Turei Metiria: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:609] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I want to briefly mention the Maori Party’s position on this part of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill and its amendment that proposes to split off Part 1 and Part 2 into separate bills. We certainly support its intention to do that its reasons for doing that and its acknowledgment that although Part 2 is an ideological argument that we will no doubt continue to have Part 1 is about punishing the poor simply because they are poor and there is absolutely no justification for it. I am very pleased that the Maori Party opposes Part 1 of this bill. 
The fact is that the long tail of underachievement that is touted around here and was touted all through the election campaign is actually a long tail of poverty. Mr Peachey is wrong in his statement that somehow education is to blame for the increasing poverty in our communities. In fact it is poverty that is to blame for the impossibility of many of our young people getting ahead and getting the education to which they are entitled. I am not surprised that Mr Peachey is wrong about this but he is wrong and it is important to point that out. 
We are talking about communities where there are very low and very insecure incomes and where people are living in unstable and largely unsuitable homes. I think it was in today’s paper that we saw an article about 15 people living in one house—a family of seven in one room. There are ongoing health problems that arise from that level of poverty—for example skin infections that are treatable. In fact a large number of doctors who work in public health organisations say that one of the biggest disgraces of this country is the fact that so many children present with preventable diseases and illnesses like asthma glue ear eczema and scabies. Those diseases are all the result of living in poverty—for generations in many cases—and certainly that is the case for children living in poverty in those places. Poverty results in perpetual shifting as people with very insecure housing and very low incomes keep trying to find adequate housing that they can afford. If they find that they cannot afford it for whatever reason it leads to perpetual moving. 
This leads to children having to change schools very regularly. We often hear about this happening in South Auckland but it happens across the country. Hundreds of children every Monday change schools because their families have not been able to find secure employment and secure housing where they can set up a long-term base for the benefit of their children and their children’s education. 
What then happens is that children who are continually moving from school to school are really living lives of absolute turmoil over which they have no control. It is impossible for schools to then be relevant to the needs of those children and their ability to concentrate to stay well so that they can do the work to be socially connected to the school and to that community and to trust and have faith in and build relationships with teachers and other children. Those things are impossible when the children may well have to move in just another month or so because of the family circumstances. 
Those are all problems and challenges that schools have to deal with in order to find some way to be relevant to these kids who are living lives of turmoil over which neither they nor their parents have any control. This is not about families neglecting their children or wanting to keep their children out of school. It is completely reasonable to see why children would not want to go to school in those circumstances. Why would they want to try to go through the whole process of going to another school with more kids more teachers and more relationships only to have that stripped away from them again because their parents have lost their jobs they have not been able to keep up with the rent they have been evicted and they have to move and find somewhere else to live? This is the real lives of the people we are talking about. 
What is the National Government’s response to these real lived lives? Those members know barely anything about this issue and they have virtually no contact with the kinds of communities that we are talking about here. What is their response? It is not to deal with the causes of the poverty that leads to this kind of turmoil and instability is it? There is no policy here to deal with the dislocation of these children. In fact the priority for National is to punish these families by fining them three times more than they would have been fined otherwise—$3000 a family.