Turei Metiria: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Turei Metiria: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:661] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 It is very clear that the Green Party is opposing the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. I want to talk about both issues—the truancy fine increase and the national standards. We have discovered in the debate on this legislation given that there has been no select committee consideration and therefore no input at all from anybody involved in the implementation of these policies that there is no information. The Minister has no information—she has not presented any to show us that this legislation is necessary. 
There is no evidence that increasing the truancy fines from $1000 to $3000 will make a single bit of difference to the truancy rates in this country. The Minister has failed to provide any evidence that shows this is necessary. In fact she herself in the debate has confessed that it is the threat of prosecution that has the greatest impact on families and on reducing truancy rates than fining them. So why on earth would the National Government decide in its first piece of legislation in its first week in the House to increase the fines for truancy from $1000 to $3000? Maybe it is because it needs the cash. It has made huge promises to the private schooling sector and it has to find the money from somewhere. The Minister will not get any new money out of the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance because they have already said there is none so maybe this is one way of doing it. Maybe it is also following on from the tax increases for the poor and from the 90-day bill. Maybe this is just another way of punishing poor people for being poor. Why not attack them in their wallet where they are the most vulnerable and where they have the least resources? That appears to be the National Party agenda and policy for low-income people in this country. This week has proved that to be the case. 
We are dealing with families that are in extreme turmoil. I have described this before and I will do so again. Many of these low-income families have very insecure employment. As a result they have highly insecure housing. It is very difficult to get housing in some of these areas. Many of these families are being forced into sharing accommodation and completely unsatisfactory arrangements as a result of poverty and poor housing. There is increasing illness and poor nutrition for the children who are trying to get an education. Poverty increases the mobility of those families. The parents have to move around more because they simply cannot afford to keep paying the rent on their own place or if they get another job they may have to move home and shift their children from school to school. This means that children become highly dislocated from their communities. They are unable to put down roots in their community or in their school. They are unable to develop long-term relationships with teachers or build the trust that children need to have with a school and their school community in order to achieve. Children find it very difficult to build long-term relationships with friends when they have to move from school to school. 
All of that impacts directly on their achievements. Children who have to change schools every few months or even every 6 months find it very difficult to keep up their level of achievement in this incredibly dislocated fragile environment. The relationship that children then have with the State system and the schooling system overall is very fragile and fragmented. It builds mistrust between the children and the schooling system. Children then become despondent. Why would children want to go to school if they know that every few months they have to go to a new school meet new teachers and deal with new kids? Children who are living a life of extreme poverty have to deal with the social impacts of that poverty and the new impacts of it every few months as they deal with new kids and new environments. 
Poverty is the cause of the long tail of underachievement for our young children and our young people and the cause of increasing truancy rates. Where is the National Party social policy that deals with poverty? We have had some legislation already in this first week that shows tax increases for the poor and greater insecurity of unemployment through the 90-day bill. Even the amendments to bail conditions mean that a lot of those people will suffer more. That is the kind of social policy we are getting. There is no investment in communities no investment in the education system for low-decile schools no investment in the incomes of these low-income people and no investment in housing. We have already seen that National is going to keep homes cold damp and so poorly insulated that many of our children will continue to suffer from asthma eczema glue ear and other health conditions that result from very poor housing. National refuses to do anything about those poverty aspects that contribute to underachievement and truancy. Instead National will fine these families for truancy and increase the fine from $1000 to $3000. 
In addition the bill sets out the national standards and testing regime that the National Party has been campaigning on and the ACT Party is very committed to following on from its genesis in the US. That is the market approach to education and the No Child Left Behind policy that was put in place in 2000. I have described this before and I am pleased to do so once again. The national standards policy failed in the US and in other countries where similar policies have been put in place. It failed. The research proves that it failed. 
Allan Peachey 
: Not true. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: There was not a single piece of evidence from National to say that it had succeeded. Allan Peachey simply argued that it is all socialism which is not the most intelligent argument I have ever heard when talking about real evidence and real research. I am sorry I say to Mr Peachey but it was an appalling piece of speech-making on his part. 
The policy has failed overseas and the research proves it. How has it failed? Teachers are teaching to the test and not to the skills opportunities and developmental potential of the children themselves. Expectations for black children and poor children have lowered. 
Allan Peachey 
: They wouldn’t do that; they’ve got too much integrity! 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Again we hear that rhetoric from Allan Peachey that proves those members simply will not accept the facts but are just working on ideology. Improving schools were still branded as failures and were punished as a result. Those polices punished those schools and prevented them from being able to improve any further. Students were kept from being able to sit tests or were held back from advancing through the normal year’s progression because they were considered to be unable or unlikely to pass the test and schools did not want those kinds of marks on their record. Black children poor children and disabled children fell behind in achievement in the 8 years that the policy has been in place in the US. As a result the drop-out rate for black children poor children or disabled children in the US increased by 17 percent in just 2 years. 
That policy failed to close the gaps or increase achievement. It increased the market ideology in the education system forcing poor ethnic communities out of education. That is what the National Party’s policy clearly does. It clearly keeps these kids out of education. Why? Who knows? It is completely irrational and it is not understandable. I do not think there is anything in here except this blind ideology towards a market approach to education despite the fact that it is demonstrably a failure. 
I want to address some of the concerns of the Maori Party. I found Anne Tolley’s sycophantic condescension towards Maori absolutely appalling in this debate. The National Party’s refusal to support the Maori Party’s motion to split the bill so its members could oppose the truancy fines whilst supporting educational standards is an obvious example of National’s absolute disregard for real Maori interests. There has been a historical degradation of Maori education not just for decades but for over a century. Not a single Government has ever been able to deal properly with the differences between Maori and Pakeha in terms of educational achievement. Every policy so far has failed because the Maori tikanga policy has not been at the heart of Maori education policy. 
I can see why the Maori Party might be attracted to this policy but it has demonstrably failed ethnic communities everywhere else in the world. There is nothing to show that it will not fail our own whanau. I make a personal plea to the Maori Party to ask them please to not support this bill. Do not support increasing fines for our whanau from $1000 to $3000. Do not support policy that is demonstrably failing ethnic communities and poor communities everywhere in the world when we know that it is our whanau who are the ethnic communities and the poor communities in our own country. This policy promise made by Anne Tolley and those members on that side of the Chamber is an empty failed promise. Again this policy will deliver nothing for our Maori whanau just as similar policies of previous Governments have always failed to deliver for us. This bill will do enormous damage to our public education system. It is the first step in the marketisation of education. I urge all parties and particularly the Maori Party to please not support this bill