Coddington Deborah: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12160] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose this State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3). I do not have voting power on the Education and Science Committee because of ACT’s disadvantage under the situation at the moment but I did sit on the select committee and tracked this bill through. 
This legislation is another nail in the coffin for Tomorrow’s Schools it is another nail in the coffin for parental representation and it is another nail in the coffin for boards of trustees having some say in how their schools are run. When this bill first came to the select committee it was one of the most draconian pieces of legislation I had seen. Members in this House have praised the bill and said it is workable and will tidy up the situation. It will not tidy up the situation. Yes it has been toned down a bit but only in one respect—that is the removal of the powers of the State Services Commissioner to deduct funding from a school’s operations grant. That was what the Minister of Education originally wanted to do. He wanted to punish boards of trustees as he saw it—punish them by deducting money from the schools’ operations grants. Who would be the loser in that? The children would be the losers in that. The children and learning will be the losers from this legislation. 
 We heard from a United Future member that the measure makes the situation more equitable because now all boards of trustees will be forced to behave in the same way. What on earth is equitable about forcing sameness on every board of trustees? I was on a board of trustees when those strikes were going on. Our board of trustees discussed the issue of whether we would pay our teachers. We discussed it in a democratic way we voted in a democratic way and we decided not to pay them. But we remunerated them in other ways and we had the freedom to do that. Other boards of trustees decided they would pay their teachers. Fine we did not have a problem with that. It was up to the board of trustees of each school because that board had been elected by the parents of children at that school to talk for them. If parents do not like what a board does they can vote out those board members and get new ones to do what they want. They do not vote for their board members to be dictated to on how they behave by the State Services Commissioner. 
That is what this legislation does. It vests in the State Services Commissioner the powers of boards of trustees regarding teachers’ pay. It is a typical example of a collectivist Government digging itself into a hole and trying desperately to dig itself out. When it removed the ability for schools to have bulk funding it got itself into this disastrous situation. The most sensible thing that this Government could do which Governments in Western democracies all around the world are doing—it is not radical; it is not gasp material—is to let parents chose; to devolve the funding to the boards so that the communities in consultation with the teachers and the parents can decide. 
But this Government does not want to let even the teachers choose. It will now take choice away from the teachers as well. It was extraordinary on the Education and Science Committee. I actually remarked that it was rare for me to find myself on the same side as the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute. They opposed this bill. They saw it as draconian. They saw it as removing the last vestige of choice from teachers. They will no longer be able to choose which school they teach in under this legislation. If teachers are put by this Government in a situation where their school is closed down or merged they will not be able to choose which school they teach in or they will lose their compensation. It is not their fault that schools close or merge. They do not ask to be put in that situation. They should be compensated. They have a right taken away from them a property right if one likes—their property right to earn money. They have that right taken away from them by the State and the State should compensate them. But teachers will not be able to be compensated now unless they adhere to the draconian terms that have been put in this bill. We will look at those terms in more detail later but if teachers do not adhere to the directives in this bill if they refuse an offer of a job—a so-called equivalent position which is very loosely defined—in a replacement school or another school directly affected by the closure or merger they also lose their redundancy. So this Government not only does not want parents to choose; it will not let boards of trustees choose any more and it will not let teachers choose either. 
I am shocked to the core that United Future—the family-friendly party—is voting for this legislation—[ 
Interruption 
] We might not always agree with the Greens but at least they have principles. As I said the loser here is education. It is patronising for that member to say that members of boards of trustees were put in a difficult position of not being able to decide whether they should pay the teachers when they went on strike. That is why people decide to become members of boards of trustees; they have to make difficult decisions. Every time they have a meeting they make difficult decisions about whether they will raise $120000 for a swimming pool or an arts centre. Is United Future going to take those choices off boards too because parents ordinary people cannot decide? Does it think only politicians and bureaucrats can make choices for parents because parents do not know even if they are elected by other parents to be on a board of trustees? 
In Florida even the liberal lefty press is now coming out in favour of a voucher system whereby funding is not centrally controlled as it is here—and further so under this legislation. It is devolved to the students. Research has shown that that especially benefits children from very poor families on very low incomes because they are given the opportunity to choose a school. Even if we went back to bulk funding for just those schools that want it they would be able to make decisions themselves over whether they pay the teachers when they go on strike. Sure the principle of withdrawing one’s labour is that one’s remuneration is withdrawn too; that is the basic principle. But so what if another board of trustees wants to go against that principle and decides that because its members sympathise with their teachers who have gone out on strike it wants to continue paying them? It should keep that choice. This bill is a sad day for learning in New Zealand and the ACT party is vehemently opposed to it.