Donnelly Brian: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2632] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I want to pick up where the Hon Tau Henare left off and that is section 317 in clause 43—subsection (2)(b) I think—about the prescribed criteria. I have to note first of all that at the Education and Science Committee there was no minority report from National over this particular issue. Only one group brought it to the attention of the Education and Science Committee and that was the Early Childhood Council. Even that group—and I have its submission here—explained that currently before this bill goes through there are major powers to set minimum standards by Order in Council and these are expanded in section 317(2)(a). 
The new powers largely incorporate what is already in the Desirable Objectives and Practices. The Ministry of Education is talking about collapsing the Desirable Objectives and Practices but the interesting thing—or the ironic thing—about the member who has just resumed his seat is that the last Desirable Objectives and Practices went through a Cabinet where that member was actually sitting around the table and where the same sorts of prescribed criteria as in this particular bill were talked about. The fact is the issue was not raised very strongly at the select committee although it has been brought up since. In fact I was the person who raised the issue during the second reading debate—that there were inherent dangers in the bill because we were actually giving the bureaucracy the ministry extraordinary powers so that it could have in fact said that all early childhood centres had to be painted blue. 
New Zealand First said no—that that was going too far and that we did need to do something about this. So we talked to the Minister of Education and we said it should not be the Secretary for Education who promulgates the prescribed criteria—it should be the Minister. Secondly we said it has to come under parliamentary scrutiny and to do that I have put forward an amendment that will ensure that it comes under the purview of the Regulations Review Committee but does not have to be drawn up by parliamentary counsel. In other words we want to steer clear of the “lawyer-ese” that may be there. 
I refer now to the Maori Party’s amendments. I know full well that the ultimate agenda of the Early Childhood Council was to get to that point—that is to get rid of prescribed criteria altogether. I have talked to people about self-locking gates on pools. The Education Review Office when I was the Minister responsible for it used to run around and check these in schools but in fact schools did not require them by regulation. It picked up many schools that did not have self-locking gates and in other words posed a danger to students. New Zealand First is not prepared to have a regime in which there is the necessity for some prescribed criteria in order to ensure that students are protected. If we are talking about guidelines only then early childhood centres can choose to ignore them or pay lip-service to them. 
I have to talk about the discussion document that is out there. It talks about most of the criteria actually being descriptions. But there is still a need in some cases to be prescriptive and I have just given members the example of self-locking gates. Some of the draft criteria will have to be prescriptive in nature—and this is in the Desirable Objectives and Practices. For example the ratio of toilets to children. Should that be prescribed or just described? Should there just be a general standard—centres can have as many children per toilet as they like—or should the number to prescribed? What about having an approved fire evacuation scheme? Should that be prescribed or should it just be set down as best practice? What is actually happening—and it has been going on for a number of years—is that this draft code is being developed and it is a combination of descriptive and prescriptive. 
I will give members an example. One of the things required is that there be a space for a sick child where that sick child can be temporarily isolated from other children can lie down comfortably and can be supervised. The prescriptive part of that is that there must be a space available for that sick child. The descriptive part which can be done in a variety of ways according to the particular provider is the next three bullet points and there is no prescription on those—how the child is to be temporarily isolated how the child can lie down comfortably or how he or she is to be supervised. They are the descriptive parts. 
New Zealand First has negotiated with the Minister and the Minister has certainly played ball. He has seen that there is an issue here and put up an amendment whereby instead of the secretary being the person responsible for the prescribed criteria the Minister is. We believe that will mean people will be a whole lot more careful and we will not get silly prescriptions. Secondly if our amendment is passed the criteria will come under the purview of the Regulations Review Committee and that will mean there will be a level of scrutiny.