Donnelly Brian: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2641] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I just note that this part has a number of different areas that we would like to be able to traverse and talk through; it is not just purely and simply around early childhood. I think it is necessary to say that to ensure that early closure calls are not accepted because there are a lot of areas that we need to look at including teacher housing student numbers and the issue that Colin King brought up about intimidation etc. We need to be able to talk through those issues because there are amendments around a whole lot of them. It would be a sorry case if we thought this was just about the early childhood regulations and a couple of Supplementary Order Papers around that. 
I want to talk about Colin King and his amendments because I think there is a lot of merit and good thinking behind them. It is a little unfortunate as I am noticing in the debate that there are very few members here tonight who were actually on the Education and Science Committee at the time. That is not their fault but it just means that they have not been able to explore some of the issues around the legislation. 
I just want to talk about the offence of insulting abusing or intimidating staff. That was I think already in the 1964 Act and it applied to schools. The amending bill said we wanted to apply that to early childhood centres. The select committee did in fact look at the issue in detail because we were very concerned about some of the anxiety that staff members principals sole teachers etc. in some of our rural schools are facing particularly in Northland with the dangers of P these days and there are anxieties around that. 
But the issue is this. The offence is only if the intimidation is made in front of students. Insulting intimidating or abusing people comes under the Crimes Act. This is a protection only for the students themselves that this is in the Education Act and then it was going to go down to the early childhood sector. In our explorations we actually asked about the students within the school. Can they be picked up now under the existing legislation for abusing a teacher in front of their classmates? The answer was yes they could. 
The select committee looked at this and said: “Well is this what it’s all about?”. The clause is really there to stop people coming from outside—parents or visitors or anyone else. I have been threatened by a parent who said he was going to come and shoot me—after a separation; that sort of business. I am sure Allan Peachey knows the situation pretty well. It is really about what happens in front of the students. Therefore although I totally agree—I would love to see the amendment particularly the electronic version—the problem is that it actually takes it outside the ambit of what this particular amendment is all about in this particular part of the bill. So we will not be supporting it although we think there is some real merit along the lines of the member’s thinking. 
The second thing I want to talk about is that Colin talked about parents needing to know how well their children are getting on. I absolutely agree with that. Not only do they need to know how well they are getting on but they need to know how well they are getting on in relation to other students around New Zealand. They need to have that sort of reference point. It is all very well schools saying to parents: “Your kid’s proceeding satisfactorily.” and then finding out when the kids get to fifth form—year 11—that in fact they are not doing particularly well against other New Zealand students. This amendment that Mr English is putting up has some merit—and we have already said we agree with it in principle—but the problem is that it does not give individual parents information about their individual kids. It gives information about the school I say to Mr English and not about the individuals. 
The parents themselves now have that right to the information about how well their particular children are getting on. With the development of tools such as the assessment tool for teaching and learning schools are in a far better position to be able to provide that information to parents. Any school that is not providing that information to parents I think should be caned—to use a pun—because it is a professional requirement to provide that information. In fact it is a legal requirement that is already in the Act. 
That is why I think the process is clumsy. I have only just seen this amendment and I would like to be able to explore the implications of it as I did as Associate Minister of Education with the New Zealand First - National Government because I think it needs far more exploration than can be provided in this debate in this Chamber. I believe there is a great deal of merit in this amendment but what it is talking about is not individual parents finding out about their children; it is about them finding out about schools.