Franks Stephen: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12182] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I am driven to my feet on behalf of the ACT party to speak on this bill that gives the State Services Commission the power essentially to complete its control of negotiations with teachers and take boards of trustees out of the loop. Mr Jim Peters who has just finished speaking referred to the prospect that allowing funding to follow the child would end up benefiting only wealthy people. It is a shame that Mr Peters has not looked at the research. That same kind of reasoning would say that if people were allowed to pay for their bread only rich people would get bread. What we have in fact is evidence from wherever it has been tried that it benefits the poor the best. But my colleague Deborah Coddington will say more on that because it relates very closely to the alternative that should have been in this bill and is not. We were delighted to hear the Hon Lockwood Smith so vigorously championing the real solution to the problem that Part 2 is trying to address. 
I am sorry that the Minister in the chair now is the Hon Margaret Wilson because I really wanted to question the Hon Trevor Mallard who is in charge of this bill about clause 4 and the powers given to the commission in that clause. That is because the Minister I believe in his own patch of education is making very very sure that he is not afflicted with the kind of employment law that Minister Margaret Wilson has tried to push on to the rest of the employers of this country. 
The rest of the employers in this country have very serious problems with the so-called good-faith obligation. The employer must foster good faith directly with the employee or with the employee’s agents. Here of course the employer is taken right out of the loop. In new section 74AA inserted by clause 4 the commissioner has all the rights duties and powers of an employer under the Employment Relations Act. What possible basis for good faith can that give to boards? I would like to hear the Minister in the chair explain whether the Minister of Education had any consultation with her on this. There could not be a provision that is more directly antagonistic to the theories that the Minister in the chair has been putting into employment law for this country. Here we have a third party—someone who does not have to look the teachers in the eye someone who does not have the concerns of the classroom someone who does not have to worry about recruitment someone who does not have to deal with the problems as an employer—being put in to completely usurp “all the rights duties and powers of an employer under the Employment Relations Act 2000 in respect of those employees.” 
It may be that coming to this Chamber for the Committee stage of a bill is just a chore for the Minister and it is possible to sit there and pretend that it does not have anything to do with the Minister. But in fact the Committee stage is Parliament’s opportunity to have an explanation. How does this bill fit with the Employment Relations Act? What possible basis of good faith is this bringing to the schools of this country? What possible foundation for good faith can this Government claim in relation to education when the nominal employer is pushed out of the way when the State Services Commission has all the rights duties and powers of an employer in the most important negotiation for many teachers—negotiation on their wages and conditions in the collective employment agreement? Does this bill mean for example that the board can still communicate directly with its employees without the Minister’s thought police intervening? It does not say. All this bill states is that the board has to communicate with the commissioner. It does not state whether the board can go to teachers to explain the truth which is: “Don’t blame us. Please don’t hold this against us or our children. In the negotiation don’t hold the children to ransom. They have nothing to do with this. It’s all to do with the State Services Commission.” What sort of good faith does it show when the State Services Commission is given the power. This must have been a New Zealand First intervention—