Sabin Mike: Education Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9869. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):Can I suggest that the previous speaker Tracey Martin might want to keep hold of the rubbish bin and when the Hansard comes out she might want to throw her contribution straight into the bin as well. But I will move on. I am happy to take a call on the second reading of the Education Amendment Bill. I am not a member of the Education and Science Committee but I was happy to be involved predominantly in the search surrender and retention components of the bill. I just want to commend the work of the committee in what is a really challenging area. I think that in schools workplaces and communities the issue of drugs and the impact of some of the social dysfunction from that is significant. I just want to commend the committee for working very hard to traverse a number of the submissions that were made. Some very sensible changes have been made as a result of that.First and foremost the surrender and retention component of this bill is dealing with three core areas: the search of students and property within their control the use of dogs and the collection of bodily samples. The first point I want to make in respect of that is that over and above everything this is about ensuring that boards and principals can have a safe environment for learning and an environment that is conducive to students to learn and be educated in. That is where everything must come back to and be centred on when decisions are made as to how to deal with students who bring weapons or drugs into schools. The changes that have been made really were called for by the sector and I think they provide real clarity and a legislative framework upon which the sector can operate with some confidence. I think that is very important because of some of the confusion and ambiguity that has existed in terms of the practices in schools.I want to acknowledge a couple of submitters in particular and the reason for this is that I think what they have done has reflected some of the realities that it is very easy for the bureaucracies to lose touch with. It is a very evolving scene out there. I just want to commend submitters from the Post Primary Teachers Association and Tom Haig in particular; Patrick Walsh from the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand; and Grant McMillan and Al Kirk from Ashburton College and Whangarei Boys’ High School respectively for the pragmatism that they brought and the reality that I think they brought into the conversation which were of great assistance to the committee.I just want to very briefly summarise the three main components that the surrender and retention aspects really deal with. Firstly when a teacher believes that a student has an item that is harmful to that learning environment the teacher or another authorised person has the ability to require that item to be revealed and surrendered. If that is not done and if the teacher has a reasonable belief that the item is harmful they can then require the student to hand over a bag or their outer clothing including headwear socks and shoes for the purpose of searching for that harmful item. Obviously the searches do have to be carried out—and it is set out quite explicitly in the legislation—in a sensitive private and decent manner as we would expect and I will touch on the guidelines that I think will provide great assistance in that. Also the bill makes it clear that where students refuse these requirements the teachers are entitled to take an alternative disciplinary approach. So we get to a situation where the boards the teachers and the principals must be in a position to ensure that that environment is safe. This bill ensures that where requirements are not met an alternative consequence can be taken because a school cannot be held to ransom by students who fail to follow the rules of that school. The bill provides some real clarity in that.The bill goes on to be very clear around drug testing and the fact that pre-suspension drug testing in the manner of a Rubicon programme where a requirement can be made for a student to pass a drug test as part of a condition of that programme is very much an allowable practice within the framework. There is nothing stopping schools at the moment by virtue of their board from having a requirement to pass a drug test when coming back from suspension—post-suspension—but the unintended consequence of saying that drug testing should be a requirement only after suspension is that teachers will suspend students simply to try to deal with the drug issue. So the ability to engage and encourage students to participate in voluntary programmes pre-suspension is infinitely sensible and is very reflective of the fact that the best place to get on and solve these issues is actually in the school environment.With regard to drug dogs the bill clarifies that contractors can be used and can engage with their dogs in schools for the purpose of searching the school grounds but not the students themselves or bags in their control. We have to be very careful that arbitrary random searches by virtue of a dog running along a line of students is just not an acceptable practice. Where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a student may have drugs on them then if need be you can certainly involve the police in that but there are other means to deal with it. But the bill points out the theatre of having drug dogs in schools—the ability to send that deterrent message and get that balance right.Can I just conclude with one of the important components of the changes to this particular part of the bill in the requirement for the Ministry of Education to prepare guidelines in consultation with the sector. Those guidelines must be given regard to when schools are forming their policies. This is vital in two ways: firstly because the sector and the ministry will engage in this on an ongoing basis in the realities and will form a much closer and better working relationship in reflecting the needs of schools in dealing with this; and secondly I think it will provide a great best-practice methodology and mechanism for boards and principals to ensure that in responding to the needs of this law they put some flesh on the bones and actually have a pragmatic and sensible means of achieving purpose. I wholeheartedly commend to the House the changes made here in this bill. Thank you.