Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): Well the Minister of Education has spent time in the House giving us a history lesson and I want to simply explain what he has said. What he has said is that after a decade of relatively stable fees charged to teachers by the Teaching Council on a Labour Government's watch fees are going up and that Minister of Education is perfectly happy about it. Well we on this side of the House do not think that this bill is justified and I'm going to tell this House why.The first thing is that as a matter of principle we do not think that it is appropriate to be letting the Teaching Council off the hook for acting unlawfully. I'm going to quote the court who looked at the council's decision to change fees from three-yearly increments to one-yearly increments raising costs on teachers. What the court said about that was the Teaching Council's decision to set a fee for issuing a practising certificate amounted to an unlawful tax;"—an unlawful tax. Now this isn't a conceptual thing or a notional thing; this actually happened. Everyday teachers who by the way under this Government are facing a rising cost of living on every front whether it's at the pump whether it's at the supermarket or whether it's the house that they want to rent or buy are also being slapped with an unlawful tax from their professional body and instead of the Minister of Education deciding to stick up for teachers and take a role as their defender in this instance he has said "Oh well Teaching Council I'm on your side on this. I'll tidy up the law and get you off the hook." That's what he had decided to do.But then he's taken it a step further. He's said "Well actually we need to make sure Teaching Council that you can confidently increase fees well into the future." and that's what this bill does. It allows the Teaching Council to charge fees and levies for a broad range of functions. This is why submitters to the select committee are concerned because when they look at the role of the Teaching Council they say "Well look there are some things that yes we might be happy to pay for: registration and certification setting standards for qualifications that lead of registration."—those are narrow functions—"performing disciplinary function when misconduct occurs." But then we have this other function and this is where we've got the empire creep happening. We've got the Teaching Council having big views about itself and what it's there to do—that is providing leadership to teachers and direction for the education profession. Well how big a leadership function is that? That is actually the question because that could be as long as a piece of string. That could go on and on that leadership function and what teachers expect the Minister of Education to do is to say "Well there are limits to that because someone else is paying for it." We shouldn't be creating a situation where teachers are expected to pay ever-higher fees and registration costs because there's a quango in Wellington that wants to expand its role and there's evidence of this. In 2016 the staff costs of the Teaching Council were $5.3 million. Fast-forward to 2020 those staff costs had leapt up to $8.2 million. This is an organisation that is very comfortable about spending other people's money—about spending money that came from everyday teachers that came from their wages that came from their household budgets—and I note that actually this isn't an entity that is well loved. There has been significant dissatisfaction with its performance—in particular in relation to the way it ran roughshod over sector concerns and introduced huge and unprecedented increases in fees. They have been slapped on the hand for poor consultation. The Minister has acknowledged as much—that they should have consulted better; that they should have done a better job of that—and yet they will be allowed to continue. What that speaks to I think Minister is arrogance that actually this is a body that thinks it can just increase fees for the people it serves and not face any consequences. Now a Minister of Education has a choice when an organisation does something like that. He can choose to confront it and say "Well actually I want to see you performing much better in future. Here's how I'm going to require that of you." But instead what this bill is is the Minister of Education making a deliberate decision to look the other way to leave the Teaching Council unfettered in its ability to keep riding roughshod over teachers to keep increasing fees and levies to continue to consult poorly and to continue to grow its role expand its functions and expand the costs it imposes on others.I want to turn to another issue and that is the role of the Government in funding the leadership role of the teaching profession in New Zealand. Now the simple reality is that for many years the Government has played a significant role in partially funding the leadership function of the Teaching Council and that has meant that that has offset the costs that would otherwise be imposed on teachers and this Government has decided to bring an end to that. It has decided that actually no despite spending literally tens of millions of dollars more on staff at the Ministry of Education—despite finding the money to expand the functions of the Ministry of Education phenomenally to see it hire tens hundreds of new officials—it's not prepared to keep in any way funding the functions of the Teaching Council. Now that is a deliberate choice and Minister Hipkins should not talk down to teachers such that he would expect that they're not aware of that choice. He has made a choice not to continue partial funding and the result is clear. The result is that everyday teachers struggling with the cost of living are going to be expected to pay ever-higher fees and costs and what an extraordinary situation it is when it is the National Party that is standing alongside the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) saying "Well actually when the PPTA takes the Teaching Council to court and has a finding that it has imposed an unlawful tax don't rely on the Minister of Education"—the union-aligned Minister of Education from the Labour Party—"to stand with you because he's nowhere to be found. He's got other things to worry about. But actually National will stand up because at a principled level we believe that the Government should be as careful in the way it spends your money as you would be." We believe that before a Government takes a dollar from someone else it should ensure it's pulled its own belt in and we don't see evidence that the Teaching Council has had to do that. We see no evidence that the Minister of Education has stood up to the people spending teachers' money and said "I need you to do a better job. Treat teachers with more respect. Actually they don't have endlessly deep pockets. So before you go off and expand your leadership function and hire more staff and do more things that give you great joy please think about the people paying for that. Please think about the everyday teachers."—who are really struggling by the way under this Government because rents have gone up on average $100 week the price of a house has gone up $200k in the past year—"It's actually pretty tough out there Teaching Council. So we would like you to be a bit more careful in future. And by the way don't ever again put New Zealand teachers in a situation where your consultation over increasing fees is so bad that it ends up in court and the PPTA have to take you to court to fight you to get a finding against you. Don't put us in that situation." ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I'm trying to remind the member not to bring the Speaker into the debate. Thank you.NICOLA WILLIS: Madam Speaker I apologise for bringing you into the debate. There are two entities in this debate and they are on the one side everyday teachers in New Zealand who are facing rising costs and who under this bill can expect to be paying increased registration and certification fees in many years under a Labour Government and on the other side is the Minister of Education and the Teaching Council who have been given absolute freedom to increase fees. It is a Labour Government that is increasing fees for teachers. National stands on principle to say that we believe that the Teaching Council should face the same constraints as everyday New Zealanders. We oppose this bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."