Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEducation Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10509. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Education Amendment BillIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to principal ActCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very excited about taking part in this particular debate today on the Education Amendment Bill. I am particularly pleased that Anne Tolley is in the Chamber for this debate today because we know that charter schools are actually Anne Tolley’s baby.Anne Tolley was working on charter schools before the last election. I am looking forward to the contribution that she has got to make in this debate because I would like Anne Tolley to stand up and tell the Committee and tell the people of New Zealand why it was that she was working on charter schools before the last election but miraculously they did not make it anywhere near the National Party’s manifesto. Why was it that charter schools were such a good idea before the election that the National Party did a significant amount of work on them but it never told the New Zealand public about them? Why is it that National blames the cup of tea deal with John Banks for charter schools when in fact it was Anne Tolley’s idea all along? Even before John Banks was back in Parliament this is what the National Party wanted to do.We know very clearly from this debate on charter schools that National does not make decisions based on what is best for education. That should be the very first question. When the Government is considering changes to the education system the first question it should ask is “Is this going to help students? Is this going to improve educational opportunities?” and charter schools fail. They do not do that.We should be focused on ensuring that every school in New Zealand is a great school and that every New Zealander no matter what their age has the opportunities through education to achieve their full potential. That means that from early childhood education through schooling through tertiary education and through second-chance learning every New Zealander no matter how old they are no matter where they live no matter their background should have the opportunity through education to achieve their potential in life. Charter schools do not do that. Charter schools are about increasing competition on the failed assumption that more competition is going to lead to better educational outcomes and yet we know from evidence here in New Zealand and from overseas that increasing competition does not improve outcomes. In fact thereare countless examples to show where educational attainment is decreased as a result of competition.Even Treasury argued in the initial stages of this debate that there was nowhere around the world where education systems with highly competitive elements—I am paraphrasing here because I have not got the exact quote in front of me—improved student achievement outcomes. We know they do not. Even Treasury concluded that. It concluded—this was Treasury so we are talking about people whose first objective is not necessarily the social good of the country. Even Treasury—Grant Robertson: Don’t talk about David Clark.CHRIS HIPKINS: —I am sure Dr Clark is going to have a few things to say about that—argued that collaboration is more important to education. In fact if we are talking about improving student achievement then a collaborative education system is the place where we should start.It is ironic that the Government talks about flexibility in the education system and is introducing charter schools to give schools more flexibility at a time when it is imposing ever-greater compliance burdens on our existing State schools and restricting their ability to deliver the world-leading curriculum that we have. When people come to New Zealand from around the world they look at our curriculum and say: “This is absolutely fantastic.” So why is it that the Government is undermining that by imposing all sorts of compliance requirements on schools—like national standards for example—that undermine the very principles that our curriculum is based upon?The real challenge that we should be addressing is how we allow every New Zealand school to be a great school and how we support every teacher in every classroom to be an absolutely outstanding teacher. All of the research from New Zealand and internationally shows us that quality teaching is the biggest in-school influencer of student achievement. We could talk for hours about the out-of-school influences and there are many and I acknowledge all of those. But within the school quality teaching is the critical factor.The Teachers Council review which the Minister of Education herself released just last week highlighted the importance of quality teaching and made some very interesting observations about how we might be able to do better. The review of the Teachers Council was arguing in fact that we should raise the threshold for quality teaching rather than lower it and that in fact we should be striving for a teaching profession that is more qualified and that is harder to get into rather than deregulating the teaching profession in the way that the charter schools legislation does. It is fundamentally wrong.We have got research in New Zealand that demonstrates very clearly to us how we can lift student achievement through quality teaching. Te Kotahitanga is an outstanding programme. It is an expensive programme but it focuses on teacher professional development on how we can do things differently and on how we can do things better. So what was National’s response to that? Well it cut it. It cut it so that it could give $19 million to charter schools. It took one of the best programmes that we have—admittedly one of the most expensive but one of the programmes that have a proven track record of success—and it cut it so that it could put money into a charter schools experiment.That is National’s approach to education: take something that is working take something that is successful and rip the guts out of it so that it can have an experiment somewhere else. That is wrong—that is absolutely wrong. As for teacher professional development the $19 million that is going into charter schools could buy a lot of teacher professional development. National is cutting the budget for teacher professional development and has consistently cut it since it became the Government.There are real concerns around the requirements—or the lack of requirements—in this bill for those working in charter schools to be registered and qualified in teaching. People can be qualified in many great things and they can be very talented in their individual field but that does not mean they have the skills to pass on that knowledge to someone else. Teaching is an art in and of itself—Hon Tau Henare: Who says?CHRIS HIPKINS: “Who says?” Tau Henare says. Well I am just grateful that I am not relying on Tau Henare to teach anything. Actually there is one thing that Tau Henare has taught me about being in this Parliament and it is that sometimes it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. That is the one thing that Tau Henare has taught me in this Parliament. It is a lesson that has been well learnt on his part I am sure.Quality teaching matters. There is nothing in this legislation that would stop a teacher who is suspended from teaching in a public school from going to teach in a charter school while that hearing is taking place. There is nothing in this legislation that stops that from happening. That is not going to be good for student achievement. That is not going to be good for student safety and for educational attainment. This is wrong.The evidence from overseas shows that it is wrong. Let us look at the research from Stanford University which found that in fact of all of the charter schools it looked at only 17 percent of the outcomes for students were better 37 percent of the outcomes for students were worse and for 46 percent of students there was no difference at all. So how is it that this Government is arguing that charter schools which have failed so dismally around the rest of the world are going to be good for New Zealand?We have got a very very good education system in New Zealand. You would not know that from listening to this National Government where John Key talks about how the education system is failing students and he sticks a label on everything. He sticks a label on all those teachers and says that they are failing students when actually I do not know of one single teacher who goes to their school in the morning thinking: “Whose lives can I ruin today?”. Every teacher we have in our schools goes there to make life better for students and to contribute to student achievement and yet this Government is all too willing to label teachers and to pick on teachers when if we want to improve student achievement we have got to celebrate quality teaching we have got to invest in teachers and we have got to provide them with opportunities to up their skills and to improve their practice. This Government goes in the opposite direction and says: “No what we should actually do is just do away with the idea that a teacher needs to be qualified at all and let anybody into a classroom.” That is absolutely wrong.There are other aspects of this legislation that are wrong which we will discuss as we go along. It is wrong that a charter school should be able to make a profit—to take money that should be for education and provide it as dividends to its shareholders. It is wrong that charter schools will not be subject to the Official Information Act and will not have the same level of scrutiny. Even the Ombudsman was strongly opposed to that and I absolutely agree with that. It is wrong that charter schools will not have to teach New Zealand’s world-leading curriculum.It is wrong that the students in Christchurch who have already been through so much will be used as guinea pigs in this charter schools experiment. We know already that the Government has got its eyes and its sights set on establishing charter schools in Christchurch at a time when it is arbitrarily by stealth closing and merging existing State schools. There is no day when we have seen the evidence of that more than today when the Minister is unilaterally making her announcements about the future of those schools.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am very pleased to take a call on this Education Amendment Bill after I have just been speaking to two schools in my electorate of Wigram that have been closed today by the Minister of Education to make way for charter schools in the network in Christchurch. This is a dark day for education in the city that I represent part of and members opposite should be ashamed that they have sold out the education of Christchurch children for a vote cooked up over a cup of tea. This is the price of coalition. Today the children of Christchurch and the communities of Christchurch are paying the price of this coalition and they are paying it dearly.Let us have a look at the problem with charter schools. Let us go through this and through the very weak and feeble excuses that we have had put up by Government members opposite as to why charter schools are a good thing. My colleague Chris Hipkins has already gone through a number of our objections to this. The first of these and perhaps one of our most fundamental of these is that we do not believe that our education system should be run for profit. Let us be very clear here. We are talking about public money taxpayer money being put into a system of schools that private organisations will be able to make profit from. This bill is not about the education of our children. This is not about improved educational outcomes. This is about the privatisation of New Zealand’s education system and this is about an educational agenda.We have had a range of excuses put up about why the Government is doing this and a number of crocodile tears cried by members opposite about how this is about the ability to be innovative and to do truly innovative things and different things. Well we heard from a number of schools that came before our Education and Science Committee time and time and time again and talked to us about the truly innovative things they were doing in their schools. I would like to hear the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye take a call and tell us why it is that her Government thinks that we need this legislation when we have heard from educational expert after educational expert that they are able to do the truly innovative things that they want to do.Only last week I and my colleagues Chris Hipkins and Carol Beaumont were at a very innovative and very excellent school in Mr O’Connor’s electorate of Tāmaki. We were at Tāmaki College and we were able to see the absolutely innovative work that this school was doing—that this public school was able to do under the current legislation. It certainly did not see the need for a charter school. It certainly did not see that need. This is a school that is servicing a school population that is 98 percent Māori and Pasifika and we were seeing some very special and some very good things going on there.I would like to hear from Mr O’Connor a member who sat there and listened to submitter after submitter come before our committee and tell us that these charter schools were not needed. There are a number of very good schools in this country and a number of excellent teachers who are doing amazing things in the name of the education of our children. On this side of the Chamber we celebrate them; we do not denigrate them as the price of a coalition deal cooked up over a cup of tea. That is what members opposite are willing to do.We also hear from members that this is all about educational achievement and about lifting the educational achievement of Māori children. Well in the area that I come from in Christchurch Ngāi Tahu gave us a very good submission about exactly what their thoughts were in relation to charter schools and the fact that they did not see the need for charter schools and certainly did not want them. So to hide behind that is something that members opposite actually need to get on their feet at this detailed stage of the legislation and justify. They need to tell us why it is that they think it is OK to makeprofit out of our education system why it is that we do not need qualified teachers and why it is that we do not need to teach to a curriculum. That is not something that anyone should be proud of.When Ngāi Tahu looked at the issue of student achievement in their submission they told us and they were very clear that partnership schools will not address the real factors affecting low student achievement. There is a strong correlation between lower educational achievement and childhood poverty. These are not issues that this Government is willing to address in any meaningful kind of way. Instead what it is going to do is strip money out of the education system and turn it into a for-profit venture.But what I really want to dwell on only hours—well a matter of a couple of hours—after learning the fate of Christchurch schools is the way in which this Government is using the children of Christchurch as guinea pigs. The justification that has been put up for the closure of many of these schools simply does not stack up. The Government does not have solid demographic data to base this on. Nobody in Christchurch knows exactly what is happening to our populations—where people are and where they are likely to be. When we have the details of the census we will know more.But today we saw seven of our schools close before we even know that information. We saw a further six of our schools merge. We saw in my electorate Branston Intermediate School and Manning Intermediate School close—both schools that sit on the fringes of huge population growth. This is in the south-west of Christchurch where people are moving to. We are seeing subdivisions expanding families moving in and you do not actually need to be a genius to see that there is going to be a need for schools in this area.We have seen absolutely no consideration of the children. Look at the member for Christchurch Central—a school in her electorate Phillipstown School is going to merge with Woolston School. How it is that the children of this community are going to be served is beyond the comprehension of any of us on this side of the Chamber because they simply are not going to be. These are communities that have been through enough.We heard from submitters about how this is an exact take from the playbook of disaster capitalism. This is what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This is the kind of experimentation that was taken out there and this is what we are seeing from this Government. We have no evidence that this is going to lift educational achievement in this country. The international evidence shows us that that simply is not the case. There is absolutely nothing to that. In the second reading we had many examples bandied about—examples that simply do not stack up. There were international examples that do not bear the scrutiny when put to the lens. This is not about raising educational achievement; this is about experimentation on a vulnerable group of children and it is something that this Government should be ashamed of.Tonight there are communities and parents and children and teachers whose lives have been dealt a further blow from this Government. They are sitting there despite being assured by the Minister of Education that if they enrolled their child in a school she would let them see out their education there and that those schools would not close until the end of the 2014 educational year. Well she has backed down on this problem. She lied to the communities of Christchurch and she is now telling them that their schools will close in January 2014.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I think I know what the member is going to say. The member cannot infer that other members lie. It is absolutely something that is not actually done in Parliament.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You cannot say that someone lied to the House. Misleading the House is a breach of privilege and a breach of order. You can say that members lied to the public.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well I do not like that personally. Personally I do not like that because it means that members of Parliament are not telling the truth and I do not think that that is the sort of impression we should be inferring from this House. I would like the member to be careful in the way in which she couches her language—public perception.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have dealt with the issue.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes. This is a new point of order.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): A new point of order.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I was going to raise two points of order. That was certainly one of them. The second is one of scope because although it was an important issue it was very very far outside the scope of this bill to continue to talk about school closures in Christchurch.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Thank you for drawing that to my attention. If the member could—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member was referring to matters raised in a submission to this bill by a Christchurch school. That must be within scope. It was a submission on this part of the bill by a Christchurch school.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): In that case it is totally permissible.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a further point of order. The Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings as I am sure Mr Woodhouse is well aware make it very clear that it is out of order for any member to question the Chair’s judgment on relevance. The Chair is the sole judge of relevance and interrupting a member who is speaking to question the relevance of what they are saying is in fact out of order.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well it is one all and I am happy to continue the debate.Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I was saying we heard from Karran Harper-Royal an international expert who travelled here from the United States to tell us of the experience of what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She spoke to this bill and what is happening here is straight from the playbook. It is about experimentation. It is just about trying things out on vulnerable children and taking advantage of natural disasters to do educational experimentation. We think that is shameful we do not think that is something that should be done to our children and we do not think this is something they deserve.What is more we think that our children in Christchurch—as all children do all across New Zealand—actually deserve some certainty from the Minister and this is not what they have received. They have lived through 9 months of uncertainty while those proposals have been live. This is not going to add to the educational achievement of these young people. These are young people who have been left out in the cold by this Government. There is absolutely no way that Labour can support this legislation. This is not about what is best in terms of educational outcomes; this is about political manoeuvrings by the National Government.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Talofa Mr Chair. I have no expectations that anything I say here today will change the minds of Government members. I have no expectations that anything I say here today will stop them or the ACT Party members or the Māori Party members from actually voting this legislation through. So why would Ispend my time talking about it? Why I would spend my time talking about it is so that the misrepresentations that have been wrapped around the rhetoric of this bill the Education Amendment Bill go on theHansard.The first one that I think the public of New Zealand needs to be aware of—and it is a conversation that is yet to take place out in the mainstream media—is around how these schools will actually be funded. They will be funded at a decile 3 level a decile 3 level with a full cash-up value of the property dollar and a full cash-up value of all the resource dollars currently available to mainstream schools at a decile 3 level. Some may say well that is the target market but these schools have an open-door policy. They cannot pick that target market. Anybody who shows up at their door whether they live in a decile 10 home or a decile 7 home or a decile 1 home must be allowed to enrol in these schools but they will all be funded at a decile 3 level. So you could have a charter school that is full of decile 10 children funded out of Vote Education at a decile 3 level with full cash-up of property dollar and full cash-up of resources dollar. But they do not have to spend that cash-up on property or on resources. That is the margin. That is the profit margin.Let us just say for example that they do spend the property dollar on the property. The asset belongs to the sponsor. This is public money paying for private schools paying for private assets and paying for private profit. The other parts that we pay for are the Education Review Office reviews which we could actually put a dollar value on and the professional development which we could actually put a dollar value on which every single one of these private businesses will be able to access. So let us get real about how these things are being funded. This is something the public of New Zealand needs to know because it is their dollar—because it is their dollar.Colin King: Nobody’s hiding it.TRACEY MARTIN: No they may not be hiding it Mr King but you certainly did not put out a press release on it did you?The reason why they are going to be funded at that level is that the basic operations grant for a mainstream school per child is $6000—$6000 per child per annum and that includes the property dollar. That is the basic grant per year that mainstream schools get. Then on top of that are the targeted education grants. That is not enough. That is not enough for a private school funded by public money to make a profit. The fee of the cheapest recognised private school in my area is $12000 a year. So when this was first floated and when the ACT Party and actually the National Party went out and spoke to their friends inside the private school sector they got a message back saying: “We can’t deliver for that price. We can’t deliver for that price because nobody can.” Mainstream schools can but private schools say they cannot deliver for that price. So the Government said: “How much do you want? Say how much you want and then let’s go away and figure out an equation that equals what you want.” That is actually what has happened. That is what has happened and that is why you have got this list supposedly of 35 schools.I would say to the Māori Party and particularly to the president Mr Bird that you should be whakamā. You should be ashamed. You should be whakamā on the way you have decided actually in the Education and Science Committee to suggest that you are going to take 23 successful kura under the current Education Act and leave the option open as in your submission to make more money by turning them into charter schools. That is the door that Mr Curtis and Mr Bird left open when they submitted. They have successful kura inside the current system. They have no need to go outside of it but there is more money outside of it. The other thing that Mr Bird said was: “It’s too hard.” What he was referring to were the standards and the requirements that the kura aretested against to make sure that they have a very high standard of academic outcome and they meet them.There is another statement I want to address for the public of New Zealand because everybody in this Chamber actually knows it and it was a statement made by Catherine Isaac in the working party submission. We all know Catherine Isaac. She is the previous president of the ACT Party. It is very very interesting that as the previous president of the ACT Party the policy that is now under the name of her party has created a job. Where there was no job previously there is now a job and Ms Isaac is filling it. But it is not just a job for up to this moment when this bill is going through this House; since the authorisation board was appointed on 1 March she has had a job going forward. That is a really cool way to create an income for yourself. That board which has been the one recommending the schools is now going to be the body that monitors those schools and their progress against the agreed outcomes. That makes the authorisation board in a way its own review body. It said these guys would be the good ones to actually put forward a school and now it has got to do a report to say whether its recommendations were appropriate or not. I do not see any incentive for honest reporting there.But let us get back to Ms Isaac’s statement. Her statement was that employing unregistered teachers does not mean they are unqualified. Yes it does.Hon Member: Oh come on.TRACEY MARTIN: Now we are going to hear the National Party MPs saying: “No it doesn’t.” This is the ignorance involved in the conversation. The process of registration for a teacher is a period of 2 years spent inside a school with an experienced tutor teacher being appraised in your practical application of the 4 years of theory. This is the teaching apprenticeship. You are not a trained teacher until you get registration—so it does mean you are unqualified. Considering that it was the previous National Government that changed the environment so that teacher training became about bums on seats this registration process is even more pivotal. It is this absolute lack of basic understanding that makes any constructive conversation with the ACT Party and unfortunately some of my colleagues in the National Party virtually impossible. Hence my expectations of nothing at the end of today’s conversation.In answer to oral question No. 6 on 8 May the Minister of Education tried to reassure the public that if there was an incident of misconduct in a charter school that involved a teacher then the procedures of the 1989 Education Act and the Teachers Council would apply. After Mr Hipkins quite rightly pointed out anomalies in this statement Dr Cam Calder stood at the second reading and said: “I just want to correct an assertion made by my colleague Mr Chris Hipkins who believed that partnership schools are exempt from current exemptions in the Education Act 1989 regarding the employment—or the continuing employment—of a teacher whose practising certificate or limited authority to teach has been suspended or cancelled. The schools are not exempt from those current restrictions.” I am not sure whether this is very very clever of Dr Calder in trying to manipulate the discussion—and clever of the Minister also around playing with words—or whether he actually just needs to go back to his office and give his research team a bit of a bollocking.It is not possible to hold a practising certificate unless you are a teacher registered with the Teachers Council. Registration comes first and then the individual must be in the classroom for a prescribed number of hours each year with the constant appraisals that go on during that period. The individual must prove this to renew their practising certificate every 5 years. So Mr Hipkins is right: only registered teachers can be tracked and only registered teachers can be deregistered and recorded on a national database for incidents of misbehaviour. Let us just reinforce the point. If children are victims of misconduct by an unregistered charter school teacher there is no body recording theseincidents. There is nothing to stop these so-called teachers moving from one charter school to another—no protection whatsoever. There is no register of them anywhere. Perhaps the Government may now have to take more education dollars to create a duplicate system of registration so that these profit-making businesses can keep themselves safe while they skim off the taxpayer dollars.Dr CAM CALDER (National): Thank you for the call Mr Chairman; it is exceptionally civil of you. Four out of five New Zealanders are doing exceptionally well. I have spoken in the House before about the extremely good efforts passion and ability of the teachers of many of the schools in Manurewa who are doing an outstanding job. I will again mention Jane Milner at Redoubt North Primary School—outstanding work. Five out of five however is what we are aiming for. Programme for International Student Assessment results show that we are seventh in reading: second if you are Pākehā seventh if you are Asian 34th if you are Māori and 44th if you are Pasifika. The only area where we lead the world is in the Programme for International Student Assessment’s inequality ranking. There is no greater gap in achievement than that of students in this country and this inequality is one of the strands that this initiative is aiming to address—one of the strands that this initiative is aiming to address.So to correct a point that was raised by one of the speakers it is not going to be put into decile 10 areas; it is going to be placed in areas with a high concentration of Māori Pasifika and low socio-economic students where they can benefit from it. There are no predetermined locations. The authorisation board will assess all the applications and decide upon its placing of the schools on individual merit—on individual merit.Dr Rajen Prasad: What?Dr CAM CALDER: The Center for Research on Education Outcomes report has been updated—just for the benefit of my colleague on the other side of the Chamber—and in fact there are a number of instances where the centre lauds the achievements and the attainments of charter schools in the United States. That of course is largely immaterial because we are developing our own New Zealand model. I commend this bill the Education Amendment Bill to the House.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I just want to thank my colleague Tracey Martin for her very detailed analysis of the impacts of this bill the Education Amendment Bill. Her experience in having worked on a school board and being a member of a school board for many years now really does add weight to the concerns about this charter schools legislation. It really is up to us to seriously consider the expertise of those who are involved with schools every day—teachers principals boards of trustees and indeed the parents of children at schools—when we are making decisions about their children’s education. That is clearly not the case here. Charter schools are not the result of evidence-based information from the experts in education.Andrew Williams: It’s John Banks.METIRIA TUREI: That is right. It is John Banks a man who is currently I understand still in court.Let us go back to basics. The Government is saying that there is a tail of underachievement—it is a terrible phrase—and that there are kids who are not doing as well in the State school system as they ought to and that it is looking for options to fix that. OK that is a fair enough intention. But the fact is that instead of looking at the evidence including the evidence not only of experts in education but also of the Ministry of Education itself as to what will work for these kids it has gone to John Banks to look for evidence and information as to what he thinks. This one-man band from a dying party is now setting the education agenda for hundreds and hundreds of children with the potential actually to impact on thousands and thousands of childrenbecause as we know John Banks was very explicit when he said that he wants to privatise the public education system. His intention is not just to create a few charter schools over the next few years or so but to turn every State school into a private school as a means of funnelling cash out of the public coffers and into the hands of a very wealthy few. Well we know that National is very keen on that idea. We have seen it do that over and over again particularly in this Budget. That is where the evidence and the information are coming from. It is a tragedy for schools and a tragedy for the children who will be subjected to this terrible experiment.If we actually look at the evidence—firstly the evidence of failure—the best evidence from the US about charter schools the most independent evidence shows that only 17 percent of the charter schools in the US do better than those in the public system. That is less than one in five—less than one in five. So for every five charter schools that will be set up under this ridiculous proposal from John Banks we can expect that four will fail to meet the standard of public schools. And only one if we are lucky—because it is not quite one in five—will do better than any State school. So why would you waste money and give away money cash to somebody who has not been tested and who does not have any educational experience but who can make a profit? Why would we experiment with the desperately needed cash that we have in education on four failed schools out of five at best?Not only is there such a high failure rate of charter schools internationally but also we have to consider the children who are being considered for these schools. Tracey Martin is right. The schools are being funded at decile 3 but actually there is no restriction to make sure that the school is set in a decile 3 area and that it takes children who are particularly vulnerable because the schools have to have an open roll. So what happens of course is that there will be kids who will go to the school and instead of having an enrolment process to lock out kids what those schools have done overseas is to have a push-out process. So the schools do not stop kids coming in but they have very very clever measures to kick kids out—kids who are likely to fail kids who are too expensive and kids whose families are demanding higher standards from that charter school. Those kids get kicked out of charter schools everywhere else in the world where charter schools are set up.It is done through all sorts of ridiculous rules—through funding rules through behaviour rules through process rules and through enrolment rules. These rules all impact on the child once the child is part of that school. So we will certainly see charter schools cherry-picking students by a push-out process even though this Government is saying that the schools have to take any student who comes to them. They do not have to keep them. They might have to take them but they do not have to keep them. And we will see more and more of our kids—those at whom this programme is supposed to be targeted—being abandoned yet again.The concern that I have is that we do of course have successful indigenous models of schooling for those very kids about whom the Government says that it is so concerned. Those models are the kura kaupapa Māori. They are the bilingual units like Kia Aroha College in South Auckland. I do not know whether anyone has been there? I have been there a few times now. It is a fantastic innovative and clever State school which provides the best and highest-quality education for Māori and Pacific kids in that area.Tracey Martin: Mahurangi College the highest achieving.METIRIA TUREI: What college was that?Tracey Martin: Mahurangi College the highest achieving for Māori and Pacific kids.METIRIA TUREI: Mahurangi College the highest achieving for Māori and Pacific kids. We know that when State schools are given the opportunity to be innovative and to reflect the needs of their community and they are given the resources and the support that they need they will do good for our kids. So why would we then impose a new model that is experimental? Well we know why. Because actually this Government wants to funnel public money into the private sector. It is quite happy to keep funnelling public money into the private sector as fast as it can and charter schools are one way of doing that.The other things that work are Te Kotahitanga and Ka Hikitia—Managing for Success and in the briefing to the Minister of Education when she first took her role the Ministry of Education said that if the Government wants to deal with the tail of underachievement and particularly focus on Māori children then it should properly resource fund support and promote Ka Hikitia and Te Kotahitanga. And what has it done? It has cut it. It just chopped it—chopped it right off. The Government is now saying that it is going to do something else. Who knows what that is? Again it is another experiment on the kids who need us the most. So instead of doing exactly what it knows works what is proven to work what the experts say is working and what the ministry itself is saying is working no the Government is going to do what John Banks thinks—what John Banks thinks. And what John Banks wants is the full-scale privatisation of the education system.I would like to hear from the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye a guarantee that no school that has been closed will be given or provided to a charter school for its use. I would like some guarantee that of the school closures that we are seeing—not just in Christchurch but we will continue to see them around the country over the next 18 months—not a single one of those closed schools will be used for a charter school.Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s what Nicky Wagner wants.METIRIA TUREI: Sorry?Hon Trevor Mallard: Nicky Wagner—she wants her schools turned over to charter schools.METIRIA TUREI: That is right. There is no requirement the Minister has no requirement to consider the whole network of schools when the Government is looking at setting up a charter school so it is quite possible—and I think quite likely—that this Government will go around closing State schools like we see it doing and then providing those school resources for the establishment of charter schools. Nothing in the bill stops it.The one protection that is taking a network approach to the establishment of new schools is gone under this bill. The Minister does not have to consider the network. I have a Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 236 to restore that requirement in this legislation so that the Minister has to consider the existing network of schools before the Government establishes a charter school. It is a small step a small protection but it will mean that the Minister cannot simply close a State school and then hand over its entire resource to some cowboy from who knows where who wants to set up a school because he knows there is profit in it—some cowboy who will bring in some crazy curriculum from who knows where imported from some mad place around the world who knows where from to deliver to our kids who do not need this experiment. But that is what the Government is going to do. That is what is going to happen. It will close existing State schools it will hand over that property and some cowboy is going to come in and be able to experiment on our kids.I think Tracey Martin was right also to raise another serious concern that if a teacher or a so-called teacher in one of these schools who is not registered commits some kindof crime or other abuse against a student there is no protection for that child and there is no protection for any other child in any other charter school. The Government is deliberately putting children at risk. It is deliberately putting children at risk because it will not provide for registered teachers in charter schools.Andrew Williams: Shame.METIRIA TUREI: How shameful is it that this Government would deliberately put the most vulnerable children at risk—because that is whom it says these schools will apply to—of any predator and have no process at all for managing that person?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.Hon NIKKI KAYE (Associate Minister of Education): I am very pleased to speak in this Committee stage of the Education Amendment Bill. The first thing that I want to say is I am actually quite saddened to hear this debate because I believe that every member in this Chamber believes in a vision for education where it does not matter where you grow up in New Zealand you get a good standard of education. I am actually incredibly sad to hear that when the Opposition says that it supports a flexible innovative and collaborative education system it will not support choice. What this bill is about is choice. It is actually about saying that there are children in New Zealand currently who do not grow up with a great education. It is about saying that we are not afraid to try something different. It is also about saying that when we do that we will actually put some accountability in place. We are doing that through the sponsor contracts.We have heard many myths today in this debate. Let us clear some of them up. The first is that in terms of funding this is not about parity. There has been a huge amount of work that has gone into the funding formula and I want to just correct in terms of some of Tracey Martin’s comments that although the modelling is based on decile 3 it will be actually on the students who are enrolled.The second myth that we have heard is that this is all about John Banks. Actually there are 59 members on this side of the Chamber who support this legislation because we want more for the children of New Zealand.The next myth that we hear is that profit is bad in education. I want members opposite to stand up and say to the licensed early childhood providers of this country the private tertiary institutions of this country and the private schools in New Zealand that they are somehow bad educational establishments. Members on this side of the Chamber support diversity in our education system. We recognise that it should not be about the educational structure it should actually be about the best environment for different children. We are not afraid to be supporting a piece of legislation that actually says that we want to try something different and that we want some more innovation in our education system.Let us actually put it in perspective. Let us actually acknowledge that after successive education budget increases under our Government to $9.7 billion with $1 billion going to Canterbury this is $19 million in a $9.7 billion education budget.The other myth that we have heard is that somehow—and I want to address Metiria Turei’s accusations—we will be closing a whole lot of State schools for these partnership schools. I am happy to say that we will not be going around closing a whole lot of State schools to set up these partnership schools in these State school properties. I am happy to give that assurance because what this debate has shown me is that actuallyin this Chamber when those members talk about flexibility and innovation it is only on their model. It is not acknowledging diversity. We are a nation of diverse people and we have a range of diverse educational establishments at tertiary and early childhood level. We are not afraid to say that there is a group of children in our country who are not doing as well. We are not afraid to say that with the right accountability and a piece of legislation for a small number of schools it is OK to try to do something better. We are very proud on this side of the Chamber to be supporting this bill.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): Before I was rudely interrupted I was talking about—and I had only got through the introductory part of this which was—Dr Cam Calder: No!GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes in fact because we have not even got to why it is that such a flawed model is being imposed as an experiment on New Zealand children. I want to go through three or four things as I discuss this bill the Education Amendment Bill. I want to note that the Labour Party in the name of Chris Hipkins has Supplementary Order Papers on the Table to change these things. We want to make it very clear to the other side of the Chamber that those Supplementary Order Papers are there to be voted on. If the Government cannot stand up today and justify why it is allowing unregistered teachers into classrooms why there is no transparency in this process and why there is no requirement to teach from the curriculum then these Supplementary Order Papers should pass. Because that would at least bring charter schools back into line with the kinds of values that New Zealanders hold dear when it comes to our education system.Let us have a look at this. Firstly there is the question of profit. Let us be absolutely clear here: this is public money going for private profit and the accumulation of assets by private entities. That is what will happen here. On the other side of the Chamber the members yelled out before: “What about integrated schools?”. Well that is fine—Dr Cam Calder: What about ECE?GRANT ROBERTSON: We have got the system Dr Calder; why are we bringing in this flawed model? Why not use that? Why not actually develop the parts of our system that are actually going to help the people whom National says that this is for? Why not give more money then to kura? Why not support a programme like Te Kotahitanga? Why cut a programme like Te Kotahitanga which is actually working and delivering? Earlier today when Chris Hipkins first raised this Anne Tolley shook her head and that is because when she was the Minister of Education money did go in to Te Kotahitanga. She knows that under Hekia Parata and this administration that money has been taken out of a programme that has been working and delivering in favour of a programme now that will see profit-making schools using public money.Then there is the question of unregistered teachers and I can only echo what Tracey Martin has said about why it is important that we have registered teachers. It has been said that there are good people out there who can come into the classrooms and apply their skills. Well my mother whom I love dearly is excellent with a needle and thread but I would never put her in as a surgeon in a hospital. This Government is diminishing the importance of registered teachers. It is diminishing the importance of putting professionals in front of our children to ensure that they have a safe and good learning environment. Unregistered teachers mean lower quality education. It is that simple. Unregistered teachers mean a lower quality of education.John Key said New Zealanders should not get hung up about the fact that there will be unregistered teachers. They should be OK with it. They should be relaxed. Well New Zealand parents are not relaxed about the notion of unregistered teachers being in front of their classrooms. But why should the Government listen to us about this? Howabout it listens to its own advisers? The Ministry of Education recommended that all teachers at charter schools should be registered but Cabinet ignored that threw it away and said “We don’t care what the experts think about this. We’ve got our ideological agenda and we’re just going to pursue it.”Here is what the Ministry of Education said: “The overall potential for a negative impact on students’ education from teachers who do not meet the minimum standards for the profession is high.” So the Government knew it. It has been given the advice that this unregistered teachers policy would have a negative impact on the children in those classrooms and it has gone ahead with it. That is evidence of an ideological policy that can ride roughshod over any evidence. National is quite prepared—those members are quiet now are they not—to sit there and say “We don’t care what the advice is from the experts. We are going to ride roughshod over that in the pursuit of this ideological experiment.”The Ministry of Education’s advice about teacher registration went on. It said: “Teacher registration is one of the most influential levers in raising teacher quality”. Tracey Martin explained why that was before. It is like an apprenticeship. It is the time spent learning the craft learning the profession. But that side of the House does not see it as a profession. We saw that in early childhood education which it just sees as glorified babysitting. We have seen that now here with charter schools. This side of the House knows full well the importance of registered teachers of ensuring we have qualified teachers in front of our students. This Government is failing our children.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): Talofa lava i sui mamalu o le maota fono. Greetings to the honourable members. I want to say to the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Education the Hon Nikki Kaye before I begin my contribution on the Education Amendment Bill that she may be saddened by what she is hearing from this side of the Chamber. Let me say that on this side of the Chamber we are absolutely outraged at this bill which will undermine our public education system and which has no good purpose but has many dangers to it. During the course of this evening we are going to go through each and every one of those reasons.Part 1 of this bill is where the substantive provisions are that set up charter schools—and that is what they are. You can call them partnership schools if you like but under the National-ACT confidence and supply agreement what they are is charter schools and they are the price of John Banks’ vote. Let us not fool ourselves here people. I think that the Associate Minister may end up being heartbroken perhaps by the end of the evening listening to our arguments against this legislation.This bill aims to radically alter educational policy in New Zealand. There is no mandate for it. It is widely opposed by teachers by academics and by parents and it should be withdrawn. My colleague Chris Hipkins has put up a number of Supplementary Order Papers but to be honest my view is that the whole thing should be withdrawn. This is not fixable actually. This is about a taxpayer-funded private schooling system.The Principals’ Federation—probably not known to be the most radical organisation in the country but what did it say about it? It said: “The model being proposed is not a public school system but a taxpayer funded private schooling system. We believe if such Charter schools were to be established in NZ it would create potential for our high performing public school system to be undermined. There is no call from the education sector or the NZ public to establish Charter schools and the Treasury has advised that they do not see benefits in establishing Charter schools.” Certainly the Ministry of Education the experts have raised their concerns as well. There is an absence of charter schools in those countries that rank highest for student achievement in the OECD.I think it is really important that we look at the arguments here. Why do we care so much? Why am I outraged? Education is one of the most important things that we are tasked with as members of Parliament—providing quality education to all of our children wherever they live so that they can maximise their potential they can contribute to our country and they can live full and rewarding lives. It is transformational. But we have a world-leading education system. That is not to say it is perfect and it is not to say that there are not improvements that can be made but we are already able to have many flexible arrangements—Simon O’Connor: Cross the floor Carol.CAROL BEAUMONT: I would like to mention to the member of Parliament from Tāmaki—my colleague Dr Megan Woods mentioned Tāmaki College where there is a lot of innovation. Well let me tell you about another school that is in the Tāmaki electorate. That is Pt England School which we also visited the other day where they are running the highly transformational highly successful Manaiakalani programme. If you want to see best practice in a low-decile school then I would urge members in this Chamber to go to that school and look at that cluster of schools in Tāmaki.They are doing that under the existing system because there is the flexibility. They have lifted student achievement on every single measure—every single measure. It is a low-decile school in a cluster of schools that are predominantly Māori and Pacific and they have done that under our existing public education system by introducing a way of learning that really caters to those kids’ needs and creativity using all of the innovation around e-learning. Those kids blog and are followed by people all around the world. Those children produce their own school television programmes. Those children are learning at an increasing rate of knots. It is successful.We do not need a charter school. We do not need the “Pt England Charter School” or the “Tāmaki Cluster of Charter Schools” to do innovative things and to lift student performance. What I think we need to really focus on—and I want to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta because she said this very succinctly a few months ago—is that if we are worried about student achievement and of course we are because we want every child to have the best possible start then we need to do things differently. But we can do things differently in the existing system.What we need is indigenous local solutions that actually are relevant to New Zealand children just like the Manaiakalani work in the Tāmaki cluster of schools which was led by Pt England School. That is a local solution. It suits those children.So what I am saying here is that this is a failed model imposed on the New Zealand education system unnecessarily and there is good progress already being made—that is the other thing that I think is being missed in this debate. There is good progress being made in lifting performance. In fact interestingly enough—this is somebody whom I would not normally quote—the Minister of Education in September 2012 acknowledged that progress was being made: “Ms Parata says it’s particularly exciting to see the improvement in the number of Māori and Pasifika students leaving school with either NCEA Level 1 or Level 2 or above. We have seen the proportion of Māori school leavers who have achieved NCEA Level 1 or above go from 61.8% in 2009 to 68.6% last year.”What is going on is that schools and principals and teachers and communities are looking for solutions and what we need to do is identify those things that work—the sorts of things we saw at Tāmaki College; the sorts of things we saw at Pt England School with the Manaiakalani Education Trust—and actually say: “These are successful. The evidence is there.” The evidence is there that they are successful. Let us replicate these things throughout our education system making the necessary adjustments for local communities.That brings me to another really important point here. Who actually wants these charter schools? Well certainly parents do not—82 percent of New Zealanders did not think charter schools should be allowed to employ untrained or unregistered teachers. Who is going to be cut out of having a say under charter schools? Well let me tell you. It is parents and communities who are going to be cut out of having a say under what the Government is proposing here. Again part of our world-leading education system is the fact that schools do have the flexibility to do what works in their community and they do have a requirement to have elected boards of trustees—elected boards of trustees—that reflect the needs and interests and concerns of that community. So if we want to look at what works and if we want to lift achievement surely we should be asking the local community and the local parents not imposing some model and some sponsor and what they think should be done. Well how is that going to create innovative solutions that meet the local community’s needs?Again I want to use the example from the Tāmaki electorate because I know that the local member of Parliament would sing its praises everywhere but he knows honestly that that innovation is possible now and he should admit that. It does not need a charter school. But that school and that cluster of schools have been able to do what they are doing only because they have had parent and community buy-in. They have had the process to get parent and community buy-in and that is what is going to be denied with charter schools where there is no requirement to have elected boards of trustees.During the course of the evening we are going to go through and talk about a number of our concerns but I too want to add my voice to why it is so wrong to allow unregistered unqualified teachers to teach our children. I think that the majority of New Zealand parents actually value and trust the teachers in their primary schools and their secondary schools and they know that we have well-qualified teachers. So what I want to know is how on earth the Government thinks that saying that you do not have to have any qualified teachers or any registered teachers in a charter school—the principal does not even have to be qualified—how on earth that is going to work. I mean the Government itself—you know I feel like I am quoting the Government too much—in the National Party policy in 2011Education in Schools said that its goals were to “strengthen accountability”. Well it is taking the community’s say out—SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I have heard so much about my electorate today that I am inspired to stand. I am inspired that members of the Labour Party are filing into the finest electorate in the country and I would like to think that it has had a pretty good MP since 2011 as well. I am thrilled that you have been to Tāmaki College. I am absolutely thrilled that you have been to Pt England School.The Manaiakalani Project involves 11 schools—outstanding schools—but of course they had to battle with a whole lot of people including the Ministry of Education to get to where they are today. But I think one of the key themes is that their success is not going to be blighted by partnership schools. They can continue to be the success that they are while another model continues. It is no threat. It is no problem. The success of the Manaiakalani Project and the success of other models can continue.It is as if somehow this bill the Education Amendment Bill is about replacement. There is no replacement; this is about an added choice. In fact if you think about the supposed logic of the other side those members would have been arguing against integrated schools in 1970. They would have said “Oh my God we can’t have integrated schools—it’s different.” but of course they are not so keen on that any more. Where is the consistency there? Of course we heard an unfortunate—and I acknowledge Tracey Martin—and I would say a fairly strong conspiratorial approach. It is hard really to rebut that other than to say: “Excuse me JFK and Elvis Presley are in your caucus room at the moment.”Partnership schools are another attempt within our education system to engage the community and students. The community is made up of taxpayers. There is all this talk about the taxpayers’ money—that taxpayers’ money is going to go to the private sector. Well actually it is going to NGOs but strangely enough taxpayers pay their taxes. If a group of families who are taxpayers get together and want to set up a partnership school why should we stop them? They are taxpayers and they are accountable. That public money—Dr Megan Woods: Well don’t use public money. Why use public money?SIMON O’CONNOR: Because they are the taxpayers. That is what the Labour Party forgets—that is what the Labour Party forgets. It wants to control the money it wants to control the curriculum and it wants the State control. This is about New Zealanders having their say. We had people after people come to the Education and Science Committee who said—who cried out—that they want this. They were coming from your electorates Megan Woods and others—from Labour electorates and from National electorates. They said they wanted this. They were from Pasifika communities William Sio—from Pasifika communities. They were from Māori communities and from right across the spectrum. We heard other research. Look up Stanford University and the Center for Research on Education Outcomes. There is other research. We do not have to give in to this empty rhetoric from the other side.I just want to finish though with one quick anecdote. On Monday night I held a public meeting with the very fine Chester Borrows where I was approached by someone who was talking about teaching Kiribati in their community—Hon Members: “Ki-ri-bass”.SIMON O’CONNOR: Sorry—Kiribati. I apologise. I am more fluent in Fijian. But the lady from Kiribati was saying that what the problem was—Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: I bet you can’t say anything in Fijian.SIMON O’CONNOR: Yes—ni sa bula vinaka—but I believe that we have got a few weeks until Fijian language week. Anyway they wanted Kiribati taught in their schools but unfortunately the problem was that although they had people who could speak Kiribati there was no one who was a registered teacher. There was no one who was a registered teacher and it was really difficult. Here is where partnership schools kick in. That is where partnership schools kick in. Here was a community and here was a woman crying out for her children to be taught in a school their language from Kiribati. There were no registered teachers but there were people who speak that language. Partnership schools will allow people in that community and in my community and your community to be able to teach within a partnership school.I just want to finish with two very quick things. The percentage of teachers who are registered is negotiated on contract. Finally I think it is a small point that needs to be pointed out—actually I am going to leave it there. I think this bill actually speaks for itself. The community wants it—[Interruption] Oh oh slow down slow down. The community wants this. The community’s voice is out there. It has that voice. Think of that lady from Kiribati.Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour): I think in time this will be shown to be the unfortunate experiment. If you look at the logic of this bill the Education Amendment Bill and look at the logic of this part of the bill which sets up charter schools it goes something like this—and it is the Government’s theory. It says that there is something wrong with the education system because it produces a tail. Then it goes beyond that and says that it produces a tail because our teachers are trained. That is why it produces a tail—the teachers are trained—and because the management of the schools they go to is in the hands of local boards—local people I say to Mr Simon O’Connor. That is why it fails because it is those people. Then it goes on to say that the tail is created becausethe school has to teach within a broad curriculum. It is quite enabling but that is why it fails. Then the theory that this bill adopts—that this Government adopts—says that it also fails because we hold those teachers and others accountable and because there is public scrutiny of what they do. That is why they fail. So what we will do it says is to set up an alternative model. It sets up an alternative model that actually takes all of those things away which is what charter schools do.I want to say to the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Education the Hon Nikki Kaye that there was just a few minutes ago sitting in the gallery a deputy principal of a very highly respected Auckland school. There were two teachers sitting there. I was signalled to go up and see them and I did. This was just about 15 minutes ago. As I went there this highly respected very competent deputy principal was in tears. She was in tears because she said the argument that is being presented here actually misses the point. She asked me why we are following the examples of failed schools why we are not following the examples of the world’s leading educational systems. Why are we not doing that? That person a very highly respected person a person I respect said to me in all sincerity and in tears that if the Government goes down the track of treating the education system in this way this will result in good teachers leaving. That I think is a very sad experiment and a sad commentary.Those are the kinds of comments heard from many many people whom I have spoken to about this. There are so many things wrong with this particular proposal. I accept that the Government side is interested in quality education and I do not understand why the 59 members of the National caucus are supporting this. It is led by a tail which is the ACT Party—if it were not so I say to the Minister in the chair the Government would have signalled this in its last period in Government and it would have done something more about it. It did not. This is the “cup of tea” deal that was done.Hon Trevor Mallard: No.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Let us go through then and I say—perhaps not; I bow—Hon Trevor Mallard: No Anne Tolley did the planning for it in August—before then.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Ah. Well it may be so. But I think John Banks then must have been the catalyst that brought this together. Teacher quality is important. There is a high degree of input into the training and development of the personalities that teach in our schools. We expect quality from the teachers. We expect some accountability from them. But here what this bill is saying is that we will not require that for schools that teach to this tail. That is what it is saying I say to the honourable Minister. In fact that requirement is taken out. There is no qualifications requirement. If the belief is that this is what will happen because a few schools—and I have been on the Education and Science Committee as well and I have seen some Pacific Island and Māori groups supporting this. That does not make it right I say to Mr Simon O’Connor. That does not make it right. That does not make it right at all. If that is what they wanted to do there are enough provisions in the current Education Act to allow that to happen and there are many many highly successful special character schools.Colin King: Rubbish! Too much red tape. Too many obstacles.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: The member does not know what he is talking about. Which school of educational philosophy does that member come from or indeed has he studied or understood? There is none that guides this particular one. No respectable educational philosophy guides this model.Tim Macindoe: Tell that to Stuart Middleton. Go and ask Stuart Middleton what he thinks.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: I ask the member to take a call. The members of the Government are very quiet. They are taking very short calls and are not justifying this at all; they are just criticising this side. But come up with the evidence—Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): People following this debate on the Education Amendment Bill tonight could be forgiven for thinking that charter schools were a result of “cup of tea” politics. But we know the truth. The Opposition knows the truth: in fact National had been planning well before the 2011 election to implement charter schools. So I want to ask members on the other side of the Chamber why they did not campaign on it. Why did they not tell the public of New Zealand that they intended to implement a policy that would have fundamental implications for their communities and for the public education system? They did not. Instead they hid behind the cup of tea that they had with John Banks to push this particular policy through.Let us take a step back and go to the rhetoric of why charter schools were being promoted throughout New Zealand. The policy was there to address the long tail of underachievement and the challenging issues in Christchurch. South Auckland and Christchurch were going to be the two areas of focus to have charter schools. We hear from members on the other side of the Chamber that we should not worry because charter schools can co-exist within the current system. But there is a fundamental difference between the two systems. Every dollar that is put into the public education system is publicly accountable—that is every dollar must go towards the educational benefit of children attending their local schools. But that is not so for charter schools where people can make a profit. The mates of the Government can make a profit and they do not have to be publicly accountable for the dollar they are spending within the charter schools. That is a problem.There are two fundamentally different ways of looking at education provision. On the one hand our public education system is investing in our children and their future wherever they may be so that throughout New Zealand every child can go to a good-quality local school in their community. On the other hand there is a pepper-potting of charter schools and there is cherry-picking of students to attend these charter schools and they may or may not survive. If we look at the research and the evidence on charter schools as has been said by many speakers before me there is very shallow evidence to substantially prove that charter schools will make a huge difference to the learning needs of those most vulnerable in the education system.The challenge to the Government is that if it truly did believe that charter schools would improve educational achievement for those most vulnerable for Māori and Pasifika students why did it not write that into the legislation? Why did the Government not make it an obligation on sponsors to write into their contracts that they will demonstrate that their charter school will lift educational achievement for Māori and Pasifika students? It did not bother. It did not bother because it knows that its rhetoric does not match up to the evidence. This is a problem because again we hear that charter schools will be a solution for those most vulnerable in our education system but they will not.Right now communities are looking to nominate their boards of trustees. One of the fundamental things we have within the public education system is parent voice within their local school to be able to help form the local charters for their local school. That will not be the case in charter schools. You can have a board that is appointed that is not from the community and that has very little direct accountability to the parent community about how it operates and runs a charter school. How can that be good when in New Zealand we have local models that show that parents do want to participate inthe learning and educational targets of their children? That is a fundamental difference between charter and public schools.We have also heard from the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye that we need more diversity in the system. Well how diverse do you need to be? I think New Zealand probably has one of the greatest levels of flexibility in its system. We have got integrated schools public schools single-sex schools coed schools kura kaupapa wharekura and private schools. We are spoilt for choice. The implementation of charter schools within that context serves only one purpose: to suck money out of the public education system and give it to National Party mates so they can make a profit on the back of the most vulnerable learners in our society. Shame on them!CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I moveThat the question be now put.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I want to begin by saying that for Pacific communities—and I am sure my colleagues across the Chamber will acknowledge this—education is one of the key aspirations of parents. In fact if we go back a ways to the first migrants one of the fundamental reasons for leaving the islands and coming to New Zealand was not only to ensure that there were opportunities—Hon Trevor Mallard: Including the United Kingdom—including the British islands.Su’a WILLIAM SIO: —absolutely—to get jobs to support families but more important to give their children and the next generation educational opportunities that would provide them with a better way of life.Today that is still reflected in the attitudes of many many families throughout South Auckland in particular that I referred to. In fact you will find that there is a lot of competition by families who might live in Māngere Ōtara Papatoetoe or Manurewa for their children to go to high schools outside of those areas because they believe “If those are the top schools then let’s send our kids to the top schools.”Notwithstanding that they acknowledge we have one of the best education systems there is. In fact our education system has been acknowledged worldwide as one of the best. In fact a couple of years ago a colleague of mine—I have forgotten what his name is; a former MP—Pete Hodgson and I visited Mexico. Mexico was looking to New Zealand to help it lift the educational capacity of its population. There is no doubt that we have an obligation and I think most members of this Committee recognise that to lift the educational standards of our children of the children of this nation. In particular I think there needs to be a special focus on Pacific children and on Māori children when we recognise once and for all that one of the fastest-growing populations in New Zealand has a role to play in the future of New Zealand.Therefore let me get to the point. Because this Education Amendment Bill is what this Government is offering—because this is what this Government is offering—the Pacific communities feel that they have no choice but to take what is on offer and yet they agree that this is the wrong thing. They know that this is the wrong thing.Talk to Associate Professor Damon Salesa of the University of Auckland who spent 10 years in the United States and whose children attended some of the local charter schools there. He will tell you that as far as he is concerned charter schools are not successful particularly in reference to minority groups particularly in reference to low-income groups. They are not successful in the United States. How can we then expect that they are going to be successful here in New Zealand? I think we already have the tools in our Education Act. We already have the tools so why are we not looking at our education system to fix that and allow for the Pacific communities and the Māori communities to take up what they really want—for languages to be part and parcel of the curriculum?By introducing charter schools for the population of New Zealand what it says to us in South Auckland is this Government is ready to gut the New Zealand education system to take away the public education system that we have all enjoyed and of which that part of the Chamber as well as this side of the Chamber have been beneficiaries. Instead it is now wanting to privatise the schools and set them up in such a way. Why would we accept an unqualified teacher to teach our children? Would that part of the Chamber accept an unqualified doctor to address the illnesses of their children? That is what that side of the Chamber is saying about the populations out in Manakau—that they do not deserve the best education system that they do not deserve a public education system and that we have got to find it for ourselves.I have heard from people whose children attended charter schools in America. They say that that is no choice at all for a population such as ours. That is not a choice and—TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): I moveThat the question be now put.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I want to make a number of comments and probably a number of contributions. The first contribution I want to make is going to deliberately skirt around the Standing Orders of this House by asking about the diary and organisational planning of the Minister of Education the Hon Hekia Parata whose name this Education Amendment Bill is in. This bill is a fundamental change to the shape of education and to the ownership of education in New Zealand. For a Minister whose name is on this bill to take the very same day on which she knew last week that she was going to make announcements in Christchurch to announce that this legislation will go through its detailed Committee phase shows a Minister—Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This member is well familiar with Standing Orders that prevent him from moving in the direction that he is going. He has already indicated that he is skirting around the Standing Orders—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am the judge of this. I look very closely at relevancy. I ask the member to come back.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: This bill should be the top priority of the Minister in charge. There is another Minister who takes responsibility in this area Associate Minister of Education the Hon John Banks. It should be his top priority. I just want to know why we have not heard from them. We have not heard from either of them on this fundamental change—a fundamental change—to the shape of education in New Zealand.On Part 1 I want to make a number of detailed comments. But first of all I want to make the obvious point that this is not necessary. We actually have in New Zealand probably the most flexible State education system anywhere within the OECD. It is much more flexible than in the United States much more flexible than in the United Kingdom much more flexible than in Australia and it works better than the education system in every single one of those countries. I think it is wonderful that the plummy private-school voices opposite are the ones who say they are advocating for those who are not succeeding in our system. Giving this system—like they are giving the electricity system like they are giving Air New Zealand—to their mates to run is not something that is going to improve education.I want to ask the Minister in the chair Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye to tell us what is wrong with Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti. What is wrong with it? She does not know what Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti is. The Minister in the chair does not know about one of the most flexible and successful schools in New Zealand. I ask the Minister what she thinks about Discovery School. She does not think a thing. Nothing moves—nothing moves between the ears of that Minister when we talk about one of the most successful schools in New Zealand. It is a school that works very much on a community ownership model with an enormous amount of private sector involvement.There is an enormous amount of private sector involvement in both of those schools under the current system. It works it is flexible and it is not traditional. It works because it works in a general context. It works in a context of the current regulations and it shows that Part 1 of this bill is absolutely unnecessary in order to have a flexible approach to education. My colleague Nanaia Mahuta I am almost certain is a product of the kura system—Hon Nanaia Mahuta: The early kura system.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —the early kura system—which was one that worked within this legislation. It was one which worked within this legislation and was exceptionally flexible around the ownership.The reason that this Government wants to make these changes is not because of the “cup of tea” arrangement. It is not because of the arrangement with ACT because we know that the papers on this were requested not by John Banks not by Hekia Parata but by Anne Tolley. It was Anne Tolley who set the system going and to pretend that it is this sort of arrangement is clearly not the case. I want to move to the question of registration and the ability to track teachers who offend. I find it abhorrent that any member of this Parliament would make it easier—CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am sure Mr Mallard will have more to say. We are still in the early stages of the debate and I am sure he will have other opportunities to have more to say. I want to talk about some of the Supplementary Order Papers that I have put forward and explain the rationale for some of those Supplementary Order Papers. This is where we get into some of the guts and the technical details of the Education Amendment Bill. Perhaps I will just run through the first ones in the order in which they are in.The first one Supplementary Order Paper 221 is around requiring teachers to be qualified. I want to explain to the Committee what this will do. This will effectively mean that charter schools will be subject to the same requirements as every other school in the country when it comes to employing registered and qualified teachers. I think the reason it is important that the Committee understands that this is the effect of the amendment is that members on this side of the Chamber and around the Chamber have talked about the importance of quality teaching and have talked about the risks of having people who even if they are qualified teachers are unregistered qualified teachers. So they could still be qualified to be a teacher but if they are not registered there are huge risks involved in that. What Supplementary Order Paper 221 would do is it would require charter schools to make sure that the teachers are registered with the New Zealand Teachers Council.I was really heartened when I heard the comments from Dr Pita Sharples when he said that although they were supporting the charter schools legislation they still expected that teachers would need to be qualified. So I thought that was great because the Māori Party has an opportunity to support this legislation and yet still ensure that teachers are appropriately registered and qualified. I hope that the Māori Party will vote for this amendment. I understand it is not going to. I think that means that the things Dr Pita Sharples has said about wanting to have qualified teachers in charter schools are incredibly hollow.The second Supplementary Order Paper in my name Supplementary Order Paper 222 requires charter schools to teach to the New Zealand curriculum. The New Zealand curriculum is recognised as incredibly flexible and enabling. It does provide schools huge scope for flexibility to do things in innovative and creative ways but it ensures that all New Zealand students—all New Zealand children—will be given some basic grounding in a variety of subject areas that every child should have that every student in New Zealand should have. I am really concerned about the potential for charterschools to be used as a way to teach a particular ideological or religious perspective to the exclusion of others. So if we take the issue of science for example it is very possible that charter schools could teach creationism to the exclusion of basic scientific principles under this legislation. Schools can teach religious instruction within existing legislation but there are some safeguards around that to ensure that students in State schools will still be taught science. This legislation removes that safeguard for those students who are going to charter schools. So Supplementary Order Paper 222 ensures that every student attending a school in New Zealand will be taught the New Zealand curriculum. Charter schools should not be exempt from that.Supplementary Order Paper 223 extends the jurisdiction of the Official Information Act to charter schools. This is very important. The Ombudsman came to the Education and Science Committee and made submissions arguing for this to be the case. I think it is really important that the public of New Zealand understand where their money—because it is the taxpayers’ money that is going to be going into these charter schools—is being spent and how it is being spent. Supplementary Order Paper 223 will give that level of transparency and accountability. I think that that is very very important.Supplementary Order Paper 224 will require charter schools to act in a manner that is subject to the principles of natural justice. That is incredibly important. Public schools need to act in a way that is subject to natural justice. Why should charter schools not need to act in a way that is subject to natural justice?Supplementary Order Paper 226 is very important. That gives priority to local students living within the area of a charter school. Although the Government says that these are going to be targeted to areas of disadvantage and the schools will therefore be based in those areas there is no requirement for them to actually enrol students who live in those areas. It is absolutely ridiculous. It is completely contrary to all of the other parts of our educational infrastructure and the legislation around that. I think that is very important.Supplementary Order Paper 227 requires a charter school to notify the Ministry of Education if it is delegating any function or power that it has to somebody else. That is really important because under the current arrangements this legislation has presented charter schools will have quite significant power. They are not going to have a lot of accountability for it if the Government votes down the other amendments I have talked about around the Official Information Act and so on. But it is important that people know who the people making the decisions are. If a charter school proprietor or sponsor as they are called in this legislation delegates to someone say outside of the charter school the power to make decisions under their contract—because it is all going to be governed by a contract not by legislation—then the Secretary for Education should be advised so that the ultimate accountability chain is maintained. That is really really important. That is what Supplementary Order Paper 227 will do.Supplementary Order Paper 228 deals with an issue that is not related to charter schools but is related to the construction of early childhood education facilities on Crown land. The amendments proposed in this legislation will allow a private property developer to establish an early childhood education centre on the corner say of a public school site own that centre own the property around that and lease it to an early childhood education centre—so a middleman. Basically it inserts a middleman into it. It means that this person’s only goal really is to build the centre and make a profit from it. They are not the person who actually delivers the educational services; their only job is to basically be a landlord but they are using Crown land for it. They are making a profit out of the Crown land from that. This Supplementary Order Paper removes that. We already have plenty of provisions that allow early childhood education centres—including for-profit early childhood education centres—to be built on a primary schoolsite for example. But this goes further and it allows a middleman into the equation whose only objective is nothing to do with education; the only objective is for them to make a profit. That is wrong and so the amendment I have put forward Supplementary Order Paper 228 removes the ability for them to do that.There are a few other amendments but I want to skip forward and go to Supplementary Order Paper 241 which requires the Minister of Education to consult with local schools in considering a charter school application. The reason this is important is that if the Minister goes in and approves a charter school in a particular area that is of course going to have an impact on the other schools in that area. We have got a number of areas in New Zealand where we have educational overprovision. The overprovision is what the Minister of Education is currently using as the rationale for closing down schools in Christchurch. We have seen the evidence of that today—Hon Trevor Mallard: Shocking behaviour.CHRIS HIPKINS: —shocking behaviour—with school closures in Christchurch. I think that before the Minister adds more schools to an area where there is already overprovision she should have to consult with the schools that are going to be affected because otherwise what we are going to see is the Minister of Education approving the establishment of charter schools in an area and then going and closing down the local State schools there—closing down the local State schools removing the power of those boards of trustees that currently run the schools on behalf of their communities and they will not be able to do anything about it. I think she or he should at least have to front up to those communities and explain why they are making that decision. That is exactly what Supplementary Order Paper 241 would do.Supplementary Order Paper 240 will allow the Secretary for Education to take over the management if there is a serious problem within the school. At the moment even if the Secretary for Education is aware that there is a major problem with a charter school unless it actually qualifies for the very high threshold of being an emergency the Secretary for Education does not have the power to intervene. These schools will be entrusted with student safety well-being welfare—Hon Trevor Mallard: Unregistered teachers.CHRIS HIPKINS: They are going to have unregistered teachers and yet even if the Secretary for Education becomes aware that there are major problems with the school they will not have the power to intervene. Supplementary Order Paper 240 is a very important Supplementary Order Paper that provides the Secretary for Education the power to intervene. I want to hear from any member of the Government—any member of the Government—why they think that is a bad idea. If they are so confident that these charter schools are going to be so good why is it that they are removing the ability to intervene when they fail? Why is it that those schools are not going to have any accountability and those members are going to vote against the accountability mechanisms in this legislation? If these schools fail the consequences for the students who go to them will be serious. Therefore ensuring that failure can be addressed swiftly and promptly and that any issues can be properly dealt with is very very important. I want to hear from one member of the Government why they are going to vote against this amendment if that is in fact what they are going to do.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Chair. Thank you very much. I just want to pick up and further inform the public really about the New Zealand curriculum. I mentioned it in my second reading speech on the Education Amendment Bill with regard to charter schools. Mr Hipkins has actually made a comment about this already. The New Zealand public may not know that the New Zealand curriculum is completely interconnected from year 1 all the way through to year 13.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.TRACEY MARTIN: Talofa Mr Chairman. It was lovely to have the break actually because I needed to go to get a prop. As I was saying before we went to the break another thing the public may not understand is that the New Zealand curriculum is an interlinking document from year 1 through to year 13. It goes forward in stages. You grow on your knowledge all the way from year 1 right through to level 3 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). If people are going to make the choice to place their children inside charter schools which can use whatever curriculum they like—as I mentioned in my second reading speech there is only a single page out of this world-recognised document that they need to use so if families make the choice to place their children inside a charter school profit-making facility then the families need to hope that if the children are placed in a primary charter school that charter school then has a secondary one right next door. If not there is a very good chance that those children will emerge from that profit-making charter school with its curriculum with no linkage to the rest of the New Zealand State school system—no linkage at all.Or what about the other way round? What happens if your children go along very nicely as many many many children in the country do to a State public school for their primary school years but then the family makes the choice to send the children to a charter school in their secondary years? There is a requirement under the contract for a charter school to provide qualifications up to NCEA level 2 or its equivalent. There is no definition of “equivalent” inside the bill but I am sure we can trust the contract to identify it so that the parents will be well informed—well informed—before they sign their children by choice into a school about which at this stage there are a whole lot of things they have not been told.I now want to address the fact that the funding for the schools has taken away funding from successful programmes. I want to quote from the report on Te Kotahitanga put out by Victoria University. This is a quote that I think is very important because these schools are the answer apparently for Māoridom and Pasifika. I would like to extend an invitation to Mr Simon O’Connor and anybody in his community who would like to come with me and visit Mahurangi College and those from the Kiribati community in central Auckland—more than happy to work to create relationships between two State schools to actually lift the achievement of our Kiribati citizens. But this is from the report: “Whānau reported that their children felt appreciated as Māori in school and were more positive about school than they themselves had been. Parents teachers facilitators principals and other school leaders reported improvements in student attendance participation motivation and engagement … In terms of real numbers there is an average increase in the Y11 Māori student enrolment of approximately 250% from 2005 to 2008 at Te Kotahitanga schools.”But we chose not to roll that out as a nation. Just 10 days ago the decision was made not to roll this out and actually make this training compulsory inside every mainstream school to lift the achievement of our Māori and our Pasifika students. Instead we chose as a nation to wash our hands of the Māori and Pasifika children inside our mainstream schools and to put money into private businesses. That is the decision that is being made here tonight. The fact that the Government members cannot stand and argue for this legislation speaks volumes. The only argument they have had is “Why not?”.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I moveThat the question be now put.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I would like to start by taking a slightly different tack than other members on this side have taken and that isactually to quote Dr Don Brash. In parts I am going to quote him favourably which is a little bit concerning. But why I want to quote Dr Don Brash is that in 2011 he came to Palmerston North he had a look at one of our schools and then he went back to Wellington and he gave a speech. Actually most of the speech was a load of old rot because it was about his privatisation agenda for schools but he referred to Tū Toa school in Palmerston North. Before he got on to Tū Toa he was talking about the Swedish free schools and he waxed lyrical about the number of free schools that developed after the legislation was changed to allow them. He talked about how popular they were and how many of them there were. Interestingly he did not talk about the metrics around educational success and educational outcome; he was talking more about the politics of how popular they were.But he then went on to say this: “Such schools have already proven they can work in New Zealand.” He cited Tū Toa in Palmerston North which is “operated as a charitable trust though funded by government [and] has since 2005 been taking on Māori children written off by the state system.” Those are Don Brash’s words not mine. “The school emphasises Māori culture sports and academic excellence and the results are impressive. Not only are those who were previously failing school now going onto tertiary education but in 2009 this school of just 30 students won the National Secondary Schools Netball Championships.”So what is Tū Toa? Well Tū Toa is an education initiative based at Massey University. There are currently 103 students there and it is a joint initiative between the Tū Toa Charitable Trust Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and the Ministry of Education. Are we seeing some familiar things here? It is run by a charitable trust. It is a partnership with the Ministry of Education. It is focused on sport. To get in there you have actually got to have an interest in sport you have to take up a sport—[Interruption] It is based in Palmerston North at Massey University. The curriculum delivery is multimodal. It works in partnership with The Correspondence School providing direct resources in areas such as chemistry English health and physical education information and communications technology mathematics Te Reo Māori Te Reo Rangatira Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource and Gateway delivery. That is all done by personnel at Tū Toa. It is a blend of text online and face-to-face learning. “All students have individualised plans that reflect their broad career aspirations and needs. Individual plans assist in maintaining a positive blend between students’ academic and sporting career pathways. Students individual plans are reviewed three weekly to ensure they are ‘living documents’ focused on students’ short medium and long term outcomes.” That all sounds like exactly what this charter schools programme is supposed to be about.That is why I would like Nikki Kaye to get up and tell the Committee what the dickens we need this legislation for. It is already happening in New Zealand. Our education system is already flexible enough. What is it about Tū Toa that Nikki Kaye does not like? What is it that Tū Toa is not producing right now that means we need to change the legislation so that we can bring in Don Brash’s and—Grant Robertson: Nothing. She just said: “Nothing.”IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Nikki Kaye just said “Nothing”. We do not need to change the legislation because we have already got exactly what this legislation purports to be about. So here we have got to the heart of the argument. There is absolutely no need for this legislation unless the Government wants to implement the rest of the substance of Don Brash’s speech on that day which was about his agenda to privatise the education system and to have schools that take public money taxpayers’ money to make a profit for businesses. That is the only thing that the Tū Toa model does not do but this legislation will allow.So I want to hear what it is that the Government is trying to achieve. What is it that our education system does not already deliver? What options are not already there? If we have Tū Toa and examples like it all around the country what is it that this legislation is trying to achieve? In Don Brash’s own words we already have the model in New Zealand. It is already there. In New Zealand we have a flexible system one of the most flexible education systems. Tū Toa does teach to the curriculum. That is not a problem. Tū Toa does teach to the curriculum. Maybe that is the problem with it.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Thank you Mr Chairman—Hon Member: The best speech coming up in 50 years.Dr DAVID CLARK: —and thank you to the gentleman opposite for suggesting that this might be the best speech in 50 years. Talofa lava Mr Chair. Can I first start out by complimenting Mr Lees-Galloway who has just sat down on his sartorial elegance. I have been admiring that shirt all day.This debate on the Education Amendment Bill is becoming more and more exciting and I think it is fair to say that we on this side of the Chamber feel very passionately about this issue. It is an issue that is close to Labour’s heart because we believe in having a good local school for everybody. We believe that everybody should have a world-class education at their local school. It is something that cuts to the core of Labour’s values. I want to—Hon Member: What is it?Dr DAVID CLARK: The members opposite ask “What is that?”. For their information I wish to cover some of my experiences during a recent opportunity that I had to be overseas where I did go and look at charter schools and where I talked to people who are proponents of charter schools and got their view on what the strengths and weaknesses of charter schools are.I think it is important that we are having an educated debate and I know that several of my colleagues wish to contribute further. I know Nanaia Mahuta got only 5 minutes and was just getting into her speech earlier. I know that several colleagues are very keen to have some more say because this is a huge change. This is one of the biggest changes in our education system in decades. This is incredibly significant to us and to New Zealand. I want to start by saying that Labour will not agree to charter schools. We do not agree with the bill. We believe that this is a demolition bill on our education system.Can I start by referring to a colleague of mine on this recent exchange who is from Finland. She has studied the Finnish system of education which continues to enjoy the highest Programme for International Student Assessment scores year after year after year in terms of international rankings. She came on this exchange with several copies of books about it that were published in Finland because everywhere she goes people ask her about the secrets of the Finnish education sector’s success. That is frequently asked.The people from Finland say that there are several things that contribute to their education sector’s success. For starters they respect their teaching profession. It is held in huge esteem. It is actually harder to become a teacher in Finland than it is to become a doctor or a lawyer. There is more competition to enter those courses to become a teacher in Finland than there is to become a lawyer or a doctor. That tells you in what esteem Finland holds its education system. Every teacher in its system is educated to Master’s level for the compulsory sector—to Master’s level—and it is looking at now extending that to early childhood education also where a Bachelor’s degree is the current minimum.One of the other big factors in it that they point to is that they have no private schools. Within the Finnish system it explicitly bans any private schooling whatsoever.So for Finland part of the secret of the most successful education system in the world is that it requires every student to be able to access the best education at their local school. I think this is really significant.These other points are also incredibly relevant. I think we do need to be putting resources towards educating our teachers better and giving them the opportunities to continue to upskill. I do not think anybody in this Chamber would disagree with the need to do that.Darien Fenton: But they’ve cut them.Dr DAVID CLARK: Well my colleague points out that the Government has cut funding in this area and that might speak to where the real sentiment lies on the other side of the Chamber. But I think that in principle people would agree that educating our teachers properly and giving them opportunities for learning is incredibly important. We would all agree that we need to hold our teachers in high esteem.Let us not forget that the New Zealand Programme for International Student Assessment scores are actually the fourth-best in the world. We are consistently in the top 10 in the developed world despite putting I do not know about the 23rd most money in the OECD—is it; somebody might tell me perhaps the Minister in the chair—into the system roughly. It is something like that. We get the fourth-best results back. Perhaps the Minister in the chair will correct me shortly if I am wrong.So we know that we get good education out of our system. We know that there are some students who face challenges but we know that those systems that are more successful than ours do not look to privatise education as the solution. We know that those—PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 221 in the name of Chris Hipkins to Part 1 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes41New Zealand Labour 33; New Zealand First 7; United Future 1.Noes76New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 241 in the name of Chris Hipkins to insert new clause 30A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes54New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 236 in the name of Metiria Turei to new section 158A in clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Chris Hipkins has an amendment to the definition of “body” in new section 158A in clause 31. This amendment which is set out on Supplementary Order Paper 242 is out of order because it is inconsistent with the previous decision just made.The question was put that the remaining amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 236 in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 222 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes62New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 224 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes62New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 227 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 229 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 240 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 226 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 223 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 31 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes62New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 228 in the name of Chris Hipkins to clause 34 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes62New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1.Noes57New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Transitional provisions and consequential amendmentsCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): TheJournals of the House will record that after little more than 2 hours of debate on the Education Amendment Bill National has just voted to dismantle some of the fundamental principles on which our State education is based: the principle that those in front of children should be qualified and registered the principle that all schools in New Zealand should teach to the New Zealand curriculum and the principle that there should be transparency around the way our education system operates. Part 2 of this bill deals with the last of the issues that I have just mentioned—the issue around transparency. I know that my colleagues are going to talk about clause 42 which deals with the Official Information Act. I want to deal with clause 43 which deals with the amendments to the Ombudsmen Act.The original bill as drafted by supposedly Hekia Parata—because the bill is in her name—but in reality by John Banks would have exempted charter schools from the Ombudsmen Act altogether. There would have been no oversight from the Ombudsman. With a very sensible amendment—I think it was actually an amendment put forward by Tracey Martin from New Zealand First—there was agreement at the Education and Science Committee to extend the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman to cover decisions made by charter schools in so far as they relate to standing down suspension and expulsion under the Education Act. That is the only jurisdiction that the Ombudsman will have in so far as charter schools are concerned. That is absolutely outrageous. These schools will have enormous enormous control over the lives of young people in New Zealand. They will be entrusted with a great responsibility and yet one of the fundamental institutions that we rely on in our democratic system the Ombudsman will not have jurisdiction.When this issue was raised at the select committee and the officials were questioned as to why the Ombudsmen Act should not apply to charter schools they talked about the fact that the Education Review Office would review charter schools. Then they talked about the fact that the Secretary for Education would have oversight. Yet we know—from the votes that we have just taken in this House—that we have removed the power for the Secretary for Education to intervene even when they know that there are serious problems existing within a charter school. I put forward an amendment that would have given the Secretary for Education the power to intervene in cases where there were serious problems within a charter school and this Government voted it down. It voted it down without one member of the National Party justifying why it did that.Darien Fenton: With their heads down.CHRIS HIPKINS: Their heads are down and they do not want to hear about this.Hon Trevor Mallard: What are they looking at?CHRIS HIPKINS: I do not know what they are looking at. They are very intent on something over there.Actually there is a principle here with regard to the Ombudsmen Act because the Ombudsman has played a very very important role in the very recent history of New Zealand in dealing with a very serious education matter that was not picked up by the Education Review Office and that was not dealt with by the Ministry of Education and that was a case of systemic bullying within an existing school in our State school system. It took an investigation by the Ombudsman to shed light on those very serious matters. Under this bill under this clause 43 the Ombudsman will not have the power to do that in relation to charter schools. That is wrong. All of the agencies whose job it is to deal with education issues failed to pick up those concerns and failed to deal with them properly. It was the Ombudsman who stepped in and delivered what can be described only as quite a scathing report with regard to bullying at a particular State secondary school and that finally dealt with the issue. That was an enormous relief to all of the parents the students and all of the others who were involved in that matter. It shed light on a situation that had gone on for far too long and that had to be dealt with. If that were to happen in one of these charter schools there would be no protection. There would be no protection for those students for the teachers who work there or for others involved and that is just so wrong.The Ombudsman deals with a lot more than the Official Information Act and concerns relating to stand-downs and suspensions. What is the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman? The jurisdiction of the Ombudsman the purpose of having the Ombudsman is to ensure that New Zealand citizens are treated fairly by their Government. Why should charter schools be exempt from that? These are schools thatare going to deal with New Zealand children. They are effectively going to have custody of New Zealand children for the time that they are at school and yet this Government is washing its hands of the State’s responsibility to make sure that they are adequately cared for. One of the safeguards that we have now in addition to the Education Review Office and all of the agencies that deal with education specifically is the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has jurisdiction over all matters relating to Government decision-making to make sure that New Zealanders are treated fairly by their Government to make sure that children and students in our schools are treated fairly and to make sure that their welfare that their health and that their well-being is protected by the Government and by Government decision-making. This very clause—clause 43 of this bill—exempts charter schools from all of those safeguards and that is totally and utterly wrong.Charter schools should not be exempt from the accountability mechanisms and the safeguards and protections that State schools have. The Government has already voted down amendments that would have meant—Hon Trevor Mallard: Or even private schools.CHRIS HIPKINS: Even private schools. That is right. Private schools are subject to them so why should charter schools not be subject to them as well? It is just so wrong on so many levels. The Government has voted down measures that we in the Labour Opposition have put forward which would protect the welfare of young people attending charter schools and would make sure that they are taught by people who are qualified for the job that they are there to do. The Government voted those down. The amendments that I put forward that would provide further safeguards around making sure that these charter schools are subject to the appropriate levels of accountability have been voted down by this Government and that is wrong.I know that my colleagues are going to talk a lot more about the Official Information Act requirements in this bill around clause 42. I am sure they have got plenty of things they want to say about that in addition to the other consequential amendments that this part makes which range over quite a wide range of legislation including the Legislation Act; Accident Compensation Act; Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act; Health Act; Immigration Act; Income Tax Act; Local Government (Rating) Act; and Official Information Act. But I want to talk about the Official Information Act very briefly and I know that my colleagues will pick this up.This amendment in clause 42 of this bill exempts charter schools from the Official Information Act. It means that they are not going to be subject to public scrutiny. They are going to be charged with caring for the health and welfare of young New Zealanders and they are not going to be subject to the accountability that every State school is subject to. They are going to receive the same levels of funding as every State school in the country and yet we are not going to have information about how they operate. Why is the Government doing that? The Government is doing that for one clear reason: it does not want people to know how much these charter schools are taking out of the education system in the form of profits. Charter schools will be allowed to make a profit and if they were subject to the Official Information Act we would know how much profit they make. This amendment means that we will not know that. The New Zealand taxpayers who pay for these schools will not know that.There are a whole lot of other decisions that charter schools will make regarding the health and welfare of our students that should be subject to the transparency and accountability that State schools are. When it comes to student achievement information—a very very controversial issue at the moment with regard to data collected by schools in relation to national standards and so forth—the principles that apply to State schools around making that information available under the OfficialInformation Act will not apply to charter schools. Charter schools will be exempt from some of the bureaucratic requirements that the Government has set on State schools—that this National Government has imposed on State schools. There will be two levels of accountability in this education system: one level of accountability for the vast bulk of schools which are public schools and which are accountable to the public as they should be and a whole other level of accountability a much lesser level of accountability for charter schools which will be profit-making institutions which will not have elected boards of trustees which will not be subject to the Ombudsmen Act or the Official Information Act and which will not have all of the safeguards and protections that we as a Parliament put in place to protect the welfare the health and the educational achievement of the students in our schools.This particular set of amendments is wrong on so many levels. New Zealand students deserve better. This Government should be hanging its head in shame about the fact that with this bill it is removing the safeguards that protect our young people. These amendments are wrong. I know that my colleagues are going to have a lot to say about them and we will be strenuously opposing them.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): I want to pick up where my colleague Chris Hipkins left off looking at clause 42 of this Education Amendment Bill. Let us be absolutely clear what clause 42 does. It takes away the rights of New Zealanders to find out what is going on in a charter school via the Official Information Act. It says that people who operate charter schools will not have to be subject to that Act. I want to be very specific about who the people are who should care about that. They are the parents of the children who end up at those schools because they will not have the same rights as parents of children at other schools. I have been dealing—Dr Cam Calder: Why not?GRANT ROBERTSON: Because they will not have. Dr Calder says “Why not?”. He does not even know. He says “Why not?” and that is what we want to know Dr Calder. That is the very thing we want to know. Why should those parents not have that right? At the moment John Banks has defended this by saying that it is all right because the Secretary for Education can find out what is going on in a charter school. So it is OK for the Secretary for Education to be able to ask questions about what is happening in a school but it is not OK for the parents of the children who attend that school. That is wrong. It undermines the fundamental nature of the relationship between parents and the schools to which they entrust their children. That is being undermined by this approach from National.When the Ombudsmen were asked to comment on this proposal that these schools not be subject to the Official Information Act the Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem said that these proposals were unconstitutional and catastrophic—unconstitutional and catastrophic. Beverley Wakem is a very good Ombudsman and she is not a person who is prone to exaggeration or going over the top.Hon Trevor Mallard: She is an understater.GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed. She has had to go to the Government to try to get money out of it so that her office can actually operate properly. We did get some advance on that but still there are thousands of complaints backlogged. She came to the Education and Science Committee and said that the proposal was unconstitutional. Once again after having been here through urgency just over a week ago where more and more unconstitutional provisions were put forward where there were regulatory impact statements with everything blacked out where we did not have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet and where we were not able to access the pieces of legislation until the moment they arrived here we are back here again with another provision clause 42 which is being described by the Ombudsman as unconstitutional.I want members of Parliament and those watching and listening tonight to think about that for a minute. The Government has been told by the person who is charged on behalf of all New Zealand citizens with upholding our openness and transparency within the Government that this provision is unconstitutional and the Government presses ahead with it anyway. Modifications were made around access to the Ombudsmen but not around the Official Information Act. That I believe is one of the most shameful things about this bill. We can argue about the ideological drive that is behind it sure but once upon a time the National Party stood for some kind of transparency. It actually passed the Official Information Act in 1982. But today it comes to this Chamber and it says to some parents: “You don’t get to access that.” Well what kind of transparency is that? What kind of accountability is that?It is not only for the parents but also for everybody else because these charter schools will be getting large amounts of public money. John Banks’ party is supposedly called the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—except Mr Banks does not want those consumers and taxpayers to know about what is happening in his precious ideological experiment that is charter schools. Paul Goldsmith wrote the biography of John Banks. Perhaps he could get up to take a call to justify to this Committee today why it is that somebody who purports to represent the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers is denying the rights of New Zealanders to actually see what these institutions are doing.Paul Goldsmith: You’re just jealous I never wrote a book about you that’s all.GRANT ROBERTSON: What was that? Oh no. Mr Goldsmith sits there but he is not prepared to stand up to take a call to actually justify to this Parliament why the Official Information Act should not apply. As I said we can argue about the merits of charter schools but what on earth is the argument to stop New Zealanders being able to follow where their taxpayer money goes? I thought that is what people on the other side of the House purported to stand for—transparency—and that we would know that taxpayer money is used well. We constantly hear from the National side of the Chamber that New Zealanders need to know what their taxpayer money is being spent on and that it cannot be wasted. But tonight they come to the Chamber with clause 42 of this bill and say to New Zealanders: “You don’t deserve to know what is happening in these charter schools. These charter schools will be looked after by us. Trust us. There is nothing to see here.” Well I agree with my colleague Chris Hipkins. The reason for that is that National does not want New Zealanders to know. It does not want New Zealanders to know about just how much money is going in and just how much profit is being extracted off the backs of New Zealand children. It does not want New Zealanders to know about what is going on when you have got unqualified teachers in front of a classroom of students.That should be even more reason to allow the Official Information Act to apply to these charter schools because this is an experiment. It is a fundamental change to New Zealand’s education system. Things will be being done completely differently.Hon Trevor Mallard: If they had nothing to hide—GRANT ROBERTSON: Well no that is one of Mr Banks’ favourite phrases Mr Mallard—“Nothing to fear nothing to hide.” That is what he told us about Kim Dotcom. Well the same thing should apply here to charter schools. If there is nothing to fear here New Zealanders deserve the opportunity to be able to make Official Information Act requests.Let us be clear. It does not mean that it is opening the door. We all know that the Official Information Act has a number of sections that allow material to be withheld if there is good reason for that. Judith Collins thinks that it is OK to withhold the name of someone who interviewed Jackie Blue. I do not think that that is justified but there areother issues that are justifiable. So it is not an open slather; what it is is a window for New Zealanders as to how their taxpayer dollars are being spent. And it is a very important function for parents to know what is happening in the school where their children go.I have just been dealing with an electorate case where a parent has had a significant issue with their school over the treatment of a child with special needs and they used the Official Information Act to ensure that they could find out information that was relevant to the case for their child. There was no other way we would have been able to find that information out for that parent. The only way we could do that was under the Official Information Act and that is being denied to the parents of the children who are in these schools.Clause 42 is actually about much more than charter schools. Clause 42 is about a fundamental closing off of an aspect of our democracy. When the Chief Ombudsman comes to Parliament and says that this is an unconstitutional provision that will have potentially catastrophic consequences the Government should be listening and it has failed. Chris Hipkins mentioned earlier on the case where the systemic bullying at Hutt Valley High School was uncovered only because the Ombudsman was able to be involved. Having clause 43 which narrowly defines the issues that the Ombudsman can be involved in is also unacceptable. It does not provide parents with the recourse that they should be able to expect to be provided. It does not provide communities with the ability to actually take cases and know that there will be an independent watchdog that will cast some light on what is going on in there.This entire process of the implementation of these charter schools goes against everything that the New Zealand public education system has stood for—qualified teachers every child getting the same opportunities and parents having confidence. This bill should not pass.COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura): We will have to push back at some of the false statements that have been claimed in this debate on the Education Amendment Bill.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I just want to seek an assurance that notes being written by officials are not being handed to a backbench member of Parliament. That is a gross breach of the understandings of the rights of the officials to sit in the Chamber. Their notes are for only the Minister in the chair and it appears that they have been supplied to a backbench member. If that is the case they are not allowed in the Chamber.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I think the member is quite right that that is a practice that is not accepted in the Chamber but I have no evidence that they have—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. Notes can appear from all directions.Hon Trevor Mallard: I saw it being carried.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): By whom?Hon Trevor Mallard: It was brought across by a messenger and then to the member.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): From whom?Hon Michael Woodhouse: I delivered the note.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member will continue. We will observe—Hon Trevor Mallard: It was brought from the Minister to him and it was written by an official.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Colin King.COLIN KING: The point I wish to push back at is around the claims the Ombudsman made about things being all nasty and damaging. It was quite interesting when we drew a comparison that private schools are not actually subject to the Official Information Act. Early childhood education providers are not subject to the OfficialInformation Act and nor are private training institutions. So what we are hearing from the other side is a massive exaggeration.When the Ombudsman did come and talk to us the analogy that the Ombudsman used was private prisons. What we are talking about here is not restraining and holding people inside an institution; we are actually providing them with choice. So those statements and the scaremongering that is coming from the other side are quite baseless. There are precedents for other institutions that are not accountable to the Official Information Act.Another point that I want to just clarify is around the rules of the Education Act 1989. These partnership schools are accountable to those rules around having processes. They are accountable to the Education Review Office. There are a whole number of processes that will empower parents and the way the contract is constructed means they will need to be able to convince the Minister of Education and the ministry that the person who is not a registered teacher has outstanding skills and qualities. So I am greatly heartened by the prospect of this bill and what it will contribute to the educational potential of those people who need that uplifting experience of success and I support this bill.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I decided to sit down and let the member finish his speech but I do want to reiterate the point that I made previously. We have seen notes repeatedly being written by officials and then being directed to Colin King in this case. He had at least two of them. Mr Chairman I would like a ruling from you. First of all I would like confirmation from Mr King that that was the case or that was not the case and a ruling from you as to the fact that that is inappropriate.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Certainly the member is quite correct in that the officials are the Minister’s advisers and quite at liberty to pass information and notes backwards and forwards to speak for them. It is outside the practice of the Committee to have them passed beyond the Minister. My back is to them so I cannot see what has happened but there is no rule about the Minister communicating notes to members.Hon Trevor Mallard: But you can’t give them their notes.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member I guess is right but I am not watching that aspect so I am just affirming that the direct route of notes from Ministers to members is beyond the practice of this Committee. I will affirm that.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I will not labour this too long but I think there is an important principle around the debate that occurs within the Committee that is at stake here. Officials are here to advise the Minister in the chair so that the Minister can participate in the debate. If there are points being raised by the Opposition in the course of this debate that the officials disagree with and therefore the Government disagrees with then it should be the Minister who raises those concerns as part of the debate. That is the reason we have a Minister who sits in the chair. For the Minister to pass those on to another—Hon Trevor Mallard: Special rights.CHRIS HIPKINS: The Minister has special rights effectively. For the Minister to then pass that advice on to another member of Parliament who is not a Minister of the Crown and is not accountable for the bill that is currently before the Committee would be quite a violation of the privileged position that the Minister occupies in that role. So it is not a criticism of the officials; it is in fact a criticism of the practice of the Minister of Education in this case who is abusing the position that she holds as the person who is in charge of this bill who has access to additional advice and who has special rights to participate in the debate. She is always guaranteed a call effectively to be able toparticipate in the debate. If she disagrees with what we are saying then the Minister can participate in the debate and put that right.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Since the matter has been raised I have been doing some reading and the rules governing the admission of officials into the Chamber are somewhat subjective OK? So we could have a debate about exactly what they mean. I think I have made a ruling that notes will not be passed directly from the Minister’s officials to members. That is where I am going to leave it. We have made that bit clear and as I say there are some somewhat subjective rulings that could be taken from the journal that I have just read. But I have now made a ruling and let us be happy with the ruling.Hon Trevor Mallard: No no.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Yes yes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. If you have made a ruling and you do not wish to hear anything more well then that is one thing but I was going to raise just one point if I may.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will hear the member.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Just listening to you you said that you did not see what factually occurred. My question to you is whether it is the responsibility of the Chairman to ensure that notes are not passed to backbenchers and if it is not the responsibility of the Chairman then whose responsibility is it?The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I guess we are almost dancing on a pinhead here about that. It could have been argued before I made the ruling that what happened was acceptable from the notes. I have now made it quite clear. We will administer the Committee in accordance with the ruling I have made from this point on all right?TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): You snooze you lose! Just a small comment before I actually address my comments to clause 40C of the Education Amendment Bill—just to move away from clause 42 to clause 40C. I think it is a shame that members of the Education and Science Committee would need anybody to pass them any notes on a bill of such importance to this country. I think that is a shame.But I want to actually address my comments to clause 40C which is the amendment to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. I think there will be many in the public out there wondering what on earth the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995 has got to do with charter schools. Actually it is nothing. But it is in the bill. Clause 40C(2) states: “In Schedule 1A item relating to the Ministry of Education replace ‘student information’ with ‘information’.” The reason for that just so that the parents of children under the age of 6 are aware of what this is going to do is around the Better Public Services target that by 2016 98 percent of children starting school will have participated in quality early childhood education. No argument with that. It is a great target.However what this means—and this needs to change—is that they are removing the word “student” from the association with the ministry passing on information because a child cannot be a student under this legislation until they are enrolled in school into the compulsory sector of school. But if you want to allocate a National Student Number to track a child under the age of 6 have that tracking place that information with the Ministry of Education and then have access to it you need to no longer refer to it as “student information”; you need to refer to it as “information” across the board.“The Early Learning Information … programme” is being developed and implemented “using the National Student Number … as a unique education identifier to increase the quality and volume of individual learner information on early childhood education … participation.” This is on the ministry’s website. There is a question here: “Do I have to do anything to get my child a National Student Number?”. No. “Can Ichoose not to have a National Student Number allocated to my child …?”. No you cannot. You cannot opt out. You cannot not have your child tracked from however young they are—I think it might be 1 or 2 years old. Once they are inside an early childhood education facility they are going to start having a National Student Number allocated to them.But even more than that how do you find out and how do you track the children who are not in early childhood education so that you can encourage them to go into early childhood education? Well you use the Ministry of Social Development. Through the beneficiary records of all those people who find themselves in circumstances that require the State’s support you allocate them a National Student Number. Then because you know they are a beneficiary you tie in that Public Service target with a bit of a disincentive to not put your child through early childhood education. There is no better way to meet your Public Service target of 98 percent of early childhood education. Do not bother educating the public of New Zealand that it is a good idea and that there is high-quality early childhood education and that we are going to support your children in it. Let us actually pick up through the tracking of all our children—all our children—through beneficiary numbers and through the information from the Ministry of Social Development and let us encourage you possibly through penalising you to put your children in early childhood education because the State knows best. I am not against early childhood education but I find it a very interesting thing that a Government that argued and argued and argued using the phrase “nanny State” again and again and again is now tracking every single child in this country in every method possible. This is national tracking of every single human being within a generation and this is part of this bill. New Zealand might like to know that.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you very much and I—Jacinda Ardern: It’s always the boys.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It has been a long time since I have been called a boy I think it is fair to say—[Interruption] No no by my colleague who suggested that you tended to pick us Mr Chairman. I want to talk in particular about the amendment in the Education Amendment Bill that provides the exclusion for these organisations these partnership schools from the Official Information Act. I want to explain to members because from my colleague Megan Woods I understand that the Education and Science Committee could well have been misled by officials as to the workings of the Official Information Act. It is an area with which I as a Minister was quite familiar and I have had discussions subsequent to being a Minister on the application of the Act with David McGee and with Beverley Wakem. The point that I do want to make is that where there is a contractual arrangement with for example an independent school or with any early childhood centre and the money is flowing from the Government to that organisation as a result of that what it means is that the information that shows that the organisation is fulfilling its end of the contract is subject to the Official Information Act notwithstanding the fact that that organisation is not a State organisation or a local authority in its own right. So it is a matter of the ability to track that.The question I have is a relatively simple question for the Minister in the chair the Minister of Education and is about the information that sits within the private schools in my electorate—or the independent schools as they prefer to be called. The information is sitting in those schools and is available to the Government because it is something that follows the contractual arrangement and it is something that the Ombudsman has made clear is available to members of the public using that Act and especially to parents using that Act—they have the right to that information if it is an independent school. How can it be right that what we are doing within clause 42 of thisbill is an amendment that makes it the same as—I sort of hate to use the parallel—the Parliamentary Service and the door does not get opened at all? That is the effect—that is the absolute effect—of this. It puts us with—I do not know anything about “mortality review committees” and—Andrew Little: Sounds pretty scary.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it does and there could well be some good reasons for that information.Grant Robertson: If they’re after the Parliamentary Service.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I know that it is arguable that there are good reasons for the Parliamentary Service as well for some aspects of it. But I cannot see an argument that makes it right that information that is available as a result of a contractual arrangement with an independent school should not be available as a result of the same sort of contractual arrangement with one of these partnership schools. That is the effect of clause 42.I am going to be really interested in the Minister’s response to this. I know that it is a fine point of law and it is a point of law that has been tested only rarely by the Ombudsman in his—in this particular case—application as to the Official Information Act. But it is important because one of the things that I think is vital is that the parents—accepting with a heavy heart that we are going to end up with this sort of school—of children at that school should not have lesser rights to get information from that school than the parents at the State schools.Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I would like to take a call on the theme of transparency and accountability which underlies the concerns that members of the Opposition have been expressing tonight in respect of Part 2 of the Education Amendment Bill.I will address first the application of the Official Information Act and reassure the Hon Trevor Mallard that in fact contracts will be negotiated between the Government and partnership kura. All of the information that is reported under that contract and held by the Ministry of Education will be subject to the Official Information Act because we are most concerned to ensure accountability.In fact one of the key characteristics of these schools is that they are going to be even more transparent because we are going to have a clear performance framework we are going to set educational milestones and requirements and we are going to have targets that must be met. One of the key features of these partnership kura is that they will be able to be closed and they will be closed—and how will we know when that is the case? Because we will have extremely transparent contracts that set out the educational results that will be required.Chris Hipkins: What nonsense.Hon HEKIA PARATA: This is not nonsense because actually unlike the Opposition we fundamentally understand that the point of going to school is to get an education—get an education have learning caused by teachers be able to determine whether that has occurred or not raise achievement secure qualifications and step out into a stronger life than might otherwise be the case. So transparency and accountability are very important to us—Chris Hipkins: Rubbish.Hon HEKIA PARATA: —and are integral to this particular model. Well I am sorry that the member is offended by fact but that is the fact. We will be ensuring that this transparency does in fact operate and that the Official Information Act will apply to information that is pertinent to the contract.I turn now to the application of the Ombudsmen Act which is exercising my colleagues as much and rightly so. We do want parents to be assured about the studentswhom they choose to enrol in these schools—there will be no compulsion on any parent or any student—so the Ombudsmen Act will apply to the school in respect of discipline. The reason why I am confident that parents will be able to know what is going on is that these schools will also be required to put in place an independent process. That process will ensure that these schools recognise the importance of independent review of decision making for students and it ensures the creation of a procedure that is fit for purpose and targeted towards meeting the needs of learners reflecting the particular characteristics of the schools and addressing issues that do not involve the exercise of disciplinary powers such as issues of student safety and educational performance. You will recall that—Chris Hipkins: Which clause? Which clause?Hon HEKIA PARATA: These apply to Part 2 clause 43; Part 1 new section 158D(3)(fa) in clause 31; Part 1 new section 158DA in clause 31—Hon Trevor Mallard: Wrong part. She’s reading out the wrong part.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am reading it out to be absolutely technically clear so that members themselves will be able to go there and verify that this Government is absolutely committed to this model which has the features of transparency of accountability—Jacinda Ardern: It’s excluded.Hon HEKIA PARATA: —and of parents being able to get reports.Jacinda Ardern: Absolutely excluded.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Well I wonder at the member’s frustration when we have made it very very clear that contracts with the Government will provide for reporting and will apply to the Ministry of Education and therefore any parent will be able to apply for that. Therefore we are assuring parents that they have that transparency and that accountability—Jacinda Ardern: How are they going to if it’s a secret contract?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Well it is going to be publicly available just as charters are publicly available and just as the member may visit early childhood education facilities 5300 of them to which the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act do not apply. Thank you very much.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I want to I think apologise to the Minister of Education and to the Committee for not being clear in the point that I was trying to make before. I think no one is denying the fact that the information that is supplied to the Secretary for Education and the Ministry of Education is available under the Official Information Act. Of course it is available. But what is not available and what is being excluded by this Education Amendment Bill is the information that sits within the school the information that is used in order to develop the reports—in order to develop the reports—that the school then uses to pass that information on to the ministry. I am just—Dr Rajen Prasad: She’s not listening.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it is a little bit rough after the Minister has—I do not know whether it was deliberately or accidentally—misinterpreted the point that I was making. There is information that is held by the ministry and of course that is available. There is information that is held by the school and that is being excluded by this legislation. If it was in an independent school and it was collected in order to make a report for the ministry it would be available. It is available under the Official Information Act because it is part of the information developed to fulfil a contractual arrangement with the Crown. If it was in an integrated school it would be available. If it was in an early childhood education centre it would be available. But what we appear to be doing here is specifically excluding—and this is only in clause 42—theinformation that would be available from every other part of the education system with an argument around universities. I am not absolutely certain about universities. But in the other parts in the directly contracting parts of the system that information would be available.I just want to see whether I can get a nod or a wink from the Minister as to whether she understands. And I do not mind if one of those green notes comes up. I noted earlier that when the Minister was speaking the official was holding her head in her hands.Hon Hekia Parata: Oh what a dreamer!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it was a fact—it was a fact.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Could I just say to the Minister that you have a live microphone and it is out of order for a Minister to interject. You can take the call when the time comes.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: But you can call me Trevor. It is probably out of order to call me Trevor like that too but that is a minor point. I am trying to get some sort of reaction from the Minister as to whether she understands the difference between the information held by the Secretary for Education and the Ministry of Education and the information held within schools. Does she understand the difference? She does. And does she understand that the effect of this is to keep ministry information available but to exclude the information held within the school being made available to the parents of that school if the school chooses not to give it? I just want to ask again: what possible right what reason can the Minister have to exclude the rights of parents to have the information about a partnership school that they can have about an independent school? What possible reason?In an integrated school or in an early childhood education centre a parent can have the information that is collected for the purpose of developing a report for the Secretary for Education even if it is not in the report. It does not have to be in the report. That is available under the Official Information Act under the rulings of the Ombudsman. No one here—and I can see all National members have now got their heads down. I cannot think of a single decent explanation as to why they want to deny the parents of the children—METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Tēnā koe e te Whare. I want to just follow on from Mr Mallard’s point because I think he raised some real concerns. It was great to hear in a bit more detail for the public’s knowledge the analysis as to how the impact of the provision in the Education Amendment Bill that prevents the Official Information Act from applying to charter schools really does play out. What I think I heard the Minister of Education say in her response was that in effect these charter schools will be able to establish for themselves the nature of their reporting that they will set their own process and procedures—Grant Robertson: No way.METIRIA TUREI: Well the Minister might want to take a call later to clarify it but she did say that they will decide essentially what and how they report on matters—[Interruption] That is right the confirmation is coming from this side of the Chamber. They will decide what and how they report. Any information that they choose not to report to the Ministry of Education is information that they will hold themselves and therefore it will not be open to any public scrutiny. The public are absolutely entitled to know what is happening with the money that is going to charter schools—what $19 million has been allocated in this Budget alone.Grant Robertson: Just the beginning.METIRIA TUREI: Just the beginning.So it is clear that not only does the Minister expect us to believe that the contracts that the ministry will have with these schools will be genuinely open and transparent—itcertainly has not been the case till now—but somehow we are expected to trust the cowboys who will be riding in to set up charter schools to make a private profit and to accept that they should be trusted with their own self-reporting and their own information and the holding of it. So it does beg the question—I agree with Mr Mallard—of why it is that this Government is so obsessed with hiding information about these charter schools. Why was it prepared to make this major constitutional breach that we heard about from Beverley Wakem in the Education and Science Committee of not having these entities which obtain public funding scrutinised through the Official Information Act? I think that the only real excuse that we can take out of this is that this Government wants to hide the financial information. Not only can it—Hon Trevor Mallard: Well no. I think they’re not confident about the results—I think they’re not confident about the results and they want to hide that too.METIRIA TUREI: Mr Mallard has another thesis. My thesis is that following on from John Banks and his obvious failures around disclosing financial information—Grant Robertson: Not good with transparency.METIRIA TUREI: —and transparency he is ensuring that these charter schools will not have to disclose financial information. Do not forget that these schools will be getting bulk funding in large part for their property and for other services. They will be getting money to provide for special-needs children but they will not be required to report if they choose not to on how that money is being used. That is just another example of that.John Banks himself has failed as we know. He cannot even fill out his own electoral finance forms accurately after standing for local government. This is a man who does not know how to fill out his own forms as required by the law. So you know he has an interest in keeping the information secret—does he not—on those donations that he received and the financial information that he received from his local government campaign.Chris Hipkins: That’s it. I’ve just got another 5-minute speech coming.METIRIA TUREI: Yes that is right and he is the only one who is in trouble for not filling out his own electoral and finance information forms accurately. He is the only one who has been held to account for trying to hide donations and financial information and he wants to make sure that charter schools have that same opportunity to keep their financial information secret just like he has been able to—well at least just like he has tried to do because of course John Banks was not quite as clever as the rest of the public and yes we have yet to see what the court thinks of this business.I think that is a major part of this deliberate intention to hide from the public gaze information that the school will hold about what it is doing. If that school does not report fully its financial information to the Government and Hekia Parata requires us to trust its contractual arrangements—well we have seen that fail before. Novopay might be one of those examples. We are expected to trust the contract but that just simply will not work. The schools can hide this financial information not make it available to the public not make it available to the parents of the kids who are affected by it and therefore will be able to hide the extent to which they are making a profit. I think that is where it comes down to too. At the end of the day this is only about setting up an institution that can suck money out of the public purse. That is the ultimate purpose behind this. There is no other—SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I moveThat the question be now put.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): My time has come. I will concede that I was not a member of the Education and Science Committee as was my fine colleague Megan Woods who I am sure will probably get a call after me but I did want to seek someclarification because anyone watching the debate at home may not be clear after the Minister of Education’s intervention as to whether exemptions apply for charter schools. It is a straight question for the Minister: are there exemptions for charter schools around the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act? I would really appreciate just a simple yes or no. Are there exemptions for charter schools from the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act?As this Education Amendment Bill currently reads in Part 2 of this bill there are two specific clauses that exempt charter schools. What the Minister stood up and explained to the Committee was that essentially if someone wants to seek information from a charter school they can go to the Ministry of Education. That might sound like a rational argument but what we are arguing is that all it will take is for the ministry to simply take a “don’t ask don’t tell” approach and not seek information from a charter school for there to be no information available to anyone because you cannot go to the school itself and seek that information.Why does that matter? It matters because we have seen examples of where the ministry has behaved in such a way as to try to avoid having to expose information by taking on tactics like “don’t ask don’t tell”. Probably the most recent example has been in Christchurch. In Christchurch there were attempts to try to get information out of the ministry about school closures. The ministry told Christchurch City Council when information was requested of it to deny that it held information that it had. Behaviour like that from a ministry suggests to me that that is only one step removed from telling a charter school: “Don’t give us any information. Don’t tell us. We might have to provide it to the public. You just hold on to it”—Hon Trevor Mallard: Or a parent.JACINDA ARDERN: —or a parent. “You hold on to it because you’ve got an exemption. You have an exemption from the law so don’t give it to us.” The example we saw out of Christchurch tells us that that is entirely possible from the kind of track record that we have unfortunately from the ministry currently.I am not blaming the ministry. Who knows what kind of direction it is getting from the current leadership. Not only that but the ministry told the person who requested information from it to withdraw that request. It told them they might get the information faster that way and it repeatedly denied requests. That was from the ministry. How do we know that it will not manipulate the exemption that exists in this law as it applies to charter schools? Everything in the ministry’s track record tells me that it might indeed do just that.How do we know it did that? How do we know that all of that behaviour occurred? We know because it was investigated by the Ombudsman—because it was investigated by the Ombudsman. Exemption No. 2 in this bill means that not only would we not have uncovered that kind of behaviour but we would not have had the ability to have it investigated by the Ombudsman because of the exemption. It is quite clearly set out. The Ombudsman was clear in his summary conclusions on this issue. I quote from the report from the Ombudsman: “The Ministry’s responses to the Christchurch City Council were wrong.” On issue No. 2 the report stated: “The Ministry was wrong to advise two principals to withdraw their official information requests ...”. Finally on issue 3 the Ombudsman intended “to undertake an investigation into policy and practice of the Ministry of Education regarding …” generally the way it had undertaken the school closures.We know that because of the important access that the Ombudsman had yet this bill exempts charter schools from that. If we were in a high trust situation where we felt there would be absolute transparency then perhaps there would not be that layer of concern but we are not in that environment. I am yet to hear from the Minister thejustification for why charter schools should have this kind of exemption applied to them. The only reason that I can find as to why we might have these kinds of exemptions is that the public should have good reason to question what is going to happen in these schools and good reason to be concerned about the way public money may be used in a school with unregistered teachers with chief executive officer - style principals and where we are starting to teach creationism. These are the schools where we should have absolute transparency even more so than we have in any other school because of how highly experimental they are.Dr CAM CALDER (National): I moveThat the question be now put.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am very happy to take a call on Part 2 of the Education Amendment Bill. Specifically I also want to address clauses 42 and 43 and to also make a comment and reiterate the question that my colleague Jacinda Ardern put to the Minister of Education around the need to take a call and clear up this ambiguity. I think it demonstrates the absolute worth of having a number of speeches on each part at the Committee stage because we are drawing out some problems perhaps in the Minister’s understanding of what it is that this bill does.The Minister stood up and gave a defence of transparency in this bill. I just want to read to you from the Ombudsman’s submission to the Education and Science Committee over the issue of the exclusion of the Official Information Act and the Ombudsmen Act. It said: “the Education Bill runs the risk of creating a state funded schooling regime which is shrouded in secrecy and is unaccountable. This is likely to hamper the ability of partnership schools to achieve their central goal of achieving better outcomes for students. Applying the Official Information Act and Ombudsmen Act to partnership schools will assist partnership schools in exercising their statutory functions enhance transparency and accountability bring New Zealand into line with international models and avoid the constitutional anomaly inherent in the current Bill.” So the Ombudsman certainly did not think the appropriate levels of transparency were in the bill.What we have a number of concerns about is the fact which a number of my colleagues have talked about of the justification that was given around private training establishments and early childhood education centres. My colleagues have covered that off. During the course of the select committee hearings and indeed in the Cabinet paper there were a couple of other justifications that were given for the exclusion of these Acts and for the presence of clauses 42 and 43. I just want to go through a couple of those justifications.The first of these was to avoid vexatious and costly complaints. Well already under the present legislation the right to refuse frivolous or vexatious requests exists. If the Ombudsman agrees that it is frivolous or vexatious then they simply say that the organisation does not have to respond. To say that you need to avoid it because it is costly is simply not good enough. As my colleagues have talked about this is about transparency and about one of the most important things that we do for our children and that is educate them. We need our parents to have access to that information and for it not to be excluded. We have yet to hear a justification that actually addresses the detail and head-on addresses the reason why it is that the members opposite think it is OK that charter schools should be away from this level of scrutiny.Another justification—and a justification that actually gives me great cause for concern—is that the exemption is consistent with the status of the sponsor as a community organisation. Well this is the justification that should strike fear into the hearts of New Zealanders all over the place. This is saying that it is about the type of organisation that is delivering the service and not what the service is.Hon Trevor Mallard: Rubbish.Dr MEGAN WOODS: There is a real danger as well as being rubbish as my colleague Trevor Mallard says that this is a Government that is consistently contracting out of its obligations as a Government in order to get private organisations to deliver what we consider to be core services—in this instance in the area of education but we have also seen it with welfare legislation. What we are saying is that if a Government contracts out of its obligations it is also removing its dealings from the spotlight of scrutiny that the protections of things such as the Official Information Act should accord. This is simply not good enough. This is simply not what our children deserve. Our children deserve for information around their education to be freely available and not shrouded in secrecy.This is about the use of public money. This is about the use of public money going to private organisations to educate our students. Why is there no accountability? Who is going to be running these charter schools—the friends of this Government? Is it more money for mates with absolutely no accountability? The Minister needs to take a call to justify why it is that Government members are willing to do that—why they are willing to have yet another part of their Government run by contract. They think that is—Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I would like to take the opportunity of a call to clarify some specific points that have been raised by the Opposition about the Education Amendment Bill. I get that there is a tendency towards conspiracy theory on that side but I do not think it serves the public interest particularly well to operate in that vague sphere.So in terms of the application of the Official Information Act it applies only to public agencies. Given that sponsors are likely to be community or commercial organisations it will not apply in that regard. However contracts will be put in place between partnership schools and the Ministry of Education on behalf of the Crown and all of the reporting relevant to that contract will be subject to the Official Information Act. Any parent who would like information about their own child will be able to access it under the Privacy Act.In terms of the Ombudsmen Act and its application it applies in terms of complaints procedures and it is amplified by the requirement of partnership schools that they must also put in place an independent procedure. Partnership schools must make public their audited accounts annually which should reassure the member who was concerned that there would be some hiding of financial reporting. They will be required annually to make their audited accounts public.Finally in terms of the member who was concerned about the use of National Student Numbers being shared with the Ministry of Social Development or other agencies I can assure that member that there is no such provision.I trust that each of these very clear emphatic and unambiguous clarifications will reassure the members that they can rest their minds and that we can focus instead on how we can raise educational achievement for five out of five New Zealanders. Thank you.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): After that contribution from the Minister of Education we find ourselves in a really difficult situation. Either the Minister is right and the Official Information Act applies only to public entities—and if the Minister is right then clauses 42 and 43 are therefore irrelevant and unnecessary in this Education Amendment Bill—or the Minister is just wrong does not actually understand the Official Information Act and has misinterpreted the advice that she has been given and in fact clauses 42 and 43 are necessary in order to specifically exclude charter schools from the Official Information Act. That I think is an untenable position.The Minister is going to have to further clarify exactly what her position is because I think she is wrong. I think the legislation has got it right: clauses 42 and 43 are required because the Official Information Act does extend to organisations that have a contractual relationship with public entities with the State. Of course private schools are covered by the Official Information Act. So actually I think the bill is right and clauses 42 and 43 are required if the Minister wants to exclude charter schools from the Official Information Act. Or the bill is wrong and clauses 42 and 43 are not necessary and the Minister is right in which case I look forward to her quick handwritten amendment that strikes out clauses 42 and 43. They would not be necessary if the Minister is actually right.Of course clauses 42 and 43 actually are simply an extension of the incredibly undemocratic nature of this current National Government. It is easily one of the most—if not the most—undemocratic anti-democratic Governments that we have had in quite some time. We already know that there are plenty of problems trying to get information via the Official Information Act as it is. The Office of the Ombudsmen is completely clogged up with complaints referring to the Government’s tardy and inappropriate responses to the Official Information Act and then a refusal to fund the Office of the Ombudsmen to the extent required in order to actually process complaints relating to the Official Information Act.Hon Trevor Mallard: Especially 42 and 43.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Especially clauses 42 and 43 which exclude charter schools from the Official Information Act.What is it exactly that the Minister wants to have hidden from the Official Information Act? Is it possibly the fact that private organisations could be making a profit from offering education through charter schools? Is it that type of information that the Minister wants to keep hidden? Is it anything to do with students that parents might want to find out through the Official Information Act? These are questions that the Minister has failed to answer. All she has done is get up and muddy the waters further—the Minister smiles but she has; she has confused the situation even more—by saying that in her opinion the Official Information Act does not extend beyond the core public sector. In which case we have to look at clauses 42 and 43 and consider whether or not they are even necessary in this legislation. So I think the Minister needs to get up on her feet again and clarify that position.Dr Megan Woods: Colin King.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Or Colin King could clarify the position as well. He has got the green slips from the Ministers. Maybe he would like to table the green slips and then we would all know what it is that Colin King has received.But what is obvious from the Minister’s contribution that she has made is that there is now quite a question over the necessity of having clauses 42 and 43. It is important that parents get information about their students if they are at charter schools. It is important that they have access to that information. But as Jacinda Ardern pointed out it is quite easy for the Ministry of Education to take a “don’t ask don’t tell” position and if the only avenue that parents have is to go through the Ministry of Education it would be quite possible for that information to be blocked precisely because clauses 42 and 43 are here. I think at this point that it is really important that the Minister get back to her feet and give us a clarification around that.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I moveThat the question be now put.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I will not take too long a call because I know that other colleagues are also very keen to continue the debate on Part 2. In an earlier contribution I made I sought an assurance from the Minister who was in the chair then the Hon Nikki Kaye as to whether or not school property in schools that hadbeen closed would be used by or provided to sponsors for use as charter schools. She gave a categorical assurance that no school property that was closed by this Minister or during this term of Government would be used for the purposes of a charter school. That was great. It was great to get that clarification.I have two further questions for this Minister in the chair the Minister of Education. The first is related to the issue that my colleague Tracey Martin has raised around the tracking numbers that are provided for in this Education Amendment Bill: the National Student Numbers and the information provided. What we have seen with previous legislation from Paula Bennett and the Ministry of Social Development is that the tracking numbers for 16 and 17-year-olds and the information that is gathered using those tracking numbers the National Student Numbers are being passed on directly to the Ministry of Social Development for its use. For what purpose we can only guess. But what is really concerning here with this bill before us today is that it provides for exactly that same process for very young children—for any child who has a National Student Number including young children in early childhood education in primary school and in secondary school who are much younger than 16 and 17-year-olds. So I would like to ask this Minister whether she too could clarify for the Committee what provisions there are in the law that prevent the sharing of that information about a young child who may or may not be in early childhood education with the Ministry of Social Development because what it does is provide a direct link that allows the Ministry of Social Development to punish parents on the basis of their educational decisions.We know that this Government is committed to punishing the families of very vulnerable children through its welfare reforms. We know that it has a particularly bad attitude towards sole parents and has identified them as being targets of very punitive rules. And now we have in this bill provisions that will allow for their children to be used against them by the provision of tracking information of information about their education through the National Student Numbers. Is there any protection for those families? We would like to know that Minister because that is a crucial part of this legislation that has not been made public—that families will be tracked and potentially not just those who are reliant on benefits frankly but maybe those getting Working for Families. Who knows? They are also in the public system getting some kind of public support. They too may be subject to some kind of punitive or other action depending on the decisions that they make about their children or even on how well their children might be doing at school.The second issue that I have for the Minister is whether given her assurance that all the financial information about these profit-making charter schools is going to be made public she can guarantee that not a single decision—that no information sought under the Official Information Act will be ruled out on the basis of commercial sensitivity. Can she guarantee that every single piece of financial information that this Minister and ministry will hold will be made available and that the commercial sensitivity rules that allow information to be kept secret will never be used for charter schools? If she can give us that guarantee well then that does provide us with a little bit of certainty at least that the information they have will be made available to the public. That would be a great way to give some indication of certainty to the public. If she does not give that guarantee it just goes to show again that there is a deliberate attempt here to keep financial information secret. So my question to the Minister for the purposes of the public and their right to know is whether she will guarantee that commercial sensitivity will never be used as an excuse to keep financial information about these charter schools from the public. I certainly hope that she is able to give that guarantee tonight.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I moveThat the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question is that the question be now put. As many as are of that opinion will please say Aye to the contrary No.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There is a well-established convention in the Committee that when a Minister participates in a debate the Opposition will be given sufficient opportunity to respond. The Minister has responded twice now to comments that I made in the very first speech on this debate. She has been given two calls responding in quite an inflammatory manner to comments that I have made. I have been seeking the call ever since then and have not been given it. This is supposed to be a debate and shutting that debate down while the Minister is making comments that the Opposition is not given a chance to respond to is totally wrong.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just indicate to the Committee one that I have accepted the closure and two that whenever a question is being put to the Committee the interruption of business is deferred until the question is determined. The question is that the motion be now—Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. On the basis of the ruling that you have just made I move that we report progress in order to seek a considered ruling from the Speaker as to whether members of the Opposition have a right to respond to the Minister when the Minister makes that sort of comment.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is certainly entitled to do so. But I would also point out to the member Speakers’ ruling 64/4 which says that “The [chairperson] is the sole judge as to whether or not he ought to sanction the putting of the closure motion and it must be left entirely in his hands. The [chairperson] who has been presiding and has listened to the debate in committee must be the best judge whether the closure ought to be put. I can only express the hope that it will not be applied too harshly.” Speaker’s ruling 64/5 states: “It is not for the Speaker to second-guess the Chair’s judgment … Of course if in fact the committee does not agree with the Chair’s decision to accept the closure then it is always open to the committee to vote down the question ‘That the question be now put’.”Hon Trevor Mallard: I understand that. I still want him back.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member understands? And the member wishes to recall the Speaker?Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): Yes I have moved. I moveThat the Speaker be recalled to give a ruling on this matter.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question is that the Speaker be recalled. All those in favour please say Aye. The motion is agreed to. The Speaker will be recalled.Hon Trevor Mallard: You are meant to put the “No”. You are meant to give them a chance to say no.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There was no objection Mr Mallard.Motion agreed to.House resumed.Speaker RecalledThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Speaker you have been recalled to the House because it was felt that there had been inadequate time given to the Opposition in order to respond to comments made by the Minister in the chair the Minister of Education. In so doing I took the closure motion and reported to the Committee quoting Speakers’ rulings 64/4 and 64/5. Speakers’ ruling 64/4 states that“The [chairperson] is the sole judge as to whether or not he ought to sanction the putting of the closure motion and it must be left entirely in his hands.” I further went on to point out Speaker’s ruling 64/5: “It is not for the Speaker to second-guess the Chair’s judgment …”. And of course there is also Speaker’s ruling 64/6 which says: “The Chairperson is the person who listens to the ebb and flow of the debate and is the person best placed to see whether the Committee is of a mind to accept a closure motion.” There had already been put four closure motions which had been rejected by me as the Chair of the Committee. In accepting the closure I did so in the belief that the debate had been well traversed.Mr SPEAKER: Thank you Mr Chairman.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): The first point that I want to make clear is that this is not in any way a reflection on the Chair of the Committee but I think that these are particularly unusual circumstances in this case. It is my understanding that the Minister spoke subsequent to the moving of closure motions which is a most unusual situation that we are in. In speaking what she did was attack a person who had asked questions earlier. That person my colleague Mr Hipkins from that point on sought the call. To be fair one Labour member and one Green member got the call because my colleague had had a previous call but he was actively seeking the call over that time. I have not ever in my time in Parliament seen an arrangement whereby a closure was taken subsequent to an attack on an Opposition member where that Opposition member was attempting to respond and to clarify and they were not being given the chance to do that. Again I want to reiterate that it is with a somewhat heavy heart that I am doing this because my colleague Mr Ross Robertson is generally very fair and has good judgment. I just think that in this particular case an error of judgment that leaves one of my colleagues maligned is something that is not acceptable.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): Can I point out that this Part 2 is a very small part of the bill the Education Amendment Bill. The Opposition has had nine calls spread across three Opposition parties. The Minister when she took her second call spoke very briefly in direct response to a number of points that in her view had been made erroneously by Opposition speakers. She did not launch an attack; she simply responded to material that she believed needed to be corrected. We have spent the best part of an hour on this and as the Chairman has indicated there had been three previous closure motions and he accepted the fourth.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): This is a very contentious clause and therefore we are not taking this course of action lightly. The issue that is at hand here is that the Minister in fact took two calls in this debate. I was the first person to speak in the Committee stage of the debate on this particular part. The Minister then spoke in quite a wide-ranging way including moving back to Part A of the bill—Hon Trevor Mallard: Part 1CHRIS HIPKINS: —Part 1 of the bill which we had already concluded the debate on and she opened up quite a range of material. From that point onwards I started seeking the call. The Minister was given an additional call after that and after several closure motions had been moved and had been rejected by the Chairperson. The Chairperson then gave two further calls after the most recent contribution from the Minister. One was from a Labour member who had not spoken and one was from a Green member who had spoken already in the debate.The issue that I am really asking for further clarification on—I guess there are a couple. One is the ability to respond to comments that a Minister makes particularly if they are made reasonably early on in the debate and a member consistently seeks a call to respond to those because that has certainly been the case here. As the spokespersonfor the party on an issue I think that that is important particularly where it is a contentious issue. The debate on this part although it is Part 2 of the bill and it is consequential amendments has largely been focused on the provisions in this part. In fact the person who deviated the most from that was the Minister who was speaking on it. These are quite serious issues and I think it is really important that the Committee has an opportunity to respond to comments that the Minister has made. That is the reason why we have asked you to come back and give us a considered ruling on the matter.Mr SPEAKER: I thank the members for their contribution and I acknowledge in view of the explanations that have been given that the decision to recall the Speaker was not taken lightly. However having listened to the last part of the debate myself in my office and having watched the Chairperson decide to accept a closure motion I am persuaded by the comments of the Chairperson that he felt an adequate amount of time had been given to the part. He had not taken I think he said four earlier calls for closure. Mr Hipkins in the earlier part of the debate before the Speaker was recalled said that it was convention that if a Minister had spoken another member should have the opportunity to respond. I am not aware of that convention. I am advised that that is not a convention although I accept that it may have happened in the past. At the end of the day the Chairperson is the person who has been listening to the totality of the debate. He is the best person to decide when to accept the closure motion and on that basis I think the Chairperson should return now to the Committee.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There are two points—and I am not asking you to totally reconsider your ruling because I accept that—and one is that we did have a change in Chairperson part-way through this process. I think that is something that is relatively important. This Chairperson was not in the Chamber for the totality of the debate and I think that is important. The other point and it is one that is slightly more concerning is the point that was made both by you and by the Chairperson as part of the reasoning for accepting the closure and that was the number of times a closure had been asked for. That should never be a factor otherwise people will just start asking for it right from the beginning. I think that in the past the reasoning has been that the debate has been fair not the number of times that closure had been asked for.Mr SPEAKER: Again I accept the point that the member is making. The number of times that a closure is called for should not in any way determine when a Chairman decides that the debate has adequately been given sufficient time within the Committee and I do not want to give the impression that that is a reason that I would accept for the Chairman’s decision. At the end of the day the presiding officer is the one who is best to determine when the closure motion should be accepted. Mr Robertson has done that. It is now in the hands of the Committee to determine whether that closure motion is agreed to. I declare the House in Committee.In CommitteeDebate resumed.Part 2 Transitional provisions and consequential amendments(continued)A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question now is that Part 2 be agreed to. Before I put the question we have an amendment in the name of the honourable member Chris Hipkins to clause 43. It is set out on Supplementary Order Paper 223. I have been advised that it is out of order as it is inconsistent with an earlier decision of the Committee. The question therefore is that Part 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question that Part 2 be agreed to.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry I am late on this and I do apologise to the Committee. You said you were advised that Mr Hipkins’ amendment was out of order. I think you are required to rule it out of order not just say that you have been advised in that manner. It is your judgment not the Clerk’s judgment I think that the Committee relies on.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): All right. Well I—Hon Trevor Mallard: Otherwise you have got to put it.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): OK. Well it is out of order because it is inconsistent with an earlier decision of the Committee. The amendment to clause 43 is contingent on the amendment to clause 31 to apply the Ombudsmen Act and the Official Information Act and the amendment to clause 31 was defeated earlier.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 2 be agreed to.Ayes62New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1.Noes57New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Part 2 agreed to.Clauses 1 to 3The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The question now is that clauses 1 to 3 stand part. The question is that clause 1 stand part.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Can I just clarify that we are debating clauses 1 2 and 3 together—or are you debating them separately? Can I just clarify that?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is all together.CHRIS HIPKINS: It is all being debated together?The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It is all together.CHRIS HIPKINS: You called only clause 1.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry. I actually said clauses 1 to 3 and then I called clause 1 but in reality of course it is clauses 1 to 3 but there are three separate votes.CHRIS HIPKINS: Thank you Mr Chair.Hon Trevor Mallard: Can we have three separate debates?CHRIS HIPKINS: I would be very happy to have three separate debates on this. What I do want to talk about is the commencement clause of this legislation which is clause 2 in this particular piece of legislation the Education Amendment Bill.Grant Robertson: Your favourite topic.CHRIS HIPKINS: It is one of my favourite topics Mr Robertson but I am not going to talk today about the meaning of the Royal assent. I am actually going to talk about the reason why clause 28 comes into force some time after the rest of the legislation comes into force because when these clauses should come into effect was actually an issue that was debated quite significantly and considerably at the Education and Science Committee.Clause 28 in this legislation deals with the surrender and retention of property and searches. That is not a topic that we have canvassed significantly in this debate but I can assure the Committee and members of the public that it was canvassed extensively during the select committee process. The decision to amend the commencement so that this particular clause would come into force after the rest of the legislation was actually made after some quite considered discussion.To canvass what those discussions were at the select committee the main points that we were talking about relevant to the commencement were which parts of this should be covered by legislation and which parts should be covered by the guidelines that the Secretary for Education is to be tasked with putting in place. That was always going to be the very difficult balance that the committee had to reach because what we are dealing with here are issues to do with individual students’ rights—the rights of individual pupils. Quite a lot of the advice that we had was that the more specific the legislation the better because it gave schools certainty and it gave the Secretary for Education certainty and therefore the legislation should be as specific as possible. However other advice that we received said that we actually do need to allow some flexibility for those working in education to have quite a lot of say in how the rules around these provisions are going to be implemented.Where the committee got to was that the Secretary for Education is now going to be required to produce a set of very clear rules and guidance for schools on how these provisions will apply and what they are and are not allowed to do in terms of the surrender and retention of student property. So the reason that the committee got to for setting a later commencement date for this part of the legislation is that we need to allow the Secretary for Education time to develop all of those guidelines. The development of those guidelines should be a very considered and collaborative process.We as a committee were able to consider quite a wide range of advice. We did in fact and the significant changes made to this clause within the legislation reflect what I think was a very considered debate within the committee but also reflect the calibre of submissions we received on this. People thought about it very carefully and members thought very carefully about the changes that we wanted to make here. We did not think that the legislation as drafted provided sufficient power for schools to do what they have always done in terms of the surrender and retention of student property so we wanted changes to be made and we have made changes to that.However what we concluded in those debates was that we could never in legislation get it absolutely 100 percent right and some aspects of the rules around this will have to be determined by the Secretary for Education. The only way that they can do that is probably by getting in a room the people who are going to have knowledge and expertise. The sorts of people whom we are talking about—and obviously school leaders are critical—are school principals who deal with this issue every day; thepolice; and agencies that advocate for children and for the rights of children. That is going to take a bit of time.If we had gone with the original commencement date in this bill these new rules would have come into force probably within the next week or two when this bill is given the Royal assent. But that would be completely unacceptable because these new rules would be coming into force before firstly the rules that they require had been established and secondly schools had even actually had the time to get their heads around the changes that are being proposed. These are quite significant changes and they will have a big impact on what schools are and are not allowed to do in terms of the surrender and retention of an individual student’s property. It is controversial.We had conflicting advice some of which suggested that what we were looking at doing might infringe on the rights of individual children or students in the schools. That was something that the committee did not take lightly. But we ultimately recognised that schools have got a really difficult balance to reach here in weighing the rights of each individual student to their privacy and to have their personal property kept secure and the rights of all students and staff within a school to work in a safe and secure environment and in an environment that is free particularly of drugs and weapons.So a lot of the debate around this particular clause in the legislation centred on what schools should and should not be allowed to do with regard to those issues—for example drug dogs and whether schools should be allowed to bring drug dogs in as they have in the past to do what are effectively random searches of student property to see whether there are drugs within that property.Hon Trevor Mallard: Of course they should.CHRIS HIPKINS: Well Trevor Mallard says: “Of course they should.” But the select committee reached a point where it decided that schools should be allowed to bring drug dogs into schools to search student property but not to search students.Hon Trevor Mallard: Why?CHRIS HIPKINS: Trevor Mallard says: “Why?” and I am sure that he may well have a contribution to make on that.Hon Trevor Mallard: You know I’ve spent a lot of time on “stuffers and swallowers”.CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. I do not want to get into that. I will just keep going. Trevor Mallard has thrown me right off my train of thought with that particular unhelpful contribution. I really do not think it would be helpful—[Interruption] That is right. We are talking about children here Trevor. The issue that we have is around the use of drug dogs. We had some advice from agencies like the police for example on what they do with regard to drug dogs. The police are going to be a critical agency to have input into how these rules and guidelines are developed.Coming back to the commencement clause I think it is important that the Committee understands why the commencement date for this part of the bill is different from the commencement date for the rest of the bill. It is because the rules are going to be quite difficult to put together. Issues around drug dogs and the appropriate use of drug dogs in schools are going to be very critical. The police certainly have engaged with these issues—and with schools I think—very constructively and carefully.There is probably a bigger issue than the police use of drug dogs. Of course the police have a lot of powers already to use drug dogs within schools because a school is no different from any other area where a police officer could use a drug dog. The bigger issue really is around the use of contractors and contractors’ drug dogs. There are of course a lot of safeguards in place around the use of police drug dogs so to some extent the select committee was less concerned about that because police drug dogs are governed by the Policing Act. There are a lot of safeguards in place so therefore therules that we put in place here—and we actually made specific mention of that in the bill—will not have any impact on the Policing Act. I think it was important that we were clear about that. But it will certainly have an impact on the use of drug dogs by contractors. That is probably where most of the schools are at at the moment. Most of the schools that do it are using contractors. If we introduced this provision immediately so that it came into effect within the next week or two they would be prevented from doing what they have been doing without really knowing what they were allowed to do. I think that is really important. What we do not want to do is pass new legislation that creates confusion and therefore creates if you like a window of opportunity for drugs and weapons to end up in our schools.Where we got to with the committee was that by bringing this part of the legislation into force on 1 January next year it will allow the Ministry of Education or the Secretary for Education time to develop some really robust guidelines in consultation with all of the people who are involved. But then there is also a bit of a professional development requirement I guess for schools because this information about what those rules and guidelines are going to be will need to be communicated to those schools. They will need to have a chance to understand it and of course the schools themselves will need an opportunity to adapt their individual policies.Achieving all of those things if you think about it even with this time frame that we have set 1 January 2014 is still quite ambitious. The Secretary for Education—knowing how efficient he is—I am sure has already started the development of these rules but there is going to have to be a consultation process. Assuming that it is a thorough consultation process we are looking at a couple of months for that. We are then looking at a period of time for those rules to be set and then for the schools to implement them and adjust their own guidelines. So 1 January for clause 28—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am going to call the honourable member Grant Robertson.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): That is a popular call on this side of the Chamber. I am sure my colleague Tracey Martin who was on the Education and Science Committee will have an excellent contribution to make after I complete mine.Carol Beaumont: And other colleagues on the select committee.GRANT ROBERTSON: Along with my colleagues behind me here—Megan Woods Carol Beaumont. Are you offended Iain?Iain Lees-Galloway: No.GRANT ROBERTSON: No no. OK.Hon Trevor Mallard: I’m offended.GRANT ROBERTSON: I will leave you out. I want to speak briefly on a couple of the clauses we are dealing with here both clause 1 and clause 3 of the Education Amendment Bill. I want to start with clause 3 which is “Principal Act”. I do think that on this occasion it is relevant to spend a little bit of time thinking about exactly what it means to be amending the principal Act the Education Act 1989 in the way that this bill does.I want to start right at the beginning of the Education Act at section 3 which is titled “Right to free primary and secondary education”. It is interesting the way the principal Act defines this because it actually starts off saying: “Right to free primary and secondary education—Except as provided in this Act or the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975 every person who is not an international student is entitled to free enrolment and free education at any State school …” and then it carries on around the ages. What this bill does is amend that by including a reference to partnership schools after State schools. I think that is really interesting because the Act says that privateschools are separate. We are going to take private schools out of this and they are going to have their own legislation to govern them. But what is being done tonight is a very fundamental change to the principal Act which is the Education Act under section 3. It is changing what is a very clear statement there. I am not certain but I am pretty sure that that language in the 1989 Act comes from the original Education Act—the 1877 one or whatever it was—that actually made clear what a State school was. So that is the fundamental change that has been made tonight.Hon Steven Joyce: Bit of a trainspotter Grant.GRANT ROBERTSON: We have separated out—well Mr Joyce has obviously got great commitment to education interjecting away over there. It took him a little while to get his zoology degree but that is all right. The Education Act is now being fundamentally changed. So where previously we have been clear that we are talking about State schools and the State’s role in providing the vast majority of the public education in this country this bill amends that principal Act and just drops in partnership schools as the Minister likes to call them or charter schools as most people refer to them.That is a fundamental change. It is hugely disappointing to me that for the vast majority of tonight we have had no debate from the Government side on this. I give the Minister of Education credit that during Part 2 of the debate when she was here she was able to discuss some matters around the Official Information Act which we disagreed on. But in the earlier part of the debate we did not hear from the Government about why it wanted to make this fundamental change to the principal Act that we are debating under clause 3 here. It is a fundamental change to the New Zealand education system. Cam Calder yelled out earlier on that it is only four schools or five schools out of 2000. Dr Calder we know that the agenda of the ACT Party that has driven this legislation is for the widespread privatisation of education. We know that. So it is ridiculous to say that it is only three schools or four schools. It is a fundamentally different model from what we have ever had in the New Zealand education system.Dr Cam Calder: So why should it be a problem if it sits outside the public sector?GRANT ROBERTSON: Dr Calder is missing the point here. That is exactly the point I am making. We have that in section 3. We have got the integrated-school model. We have heard from Iain Lees-Galloway tonight about the kinds of schools that are available under our current model. There is no need for this legislation within the New Zealand system in order to have the kind of innovative collaborative response that we all want in terms of education for our children. That is the point of highlighting the fact that the principal Act talks about State schools and provides for integrated schools and provides for private schools. Yet tonight right alongside State schools we just say: “Oh and those partnership schools.” which completely changes the way in which we think of public education in New Zealand. The Government members have barely even debated tonight on why that happens. The problem we have on this side of the Chamber is that the fundamental change is about an ideological experiment that is a result of a political stitch-up between National and the ACT Party and that has been foisted upon the children of New Zealand.The Minister said earlier that parents who enrol their children in these schools will be doing so by choice. Well that is fine. Maybe that is true. Maybe they will be enrolling them. The point is: are they absolutely clear about what these schools are about? Are they absolutely clear that they will not have the right to find out information that is held by the school? If I had been able to take a call on Part 2—and I will just refer to it very briefly—in the latter part of that I would have looked at a change to the Health Act that no one else has talked about tonight which is actually about adding partnership schools to those that have the ability to allow nurses to come—Tracey Martin: Another free service from taxpayers for private business.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is exactly right. It will allow private businesses to become part of a service where nurses go into schools. There are two parts to that. The first is exactly as Tracey Martin is pointing out that that is a publicly funded service that these private entities will be part of but secondly parents whose children are visited by the nurse will not necessarily be able to find out any information about that. So the principal Act is being fundamentally amended here.That brings me to the title. The title of this bill is the innocuous Education Amendment Bill. That is all it says. It sounds like we are just making a few tweaks here and there. There are so many other things that this bill could have been called. The Minister wants to call them partnership schools. I appreciate that the bill has other matters in it such as the search requirements that Mr Hipkins was talking about before but fundamentally this is about charter schools and other matters.Hon Steven Joyce: Compared to the member for public sector unions.GRANT ROBERTSON: Those charter schools—a random interjection from Steven Joyce. He roused himself—roused himself. It is a pity that he did not decide to take a call and actually stand up and justify to New Zealand why it is that a flawed model like this is being imposed on New Zealand because John Banks and the ACT Party decided that they want it. Instead Mr Joyce would rather just chip across the Chamber. He could stand up and tell us about his great commitment to public education which is not really in evidence with the funding that he has decided to divert to private tertiary establishments and away from the public system because that is what this agenda is about. This bill could very easily be called the “National Party’s Privatisation Agenda Bill”—Hon Steven Joyce: Oh what a load of rubbish. Grow up Grant.GRANT ROBERTSON: —because that is exactly what it is. That is what it is. Steven Joyce does not think it is. That is exactly what this agenda is about. He should actually listen to what the ACT Party has been saying because at least the ACT Party has been honest about its intentions for the education system. At least it has been honest and said: “We want to privatise education.” I have been on election platforms for two elections in a row now with ACT candidates who have been absolutely upfront about their agenda for education and that is privatisation. They simply do not believe that it is the responsibility of the State to provide that. National is sitting here tonight going along with this mad ideological experiment from John Banks and the ACT Party and it is happy to do that. That is the thin end of the wedge and National is happy to see it happen. National needs to take some ownership of this bill and make sure that its name appears in the title of it.I want to refer to two other matters that I believe should be in the title of the bill. The first of those is the question around the non-registration of teachers. The non-registration of teachers should be mentioned because that is one of the fundamental changes we have had here. The Ministry of Education officials who tried to advise the Government that actually having unregistered teachers would lower the quality of education were ignored by this Government. That should be mentioned in the title of this bill because going against the advice of the experts and going in favour of John Banks and his merry but very small band of ACT people defies belief. It defies belief that we would have a situation like that around educational policy and a significant matter of whether or not we think all the students in New Zealand deserve to have trained and registered teachers in front of them.Tonight the National Government makes a fundamental change to what we expect from a Government when it is talking about education. [Interruption] Mr Joyce is bored. Mr Joyce is bored with talking about whether or not it is important to have trainedteachers in front of classrooms. He does not care whether or not students are safe in their classrooms because that is the end point Mr Joyce. Mr Joyce does not care whether the students in charter schools are safe—Hon Steven Joyce: What about the Teachers Council eh?GRANT ROBERTSON: —because without registered teachers in front of classrooms they simply will not be. He interjects on and on. If only he would take a call and justify this because he cannot do that. All students in New Zealand deserve to have registered teachers. This bill is a sham.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Talofa Mr Chair. I would just like to pick up on some comments that Mr Hipkins made with regard to commencement and the commencement dates in the Education Amendment Bill. I want to pick up on them because he forgot to mention some very important stakeholders in the conversation around surrender and retention and they are the boards of trustees. The boards of trustees write the policies which management then sets the procedures for and which are delivered inside our schools and that is too often forgotten. One of the concerns in some of the conversations that we did have with regard to the surrender and retention portions in here was my—and I still have some unease about it but I realise that we worked hard to provide what was a much better provision—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.House resumed.The Chairperson reported progress on the Education Amendment Bill and no progress on the Immigration Amendment Bill.Report adopted.