Moroney Sue: Education Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9874. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):Look I think anyone listening to this debate could not help but see where the passion for education in this House lies. Clearly it is on the Opposition benches and not with the Government. Those dry boring speeches where Government members have tried to distract from the real issues are not fooling anyone. Our children the children of this nation are being used as guinea pigs—as guinea pigs. That would not be quite so bad if we thought it might work but given that we know that it almost certainly will not work because of what we have seen overseas it is absolutely criminal that that party that Government is using this charter schools legislation to use our children as guinea pigs.What is behind this? What is all behind it? Well two things. The Government clearly does not value teachers. Government members have had it in for teachers ever since they got into Government. They started off with early childhood education where they scrapped the funding for 100 percent qualified teachers and now they are on to the compulsory sector and they want to scrap teachers in the compulsory sector as well. The vehicle for that is this legislation the Education Amendment Bill which is bringing in charter schools where they do not have to employ qualified teachers.What has the National Government got against teachers? Every teacher in this country needs to listen to this debate and understand that the National Government does not like teachers and does not want them in front of the children of this nation. All the parents need to understand that that Government does not want quality teaching in front of their children. This is just another slant at its failed attempt to increase class sizes. It could not get away with that but it wants to get away with dumbing down education by introducing charter schools.So it is about not valuing teachers but it is also about privatising our education system because National’s rich mates want to get their hands on taxpayer funding in education and that is the other motivation for this. For all the bluff and bluster about how concerned the Government is about Māori achievement and Pasifika achievement in our education system why did the Government not listen to what Ngāi Tahu had to say when they came before the Education and Science Committee? Ngāi Tahu said that they did not support this legislation because they thought that the introduction of charter schools would lead to corruption and fraud because of the privatisation agenda.But importantly they also said that poverty—poverty—is the largest factor in the underachievement of Māori and Pasifika students. That Government week in and week out refuses to deal with poverty in this country. It refuses to even measure poverty in this country. If it was serious about dealing with underachievement for those children it would deal with the underlying issue of poverty but it refuses to. Instead it is treating our children as guinea pigs through this legislation and it is doing it in a way where it is hiding it from the public. Those charter schools will not have any scrutiny under the Official Information Act or from the Ombudsman and I think that just about says it all.But one of the really frightening things that I saw when I was on that select committee was actually a fantastic submission—well it was not a submission; it was a briefing actually—from a parent activist from New Orleans a woman by the name of Karran Harper Royal who came to warn us off charter schools. She told us that in New Orleans they had shut down perfectly good State-funded schools and they had used that to bring in the privatised charter school model. Where does that remind you of? New Orleans had had a natural disaster. Christchurch has had a natural disaster and guess what! The Government is up to exactly the same thing in Christchurch. It is closing down perfectly good State-funded and State-operated schools and it is doing that in order to make way for this guinea pig this trial situation of charter schools. That is what it is doing to some of the most vulnerable children in Christchurch and up and down New Zealand.