future. What we want to see is that, yes, while students achieve in their academic subjects, we also want to see that they are able to navigate the complexities of the world that we live in. That’s why one of the topics that I want to talk about in this bill is about freedom of expression at universities, because this is something that the Hon David Seymour has been campaigning for, for a very, very long time. So it’s really good to see that what this bill does is this bill imposes a duty on the council of a university to protect and promote academic freedom and freedom of expression. And also it requires that the university council, in their report, include how they have complied with this requirement and also the number and nature of complaints.

This is a very positive step, because what we have seen in so many cases at so many universities is that universities somehow have taken that kind of protective approach towards staff and students and they have been censoring some speakers from coming and speaking at university campuses. This kind of woke censorship needs to be reversed. That is what this bill will do and that is why the ACT Party is really proud to see that this policy is part of this bill.

We know that young people should be able to challenge views that they hear and they should be also prepared to be challenged for their own views. They can be prepared for these things only when they go out and hear what is happening out there and they get the exposure to different kinds of views which sometimes other people think are controversial kinds of views. So we are really looking forward to working on this bill. Of course, along with this, there are some changes to the school boards’ goals that this bill will make which are, again, positive steps, so the ACT Party supports this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This a very good and very much needed bill. It is focusing education on education. We heard across the House there that it’s an engineered crisis. No, it’s not. The system is failing—it’s not delivering numeracy, it’s not delivering literacy, it’s not delivering attendance—and this is all about fixing that.

It makes educational achievement the paramount objective, which is a great thing. It requires school boards to pay a lot of attention to getting kids actually at school. They can’t learn if they’re not there—so monitoring that. It desires to lift teacher training standards, which we know is needed, and it imposes a duty on university councils to make sure that they protect and prioritise academic freedom and the freedom of expression, which is very, very important to this side of the House. I think it’s a great bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Carl Bates: Madam Speaker. I think it’s me, isn’t it?

I’m a bit confused about what’s happening here.

Tākuta Ferris: He aha?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): There is confusion because the Māori Party wasn’t available to take their call when that call stood up, but I understand that the speaker is withdrawing from that call. So if you are seeking the call, Mr Ferris—

Tākuta Ferris: Yep—kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Pīka.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I call Tākuta Ferris.

Kia ora. Tēnā tātou. Ka tū au ki te whakapuaki whakaaro mō tēnei o ngā pire e mea nei ko te Education and Training Amendment Bill.

[Hello. Greetings, everyone. I stand to express some opinions about this particular bill called the Education and Training Amendment Bill.]

I just want to be really clear with the House, with the Minister of Education, and with the Associate Minister of Education that when it comes to Māori education, we do not need any help; we do not need any help from the Minister or any other part because, for decades now, te iwi Māori has championed their own independent education models, and for more than 50 years they have done outstanding work and now consistently produce outcomes that outperform the rest of the system. So, despite the many amendments and adjustments over time, the Māori-delivered, Māori - thought-up; Māori-directed; by Māori, for Māori, to Māori education has consistently done better than the central delivery of education for Māori.

It sort of begs the question: why are we continually fighting the battle to prove that Māori understand education for Māori better than the Government, better than the centre? This is not a thing that’s being debated; the experience over the last 50 years clearly demonstrates that the way forward for successful education for Māori children and adults is through Māoridevised, delivered, monitored, -re-imagined delivery of education.

The bill that’s before us is an unfortunate continuation of a particular type of thinking when it comes to education, inasmuch as the ultimate aim for it is to reorder the bill—particularly the Treaty clause—to give predominance to the idea that culture, identity, language, these types of things aren’t really necessary in educational delivery, when the experience of te iwi Māori is the exact opposite. Also the fact that there is no evidence around that would support the idea that language, culture, and, indeed, the ways of the people are not important in the delivery or in the experience of education by them—be they tamariki, or all the way through to adults—when it is.

In the Ministry of Education’s own publication, entitled He whakaaro | Educational Insights, it clearly states that the connection between language, identity, and culture has a positive impact on NCEA results for ākonga Māori.

Now, this is not a new discovery; it’s not a new idea. The people who have championed Māori education for the last 50 years and produced amazing results have known that for a very long time. So why we’re back reconsidering what the legislation looks like—not to just forget about the other actions that have taken place by the Government—we really have to consider: well, where to from here for te iwi Māori? And this move by the Minister to, effectively, demote Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the legislation is quite simply just a continuation of the attack on all things Māori that the Government has been undertaking for 18 months. Those things include the demotion of te reo Māori to a second-class language in our own whenua, the defunding of Te Ahu o te Reo Māori—one of the most successful professional educational development programmes in education in Aotearoa—the removal of funding for Māori resource teachers, all the way down to here.

Here we are now, considering how to water down or deprioritise the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the legislation. Indeed, with the removal of the Statement of National Education and Learning Priorities, which basically requires that the education system include instilling in each child and young person an appreciation of the importance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and te reo Māori, what else are we to think? What else are we to think and where does it leave us? Well, it leaves us with a Government who are trying to frame their changes as clarifying the role of Te Tiriti, when all it is doing is eroding the mana of Te Tiriti and continuing the identity erasure of the education policies of the 1800s and 1900s. We do not commend the bill.

One of the things that this bill supports is this Government’s focus on attendance targets—something that I know members of the House will be particularly interested in! I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. A Government that is focused on the things that matter in this country isn’t a Government that is focused on the things that are in this bill. Tell me a university or a tertiary institution in this country that says that this is a priority. Tell me where a university or tertiary institution in this country has said that they want the Government meddling in their business, overreaching and making a decision about who can speak at their university? There is none. I have travelled around institutions across the motu, and universities don’t agree with this legislation. They don’t agree with this Government; they don’t agree with the ACT Party. And where is the Minister for Universities speaking on this bill? It’s because he doesn’t agree with it either.

This is an unnecessary Government overreach into our tertiary institutions and universities. Universities are independent institutions that can absolutely manage themselves. They need the ability to make decisions on health and safety—this is what they tell me when I go and visit. When they host speakers, it’s not a decision about freedom of speech; it’s whether they can actually host an event safely for their students, staff, and the public—do they have the right venues in place, and what are the risks that they have to manage? And what we’re finding is that some far-left or far-right speakers that are hosted in institutions create a number of protests—hundreds of people, in many instances, that will turn out. As a result, universities sometimes have to make the difficult decision not to host events. One of those reasons is because it’s an expensive exercise. This Government expects universities to foot the costs to host speakers and events because the Government is meddling and they’re overreaching in their business. That is unacceptable for a Government and an ACT Party that believes in organisations making their own decisions and making their own choices.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Some irony there.

SHANAN HALBERT: It is ironic—isn’t it ironic?

But this is this Government. This is, when, within the last 24 hours, the Minister for Vocational Education has launched legislation to replace Te Pūkenga too and hasn’t actually addressed the critical issues that confront the tertiary sector. It doesn’t address the funding issues that the sector faces. It doesn’t identify whereabouts institutions fit in that.

So I come back to my starting point: this is a Government that isn’t focused on the issues that matter, that isn’t focused on what New Zealanders are asking for from them. Particularly, it isn’t a Government that is focused on what tertiary institutions, universities, and wānanga are asking of them. Most of all, they need help to address the funding inadequacies that we experience in the sector. That’s what they want the Government to put on the table, not an overreaching piece of legislation that isn’t necessary at the moment. They want to know how they can support learners within their institutions, and how they can address their pay inequity issues—particularly for women, if we’re speaking about librarians; support staff that this Government has shafted by taking away their right to put a pay equity claim forward. They’ve removed that opportunity.

But I come back to this piece of legislation—universities don’t want to be micro-managed. They’re actually big enough, academic enough, intelligent enough, and independent enough in their own right to be led by their councils, to be led by their vice-chancellors, and to be trusted that they have the best interests of their learners, their staff, the public, and Aotearoa alike—to be taken care of within their jurisdiction. The point here is that it’s a duplication of provision. This request that’s put forward can already happen. It’s an overreach and it’s just unnecessary.

While the public of New Zealand wait in vain for this Government to focus on the things that they really care about, like fixing the public health system, like getting more houses built, and by creating jobs at a time of high unemployment, what is the House’s attention being directed at tonight? Stoking an imported culture war to satisfy some kind of negotiation that ACT have carried out in the coalition agreement to change the rules and impose an unnecessary burden on our tertiary institutions and our universities, who—at first glance, looking at this bill—are going to have to undertake a heavy bureaucratic reporting regime on freedom of speech.

Carl Bates: That sounds like something you’d like.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, it’s not the kind of thing I like to see, Mr Bates, because I believe in academic freedom. And there have been a number of cases in recent years where our universities have found themselves in the middle of some pretty intense debates about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to speak on university campuses. If you care about academic freedom, then you would realise that it’s something that needs to be carefully looked after and nurtured. It’s not a simple one-dimensional thing where anyone with any view and with anything to say should be given the space, particularly in a public institution, to express those views.

There’s no shortage of people out there peddling disinformation and of people preaching hate. My concern is that if the effect of this legislation would be to tie the hands of our tertiary institutions, forcing them to provide their public facilities to people who are preaching hate against, for instance, the trans community, to people who are Islamophobic, and to people who are Holocaust deniers, then I think that would be damaging for our democracy.

Universities need to be given the academic freedom to make those decisions. I’m a believer in free speech. I want to see a wide variety of views discussed and debated in our institutions. But, if the effect of this legislation is to tie the hands of universities and prevent them from exercising their judgment to protect freedom of speech in our tertiary institutions, then I think that would be a very backward step.

As my colleagues have noted, this is a bill that is full of examples of ministerial overreach and micro-management. It’s clearly pushing a political agenda, and I look forward to unpicking that and subjecting it, at select committee, to the kind of scrutiny that it deserves. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). This is a sensible bill that makes 11 proposals, mostly aimed at increasing attendance, to improve the outcomes for the children of our country. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Instruction to the Education and Workforce Committee