Moroney Sue: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Education Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:6000. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is really sad that none of the National members of Parliament can spend more than 3 minutes espousing the virtues of charter schools because there just are not any. I noticed that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga who has just spoken barely got to 3 minutes before he had to start talking about other aspects of the Education Amendment Bill so devoid of merit is this idea of charter schools. But you have only to look at the sponsoring Ministers to understand that. 
I think it must be an absolute embarrassment to the Government that the Minister who began the first reading debate on this legislation was the “Minister for Amnesia” John Banks. He is a sponsoring Minister of this legislation. Can anyone opposite tell me of a Minister who lacks credibility more than the Minister who started off this demolition to our education system? Well maybe there is one other and that is the other sponsoring Minister—the Minister in charge of the bill actually—Hekia Parata. Can anyone tell me of two Ministers who are more lacking in credibility at the moment than the duo of Hekia Parata and John Banks? It is like Batman and Robin gone wrong. They are the two Ministers sponsoring this bill and that is probably just about all New Zealanders need to know about whether this is going to be successful or not. 
Those two Ministers are the Ministers who have wrecked education already. The best idea that Hekia Parata has had in her short time as the Minister of Education was that she wanted to dumb down our education system by—yes—increasing class sizes. That is the qualification that Hekia Parata has for being the Minister in charge of this bill. Then there is John Banks who is the co-sponsoring Minister. Well this was a deal done over the teacups and it has gone bad from there on in. 
This bill has nothing to do with increasing student achievement. When the last speaker spoke he alerted us to that because where was he drawing inspiration from for his speech? He drew it from a country and an area that has much much worse educational outcomes than New Zealand. He quoted those much worse educational outcomes in New Zealand and said “Why don’t we do what they’re doing?”. Well that is the big mistake that is going on here. Those members opposite are so devoid of ideas that they are copying countries that are below us in the world rankings in student achievement. 
Clearly this bill has absolutely not one thing to do with student achievement so what is it about? Well it is about putting money into the pockets of the likes of Destiny Church. Destiny Church is lining up to become a charter school with no rules and regulations—no rules and regulations. It will have a whole pile of taxpayer money but no accountability back to the public because—listen to this—the Destiny Church will not be under the Official Information Act as a charter school. There will be no scrutiny from the public about how the Destiny Church is using taxpayer money on its little venture under the guise of charter schools which apparently the members opposite are inviting us to believe and are trying to trick the public into believing are about improving student achievement. 
I think that all of the New Zealand public listening to this debate will understand that the motivation for the Destiny Church in operating a charter school will not be primarily about student achievement. It has other agendas and so will many many other groups that will be lining up behind Destiny Church to get their hands on taxpayer money with no accountability—no accountability—because the Official Information Act will not apply for taxpayers to find out what is really happening to their dollar in the schools with no rules and if necessary no qualified teachers. 
There is nothing in the legislation that we are debating here today that actually requires any qualified or registered teacher to be in any one of these schools. If I am wrong I invite the next National Party speaker to put that straight because I can see nowhere in this legislation where there is a requirement for a charter school to have any registered teacher on its staff. But it is no surprise coming from that party. 
I do not know what National has got against qualified and registered teachers but it started this in the early childhood education sector. National started this in 2010 when it decided to cut the funding that actually supported the employment of qualified teachers in early childhood education. That party said then that it did not believe in having 100 percent qualified teachers in early childhood education so it cut the funding that actually underpinned and allowed the sector to employ qualified teachers. The writing was on the wall then. It started in early childhood education. Now it is attacking the rest of the education sector with this idea that anyone will do—anyone will do. It does not need to be anyone who understands the pedagogy or has any—any—training in the art and the craft of teaching. 
So that is the vision for this country. It is really very disappointing because only a few months ago John Key was trying to convince parents that it is not the class sizes that matter but the quality of teaching that we are getting in our schools. That was John Key just a few months ago. Now he is telling New Zealanders: “Oh don’t get hung up on the fact that teachers without qualifications will be able to teach New Zealand children at charter schools.” It is another flip-flop from this Prime Minister. 
It is disappointing because New Zealanders need to be able to take their Prime Minister at his word. They need to be able to take their Prime Minister at his word but this clearly shows that they cannot because one minute he is saying that it is the quality of teachers that matters and then the next minute he is saying “Oh don’t get hung up if you haven’t got a qualified teacher in front of your child’s class. It doesn’t matter.” You cannot take this Prime Minister at his word as has clearly been demonstrated. 
I think it is a sad time for New Zealanders when they cannot trust what the Prime Minister says. Yesterday he was trying to tell New Zealanders that he voted for the age of 20 for alcohol law reform but the record clearly shows that he voted for it to be kept at 18. We are now getting into territory where it is very very difficult for New Zealanders to trust anything that their Prime Minister says. He said that it is the quality of teachers that matters not the class size. He says: “You know don’t worry your pretty little heads about that parents because Prime Minister John knows best.” Well “Prime Minister John” has now changed his mind. “Prime Minister John” now says that the quality of teaching does not matter. It is because he has run out of ideas though. That is why he is changing his mind—he has run out of ideas along with the rest of them over there. 
So devoid are National members of any ideas about how to actually improve our educational outcomes in this country that they are now looking to countries like the United States and the UK for inspiration. Well here is some news for the members opposite. Those countries have worse significantly worse educational achievement and student achievement than we do right now in New Zealand. Why are they looking to countries that fail to improve student education instead of actually looking at and enhancing the success that New Zealand has always had? I would argue that a significant amount of that success has been because of the quality of our teachers not because we are dumbing down the education system as that Government is inclined to do—as it has proven time and time again. 
This is very bad legislation. I am proud that the Labour Party is opposing this. I think it tells New Zealand that we are going to need a Labour-led Government to get any progress and a quality education for our children.