Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10520. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): I think it is very important when we look at Part 1 of the Education Amendment Bill to recognise two things about what the model of charter schools is about. The first of those is that this is a political stitch-up at the expense of our children in New Zealand. That is what this is. The ACT Party and John Banks have come under a bit of criticism from Metiria Turei. I am going to say one thing in favour of John Banks: at least the ACT Party is honest about its agenda to privatise education. It has been honest on political platforms over the last elections that it wants to privatise education. That is what this bill is the first step towards—the privatisation of education. So John Banks can own that policy.The dishonest approach comes from the National Party. The National Party was doing work on charter schools before the last election but did not put it in its policy and has come along to the Committee today with a political deal over a cup of tea at the expense of New Zealand children. The National members are right to hang their heads in shame for coming to this Committee and supporting this ideological experiment. That is the second point that I want to make. This is a flawed ideological experiment being played out at the expense of children in New Zealand. That is what is happening.This model internationally does not deliver. This model internationally delivers in so few cases that it is discredited all over the world. Sometimes I have said this to other audiences: if you watchThe Simpsons you see onThe Simpsons that the school bus is yellow. If you go all over America the school buses are yellow because America has one of the most regulated education systems that you have ever seen. In New Zealand we have an education system that is flexible that is innovative and that is collaborative. We should be building on that model. We should be making sure that every school in this country is a good school and that every child in every school in this country gets a good education. We should be doing that by supporting the programmes that work and by developing the capability of the teaching profession.Dr Cam Calder: We close our mind to anything else.GRANT ROBERTSON: What we do not do Dr Calder is impose a flawed ideologically motivated model on New Zealand and that is what this bill does. So let no one out there imagine that there is some great altruistic motive behind this bill. There is not. What lies behind this bill is ideology and National and ACT playing to the vested interests of this country playing to the fact that people can make a profit out of education and using public money to make that profit. As Tracey Martin said earlier that is what New Zealanders need to know about this charter school proposal. Public money without the transparency that should go with public money will go to line the pockets of people who want to make a profit out of education. That is the opposite of what we should be doing in our education system.We should be investing that money in strengthening our public education system. Today this bill walks all over the legacy of people like Peter Fraser and Clarence Beeby. Actually I also want to mention another person today and that is Brian Donnelly the former New Zealand First MP whom I worked with on issues around public education and whom Trevor Mallard worked with when he was the Minister of Education. People like that have supported a strong public education system that delivers—Hon Trevor Mallard: Les Gandar.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes National Ministers like Les Gandar have devoted their lives to supporting a strong public education system and today National comes to this Chamber with a bill to demolish the public education system in New Zealand. It denies that. That is the agenda of the ACT Party which has brought this bill to the House and has done the political deal with the National Party. That is what is at stake here. The legacy of a public education system said that no matter where you are from no matter what the background of your parents and no matter what your academic ability the public education system will be there for New Zealanders. That was what Peter Fraser and Clarence Beeby brought to New Zealand. That was the legacy they left New Zealand. The Labour Party stands proudly beside that legacy and in the past National Governments have backed that public education system as well but not this Government. This Government wants to sell out that education system to vested interests.