Turei Metiria: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16325. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I will speak on behalf of my colleague Catherine Delahunty who is the Green Party’s education spokesperson and a member of the Education and Science Committee which considered the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). She has asked that I raise a number of points during the Committee stage today. 
The Green Party has real concerns about a number of aspects of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and we will continue to oppose it. The areas of concern are those that have been outlined by submitters such as the Law Commission the Human Rights Commission and of course the early childhood education sector. The issue of limited-attendance centres for children and the loss of police vetting has had some media coverage and for good reason. The Green Party agrees with Labour that the rationale for removing safety aspects at creches in malls because they are not educational facilities does not stack up. The police vetting of staff working with children should be a bottom line and we would like to see clarity as to which legislation protects children before those clauses are removed from the Education Act. I am aware that there is a Supplementary Order Paper on the Table to fix the situation which the Green Party will support. 
We were also concerned about the issue of staff ratios. The whole approach to limited-attendance centres is classic laissez-faire politics. It sounds great to say that we should leave it to parental choice but we do not think parents realise that standards will be removed from those centres. The baby is being thrown out with the bathwater because regulation is allegedly bad and children’s needs are not at the centre of the argument in these clauses. 
We are opposed to the changes to out-of-zone enrolments—again we understand there is a Supplementary Order Paper to deal with that—and the criteria that give priority to children of former pupils or board members from outside the zone for the school. That kind of privileging is not warranted in public schools. The Green Party is opposed to that provision and if there is the capacity to change it we would certainly support it. 
One submitter raised the issue of the management of private schools indicating that the bill has missed an opportunity to address recommendations from the Law Commission on a range of issues from suspension to governance. Although the Green Party does not prioritise issues in the private sector because we have our hands full trying to keep a free and equitable education ethos in the public school system of Aotearoa New Zealand I know there are also Supplementary Order Papers on the Table on this issue which may attract Green support. Children have human rights in all areas of education private or public and there are genuine gaps in the law and in the process of natural justice so we are looking at those Supplementary Order Papers carefully. 
We also oppose the late amendments to the bill which Labour and National presented to the select committee and education sector in the last stages of the process. It is not good practice to shoehorn even more complex elements into the bill and to expect the education sector to have any ownership of it. The provisions around broadening the powers of the Teachers Council to suspend teachers needs a much more careful discussion with the sector itself and that has not happened. Therefore despite parts of the bill appearing inoffensive the Green Party will not support this bill and we will not support the Labour Supplementary Order Paper concerning the Teachers Council. Thank you.