Power Simon: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Power Simon: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
[Volume:614;Page:10638] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I am pleased about Steve Chadwick’s speech as there were a couple of things I did not understand in this bill and she has clarified them. This is not really a bill as such; it is more a document that confirms a divorce. It confirms that the cosy relationship between Trevor Mallard and the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) has finally come to an end. This Minister— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: A former regional secretary. 
SIMON POWER 
: That is right. This Minister was widely reported prior to 1999 as being the darling of the teachers unions. He was going to be the Minister who would make everything all right and chase away the allegedly bad policies of the 1990s. Teachers today are being asked to sign the divorce papers between Trevor Mallard and the PPTA; the marriage of convenience is over. It went through a rocky patch in 2002 during the National Certificate of Educational Achievement strikes but what this bill is really doing is allowing the Minister by way of legislation essentially to put the boot into his ex-partner. Essentially this legislation will say to the PPTA that the honeymoon is over and the Minister is coming after it. It has taken a while for the Minister to show his colours on this issue but that is as Bill English has said absolutely black and white. 
Before we get into the detail of the bill I just say that the contribution by Bernie Ogilvy was just extraordinary. It was extraordinary that Bernie Ogilvy said United Future was going to support this bill. If I heard Marc Alexander from that same party correctly he said in this House once that the party is anti-bureaucracy and anti-limits— 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: We are extraordinary. 
SIMON POWER 
: The member says that United Future is supporting it. How can a party be anti-bureaucracy and vote for a bill that recentralises power to a Government department—to a Government commissioner? That makes no sense at all. But worse than that Mr Ogilvy’s colleague Murray Smith is running around the school review meetings standing on the platform and saying things like he has no respect for Trevor Mallard and the way he is dealing with the school review closures. Murray Smith has said he does not want to be associated with what is going on in the Government’s education policy. Yet now when we come down to the House and members on the Opposition side are thinking Murray Smith has put a line in the sand on behalf of United Future by saying he does not want to be associated with Trevor Mallard and has no respect for his education agenda Bernie Ogilvy gets up and says that United Future will be voting for the bill. 
Richard Worth 
: I can’t believe it. 
SIMON POWER 
: Well I say to Mr Ogilvy that that is extraordinary. 
I give Bernie Ogilvy this promise: at the next election I look forward to the United Future candidate standing on the platform in Rangitikei next to me and explaining United Future’s education policy to the assembled masses. Government members should hope he takes their side and not Murray Smith’s side. The population is confused about United Future’s view on this bill. I say to Mr Ogilvy that it is not too late. When the vote is taken he can change his mind show some consistency and for goodness’ sake back Murray Smith. He should not leave him out there dangling—[ 
Interruption 
] Jill Pettis fires up again. There she goes again—the seagull caught in the clothesline. Jill Pettis is away again. I just say that I was at Kapuni School last week talking about its school review. When I asked what Jill Pettis was doing to represent the school’s interests to the Minister of Education with regard to the south Egmont review people asked what I meant. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: More than that member has ever done in Taihape. 
SIMON POWER 
: Trevor Mallard should hang on because he will be interested in this. I asked what Jill Pettis had said when she had gone to the school. I was asked what I meant. I asked again what Jill Pettis had said when she had gone to Kapuni School to discuss the review. The people there said she had never been there to discuss the review. I said that could not be right because although I did not agree with all Jill Pettis’ politics she was pretty industrious. But no they said she had never been there. They said they thought she had driven through Kapuni in a car once but that she had never been to the school. I thought that was just extraordinary. 
This bill is interesting because it comes at a time in the political cycle when in the second term of this Labour Government it is beginning to reflect some of the things that are going on in the second term of the Labour Government in the UK. The second term is when Labour starts to knock around its traditional supporters. We are seeing that with Tony Blair. If I were a traditional Labour Party supporter and if I were one of the Government members who owes his or her place in the caucus to the PPTA I would be looking at the situations vacant column about now. The PPTA will not back any of the teachers union - backed members of Parliament sitting on the Government benches when the next election rolls around. 
 Rodney Hide was right on the button when he said we do not need legislation that recentralises bureaucratic control into the hands of the State Services Commissioner. What boards need is a whole lot of freedom and flexibility to be able to do whatever they need to do in order to ensure the one thing that is missing from this bill—the one thing that is not mentioned in it—which is the quality of the education that is provided to the students in schools. There is not one mention of the educational standards that would be met by implementing this legislation—not one mention of what it means for school kids students and pupils throughout New Zealand. That is disappointing because that does make this a vengeful piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation whereby Trevor Mallard is now saying to the Post Primary Teachers Association that time is up that he does not need its support any more and that next time the Government will deal with it through the State Services Commission with regard to rectifying industrial disputes. 
When I had a quick look through the bill one of the interesting things I saw was that the purposes of the bill seemed to me to be all over the show. A bit of a mishmash of reasons has been put together in this legislation. Clause 3(a) enables the State Services Commissioner to negotiate collective agreements. Clause 3(b) requires the unions representing the board to give prior notice of a proposed strike and clause 3(c) requires the boards to report to the State Services Commissioner. Well that is just what volunteers parents and members of communities with big hearts need when they go on school boards: more reporting requirements! What we would like to see in legislation are provisions that would allow communities and school trustees to get on with the business of providing a quality education to the students and pupils of their schools rather than requiring them to fill out more forms when dealing with the State Services Commissioner and having to answer to another Government agency in the form of the State Services Commissioner. 
Then the purpose clause goes on to preclude compensation for technical redundancies around the school reviews. Much of that territory has been covered by Brian Donnelly but I will just say this: during the school review process we should concentrate on modelling and copying schools that are doing well—schools that are succeeding. It is a real problem when schools are not succeeding and that is the type of difficulty that this legislation should address. When the Hon Bill English led off the debate for the National Party he made that point very clearly when he said that we would be opposing the bill for those reasons. I tell Bernie Ogilvy to talk to Murray Smith. Murray Smith does not want to vote for this bill and that member should have checked with him before he pledged United Future’s support to push this bill on towards a select committee.