Moroney Sue: Education Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Education Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10688. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): This bill—the Education Amendment Bill; from the crew who tried to convince us that bigger class sizes would be better for educational outcomes—just about says it all. This is the same bureaucratic babble and nonsense that those members tried to foist on New Zealand parents when they said that having more children in classes and fewer teachers in classrooms would be better for educational quality. Well they were trying to pull the wool over parents’ eyes then and they are trying to do the same now. Well actually they are not even trying to argue let us be honest about it. National members cannot even sustain more than 1-minute’s worth of arguments for charter schools. They are so embarrassed by their feeble attempts.I challenge the next National MP who gets on their feet to talk for 10 minutes and argue for charter schools and not do what Cam Calder did. He is the chair of the Education and Science Committee and he could not even utter the words “charter school” when he gave his contribution. He wanted to talk about search and surveillance. He would not even address the issue the main issue in this amendment bill and that is that the Government is borrowing a failed system from the United States like National does all the time with all of its policies. It cannot come up with New Zealand - grown Kiwi-based success stories so it looks to wreck our education system by borrowing from a failed system in the United States. Is not that the National Party all over? Is that not also John Banks all over as well?The shameful thing about this piece of legislation is that the Government is putting politics before our children. It is putting politics before our children and the quality of the education system. It is trading in our world-class public education system—it is trading that in—for a failed system. I am going to disagree a little with Tracey Martin from New Zealand First on this issue because she said there is no evidence around charter schools. Well there is. The evidence is that they fail. The evidence is that they fail. In every other country where they have been implemented they fail. So we have got the evidence. We know that charter schools do not work.What is it that the Government does not get about its so-called 20 percent tail of underachievement which it keeps going on about? The Government says that 20 percent of our children do not achieve. John Banks agrees. He has to agree. That is the line the Government has been trotting out for about 5 years now—20 percent. There is another 20 percent figure I want to remind that Government about. Twenty percent of our children in Aotearoa live in poverty. Twenty percent of children in the land of milk and honey live in poverty.What do Government members not get about the correlation between those two statistics? Twenty percent of our children live in poverty and 20 percent of our children the Government says are failing. What do those members not get? Why dothey not join the dots? [Interruption] Join the dots Mr Banks because you and that party over there will do nothing about addressing poverty. They are doing nothing. In fact they want to pretend it does not exist. That is the way that party wants to address poverty. It wants to pretend it does not exist.Instead of dealing with the root causes and addressing the issues that New Zealand families are crying out for in terms of support for their children what do those members do? They come up with a solution that no one has asked for. They come up with a solution over a cosy cup of tea—well actually a corrupt cup of tea as we learnt afterwards. That is the solution they have come up with—charter schools.No one asked for charter schools. Well actually I may be wrong there. I apologise if I am wrong because I think John Banks asked for charter schools. This was the dirty deal that was stitched up between ACT and National so that National could get back into power. They did a dirty deal over Epsom and they did a dirty deal over the teacups with charter schools as well. That today sadly is what our children are being exposed to. That is what future generations are going to be exposed to because of that dirty deal over a dirty cup of tea and that dirty deal over the Epsom electorate.Hon John Banks: Oh diddums!SUE MORONEY: John Banks says “Diddums”. That is a really mature contribution to the debate. That is about the level of it in terms of maturity. This is the man New Zealand who is wrecking your education system and his response is “Diddums”. That is as good as it gets. I want everyone in New Zealand to understand who the mastermind is behind charter schools. The best defence he can come up with is “Diddums”. Well that about says it all.On the select committee we had a briefing from a woman from New Orleans and Karran Harper Royal was her name.Hon John Banks: How bad was that!SUE MORONEY: Mr Banks wants to know how bad it was. I think he needs to listen up. It was pretty prophetic what she told us—not pathetic but prophetic. It was a prophecy. She warned us that in New Orleans what had happened was that the Government there used the opportunity of a natural disaster to close down a number of State-funded schools.Dr Rajen Prasad: It sounds a bit familiar.SUE MORONEY: It sounds a bit familiar does it not? Those State-funded schools were replaced by these failing charter schools. She came to warn us that she believed that exactly the same thing would happen in Christchurch: a natural disaster and the Government comes along and closes down State schools and then opens up on those same sites privatised charter schools without any accountability to the public.What did we hear today from the Minister of Education? I think the Minister pretty much confirmed that that is exactly what this Government has planned. Members opposite know it—listen; you can hear a pin drop. They know it. They know that their Government has gone about closing down State-funded schools in order to slip taxpayer money across to charter schools run by their mates without any accountability.And let me say while I am on that issue that John Banks tried to pretend—and so did the last speaker Colin King—that somehow these are going to be community-run facilities facilities run by the community for the community. Well they are not required to have a board of trustees; not like State-run schools. They are not required to actually give any information to the public about how the public’s own money is being used in running these schools. There is only one reason why the Government would want to hide that information—no actually I can think of two: one is it does not want the public to know how their money is being misused and secondly it does not want the public to discover how those charter schools are failing.The Government makes a lot of the contracts that are going to be made between the Crown and these charter school operators whoever they may be—and they could be anybody quite frankly because there are no rules there are no regulations and there are no standards when it comes to who can run a charter school. Is that not right Mr Banks? There are no standards at all as to who can run a charter school. There are no standards. The Government is dropping the standards. It will not let anyone understand what is going on because it has deliberately kept charter schools out of the purview of the Official Information Act. And it expects us to believe that this bill is about improving the education system.Well if it were an ounce about improving the education system the Government would be proud of it; it would not be hiding it. While I am on the subject of who would be proud and not hiding can I say “Shame on the Māori Party.” Shame on Māori Party members for not being involved in this debate and for putting their votes to something they are not prepared to even come and speak to in the House. They have not made a contribution to this debate. They are instrumental in forcing this upon our wonderful education system yet where are they when the rubber hits the road? Where are they to stand up and be counted on why they are putting their votes—Alfred Ngaro: What are you doing?SUE MORONEY: —beside these schools? I can tell that member what we did. The Labour Government funded te kotahitanga. We did not cut the funding like his Government is doing. He does not care at all for Māori achievement if he can be a member of a Government that will cut the funding to one of the most successful programmes for Māori students—te kotahitanga. That member need not take that attitude because if he really meant what he said he would not be doing that.