Smith Lockwood: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12199] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Listening to the honourable member who has just resumed her seat one could get the impression that this State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) is purely a technical bill. I think she said that it just fixes up an anomaly to enable the better negotiation of teachers’ salaries. She made the point it was good that teachers will all come under one law. 
We also heard another view during the Committee stage and that is that the bill covers one of the more important issues in our country. This bill is about the negotiation of the employment arrangements of our teachers. It empowers the State Services Commissioner to have all the powers of an employer under the Employment Relations Act to negotiate employment arrangements for our teachers despite the fact that the Education Act makes the employers of our teachers the boards of trustees. Far from being just a technical issue this issue goes to the heart of our country’s education system. 
Anyone who knows anything about education or schooling knows that it is great teachers who make a difference. All research shows that. Great teachers make a difference in our schooling. Therefore if the system this legislation puts in place does not allow for the employment arrangements that enable great teachers to be employed and great teachers to be retained—because their employment arrangements reward their efforts and reward their skills—then the legislation cuts at the heart of the schooling of our children in this country. That is why I say that this legislation is far from technical; it is actually very very important for the future of our country’s children. 
I know there are some who would argue—and I think the Labour member Miss Mackey who just resumed her seat seemed to say—that one employment arrangement is better for all our teachers. I think that that is what she was implying but I do not happen personally to agree with that. I think that different employment arrangements enable differently skilled people to be employed. The skills required in teaching are not the same for every child. Some children require different skills from their teachers. Different ways of teaching can work better with different children. So I am not saying that one skill is the best; I am saying we need to have a system that can employ teachers in a way where the skills that work with the children they are teaching can be recognised and rewarded. 
This view is different from the one held by Labour members of Parliament. I am prepared to concede that my view though quite deeply held may not be right. I am prepared to concede that Miss Mackey and her Labour colleagues United Future members and New Zealand First members who support this legislation which recentralises employment arrangements for teachers and gives more power to the State Services Commissioner may be more right than I am. Maybe their view is more correct than mine but I argue that the education of our children is too important for us to take the chance on having one system imposed across the entire school system. 
I argued during the Committee stage that if the Government is so right about recentralising the employment arrangements for teachers—which is a move backwards from what was in the mind of the Picot task force that preceded the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms—and steps back from that and recentralises employment arrangements for teachers surely it makes sense to allow some options some choices. If the Government believes that what it is imposing on this country is so right why not allow some options? If this legislation is so good then allowing options will not change anything. People would automatically choose to go with this system. 
I put to the Labour Minister of Education the Hon Trevor Mallard and his colleagues: why not allow State schools that do not like this to have choice? Some State schools like Avondale College and Rangitoto College did so well under the Tomorrow’s Schools regime of the 1990s and just blossomed. Avondale College was not in a high-decile area but that school blossomed as it was able to employ and reward great teachers. The bulk funding arrangements of the 1990s while far from perfect at least gave that school some freedom and flexibility to employ teachers who could really make a difference with their children in that community. 
If Labour believes this legislation is so right why not amend it to enable schools with boards of trustees that do not want the State Services Commissioner to impose one employment arrangement over all their teachers to opt out of the system? Why not allow those schools to negotiate different employment arrangements with their teachers? That question goes to the heart of the success of our education system. Why not allow more freedom more choice? All of history shows us that more freedom allows greater progress. We can look at the Soviet regimes where they imposed control over everything—and got no progress. If we kill the spirit of freedom we kill enterprise and progress. 
I say to the Labour Government that we should not argue too much about what is right or wrong with this legislation but the legislation should allow a choice. The Government should allow the State schools that do not want imposed on them what the State Services Commissioner might negotiate the right to negotiate with their own teachers—within a budgetary constraint so they cannot spend endless amounts of taxpayers’ money or any more taxpayers’ money than any other school gets to spend. Surely it makes sense to allow teachers to be employed under slightly different arrangements. 
I go one step further. I say that if this Labour-led Government is so confident that what this legislation is doing is so right why does it not allow real choice for parents. Why not allow State schools to choose to negotiate separately with their own teachers—so they can reward skilled teachers; so they can reward teachers who put greater effort into the well-being of the children—and why not also allow parents to take their children to whatever school they choose? If this monopolistic one-size-fits-all State system is so right why does the Government not allow parents to take the funding that we taxpayers provide to them to whatever school they choose? 
I say too that where a child has greater educational need let that funding be greater. There is no problem. Let us recognise that some children have more need. We should fund that need more but when it comes to the schooling of our children why lock them in to a system of one-size-fits-all? 
 It is interesting to see who is snuggling up to the Government today. On different days different parties around this House seem to snuggle up to the Government and today it is United Future and New Zealand First. Those parties in this Parliament—United Future and New Zealand First—say: “Oh no we’re not about children having the chance for a better education at all.” They say: “No no. We want a State monopolistic system of one-size-fits-all and to hell with the children who don’t prosper and learn well under that system. Let them just suffer.” That is what United Future and New Zealand First are saying in supporting Labour. 
However National says we should allow our schools to do things differently and allow them to employ teachers who work for their children. Then those schools will be different from the schools in a national monopolistic system. The employment arrangements would be different if we allowed that but I can assure this House that we would get better educational outcomes for our disadvantaged children if the system allowed schools to employ teachers under different arrangements. If parents had real choice we would see the State system start to respond to parental needs and the needs of our children’s education. At the moment there is no pressure on it to do so but it is time that happened.