Hipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10674. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): Before I begin the substantive comments that I want to make on the Education Amendment Bill I have a quick question for the Minister of Education. I would like her to name one school board of trustees that is not focused on student achievement. Which one?Hon Hekia Parata: We’re providing a legal basis for all of them.CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh right there we go—the Minister of Education cannot name one school board of trustees that is not focused on student achievement because the reality is that when parents put their names forward to be on school boards of trustees they do so specifically because they care about their kids’ educational achievement and because they care about the educational achievement of other kids within their community. I think it is absolutely disgraceful that this Government does not acknowledge that and that it seems to think it has to legislate for something that is blatantly obvious. It is blatantly obvious because parents teachers and everyone who works in the education system go into it with the view of improving the lives of young people in New Zealand. They already want to do that. They do not need to have the Government come in here and accuse them of not doing that which is what Hekia Parata is constantly doing all of the time.This is a sad day for the public education system in New Zealand. It is a very sad day because it is a day when the National Government put politics before education. So when did this all start? We know how this bill came to be in the House. It was all to do with the cup of tea between Mr Banks over there and John Key—the one that was inadvertently recorded and the one that they went to court to try to cover up. The cup of tea between John Banks and John Key is why we are debating this legislation in the House today. It is not about education. It is not about what is going to be good for education. It is riding roughshod over public opinion which is something that we are well used to this National Government doing. Eighty-two percent of New Zealandersare opposed to the idea that charter schools should be allowed to employ unregistered teachers yet this Government is bringing this bill to the House to deregulate the teaching profession effectively and it is ignoring the public’s concern about that matter. It voted down Supplementary Order Paper 221 which I put forward which would have ensured that there were qualified registered teachers in schools.Seventy-one percent of the New Zealand public are opposed to the idea that a charter school operator should be able to make a profit because New Zealanders know that money taken out of charter schools in profits is not money—Hon Hekia Parata: Specious numbers.CHRIS HIPKINS: “Specious numbers.” Hekia Parata says. I think it was aOne News poll.Hon Hekia Parata: We don’t make up stuff like the Opposition does.CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh she says they do not make up stuff. They do not make up stuff like the Opposition does. I am sure this is going to get better. Seventy-one percent of New Zealanders are opposed to charter schools making a profit because they know that the money that is sucked out of the education system in the form of profits is not money that is going into educating kids. And why should the taxpayer be lining the back pockets of the National Party’s and ACT Party’s mates who want to set up their charter schools rather than putting that money into education? This Government is putting $19 million into these charter schools and in the very same Budget it cut the funding for a programme like Te Kotahitanga.Hon Hekia Parata: Rubbish!CHRIS HIPKINS: A programme that has a proven track record of lifting student achievement has been cut by this Government. Hekia Parata says that is rubbish. How much money is going into Te Kotahitanga next year?Hon Hekia Parata: It is called building on success and actually—CHRIS HIPKINS: No. That is right. That would be no money going into Te Kotahitanga next year—no money at all going into Te Kotahitanga next year not one cent. The Government has cut the funding for it because it has decided that charter schools are more important—charter schools which the international evidence proves do not actually work.Let us look at the United States. The Government seems to be so in love with the charter school system in the US. Stanford University did research into charter schools and found that for 37 percent of learners they produced significantly worse outcomes—for 37 percent. For 46 percent they made no difference at all and only 17 percent did better in charter schools. These are the sorts of numbers that the Government thinks justify its experiment in charter schools in New Zealand. This is not an experiment that is designed to improve the outcomes in education. This is an ideological experiment that is designed to privatise aspects of the education system when what we should be focused on is ensuring that every school in New Zealand is a great school and that every New Zealander has the opportunity to fulfil their full potential—their full potential—through access to lifelong learning opportunities and a quality public education system.Hon Hekia Parata: No every New Zealander hasn’t—not under that Government. They’ve just wrung their hands and said: “Isn’t it terrible that every year more kids are not passing—more Māori more Pasifika.”CHRIS HIPKINS: Hekia Parata has got the audacity to talk about Māori educational achievement when that Minister cut the funding for the best Māori education programme in the country—cut the funding completely. It is gone. It is completely gone from next year and Hekia Parata is talking about Māori educational achievement when actually she has been the Minister who has cut the one programmethat had outstanding results. Why? Because it was too expensive. And what was her excuse? “Oh well we have got to come up with something that is a lot cheaper.” She has decided that it is going to be cheaper to cut corners and to cut the programme that works. That is how much Hekia Parata cares about Māori students’ educational achievement. She wants to cut the one programme that actually works.And Hekia Parata wants to put unregistered and unqualified teachers in front of these Māori students. They are not going to have to learn the New Zealand Curriculum. They are not going to have to learn the New Zealand Curriculum in these schools. If Hekia Parata is so confident that they are going to be such good-quality schools why are they not going to be subject to the Official Information Act? We hear nothing from the Minister. Deathly silence—nothing. Because the Government does not want the public to know what goes on within these charter schools. If the Government is so confident that these charter schools are going to act in a manner that is totally appropriate why is it that the Ombudsman’s powers do not apply to the entirety of the charter schools’ operations? Another deathly silence from the Government. No answer to that question. We know that the Ombudsman’s powers in regard to the State school system have been used judiciously and have highlighted major systemic problems—Dr Rajen Prasad: Bullying.CHRIS HIPKINS: —including systemic bullying in one particular school which the education agencies did not pick up. This is the sort of stuff that the Government wants to hide in charter schools by making them not subject to the Official Information Act and not allowing the Ombudsman the power to investigate. In short the Government wants to shortcut the democratic process. It wants to hide what is going on in these schools.The Government talks about the priority learners. Here is another question for the Minister: name one learner who is not a priority learner.Hon Hekia Parata: All of them are priorities but that Opposition—CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh all of them are priorities. So when the Government talks about its priority learners what on earth is the point? They should all be priority learners. So it is absolute weasel words when the Government talks about priority learners. What is it that Hekia Parata has against parent-led boards of trustees? What is that Hekia Parata has got against parent-led boards of trustees? She wants to allow private charter schools to be set up as profit-making businesses with no parental involvement whatsoever in how they are run. That is what this legislation allows plain and simple. This is a failed ideological experiment that is being imported from overseas. It is not about improving educational outcomes for New Zealand students. It is not about making sure we pick up the best examples of what is working in this country and what is good for New Zealand students. It is not about that at all. It is about importing failed ideology. It is about the failed ideology that says that if we increase competition we will get better outcomes. Well actually we have had several decades of increased competition in our education system and the very priority learners whom Hekia Parata talks about are some of those who have been most disadvantaged by that competition that we have within our education system.Hon Hekia Parata: Under that Government. Didn’t care enough just published reports and cried about it.CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh no. No actually it was a Labour Government that set up the Te Kotahitanga programme which that Minister has now cut the funding to. It was a Labour Government that established schools of special character to recognise that there is a gap within the existing public education system. Schools of special character already allow that gap to be filled yet this Government is turning its back on that saying that it does not think that schools of special character are of any use at all. It isturning its back on that and it is saying that it wants to privatise education and deregulate the teaching profession instead. And deregulate the teaching profession it will because we saw from the Novopay inquiry today the veiled references to further deregulation to renegotiating the collective agreement to make it simpler. Oh yes that is the agenda. We know that Treasury has been working on it. The Government is going to use any excuse it can to deregulate the teaching profession in New Zealand because the National Party never learns the lessons of history. When we look at the countless examples of where deregulation of professions has gone wrong we see that we do not need another one. The future of New Zealand’s education system and the future of the young people in it are far too important to experiment on which is what this bill does.