Moroney Sue: Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Moroney Sue: Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:665;Page:13021] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill put forward in the name of the Hon Sir Roger Douglas. I congratulate Sir Roger. I think I want to take him with me to the races sometime soon because he seems to have very good luck in getting his bills drawn out of the ballot. I may wish to borrow that luck not only for going to the races but also for the ballot draw myself. I have a bill in the ballot that I would rather like to see pulled out so I look forward to learning the secret to his success. 
As for the purpose of this bill the words “board of trustee freedom” have been used in the bill’s name—and have we not heard “freedom” used as code for a whole range of things—and in this instance it is code for bulk funding. The words “board of trustee freedom” are code for bulk funding and we have been there before. Sometimes this place is like being in a bit of a time warp. Sir Roger Douglas is doing the time warp of bulk funding yet again. He is revisiting a failed experiment from the 1990s and it was a failed experiment. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Ardern is noting that I have not said how Labour is voting on this bill and he is quite right. I have not stated Labour’s position at all. I think everyone in the House must acknowledge that bulk funding was a failed experiment in the 1990s although clearly the Maori Party has a different view. I am not sure where they were during the 1990s when we saw how that all unravelled. Certainly it would create unhelpful competition between schools for teachers and would result in winner and loser schools. But that is not unusual in the current environment. 
The approach that the current Government is taking to early childhood education creates winner and loser early childhood education facilities. This bill is not out of keeping with what currently happens. When Jo Goodhew spoke I note she warned Sir Roger Douglas that this was not the time to discuss this bill. When talking about code for things we know that “this is not the time for this bill” is code for “not in this term”. The Government is not brave enough to do it in this term but if the public should give National a second term it will be into it boots and all. That is what it is code for. “Not at this time” said Jo Goodhew while looking directly at Sir Roger Douglas—that is the signal the little wink and nudge to the ACT Party—“just not right now Sir Roger because we have this stuff going on with national standards.” The whole school sector is up in arms. This is not the right time. 
The Government is fighting on all fronts in education. It has cut funding to early childhood education and is that not striking a chord in the community! Jo Goodhew and Louise Upston can undo their own credibility as many times as they like by getting up and saying they want to give children the best start possible as they did say in their speeches. But the fact remains that the Government has cut funding to early childhood education. Clearly this Government does not wish children to have the best start possible because it is taking qualified teachers out of the early childhood education sector. There is a lot of double-speak in this debate; a lot of double-speak. Certainly much of the double-speak has been coming from the Government benches. Government members are running a mile from having the bulk-funding debate all over again. They are running so far from it that the chair of the Education and Science Committee Allan Peachey is not able to take a call in this debate. I think that is a great shame. Government members are running a mile from this debate because they know how much it compromises them. It will be very interesting to see a select committee chaired by Mr Peachey taking submissions on this bill. At the end of tonight’s debate that could very well be a reality. Thank you.