Smith Lockwood: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12187] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 In speaking to clause 1 “Title” I take the chance to respond to a contribution made by the New Zealand First member and former principal of—is it “Bay of Islands College”? 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Northland College. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: Northland College. I did not mean to be in any way disrespectful to Mr Peters but I could not off the top of my head remember. 
John Carter 
: Jim Peters. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: Yes this is not about Winston Peters but his brother Jim Peters. He was—he is no longer a principal—a respected school principal and a member of the Secondary Principals Association of New Zealand which is also a respected organisation. I take this chance to respond to his comment that he was shocked to hear a former Minister speak as though the system should allow children from well-off backgrounds to have advantage over those who are not. He interpreted what I had said previously as allowing that. 
I want to make it absolutely clear what I said. The challenge I put to the Government was this: if the centralised system in this State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) Bill is so good why not allow a choice? I am prepared to accept that maybe the Labour-led Government is right in this respect. I do not happen to think it is but if this centralised control over the employment of teachers and the negotiation of their employment arrangements is so good if it is good to recentralise that and bring it under the control of the State Services Commissioner then why not allow a choice? When I say “choice” I am prepared to say there are certain children in this country whose education costs the taxpayers a lot more. Let us be prepared to fund that extra money for those children’s education. Let us accept that some children have greater learning needs and deserve much more taxpayer support. Let us accept that proposition for the moment. 
 But for goodness’ sake why lock them into this one model? If this one model that the Government is now making totally centralised is so good why not let other models compete with it recognising that some children have educational disadvantage and putting more resource into that but surely give them the chance if they wish to to escape from a one-size-fits-all model. I am sure that Mr Jim Peters would know from his years of experience in education—as should his other good colleague from Northland; the other New Zealand First member who was also a school principal—that children differ enormously. It is absolute nonsense to think that one size fits all. So why not allow the opportunity for those who do not believe in this centralised control model where inevitably the most skilled teachers will never be paid as much as they are worth? Members all know that. Where there is big government and big union the most skilled people are never paid as much as they are worth because big union always protects the less skilled or the less good if you like. 
That is what history shows us. Poorer teachers in education are paid more than they are worth and the best teachers are not paid anywhere near what they are worth. It is the big government big union that stopped that. It has stopped it for generations. There was a glimmer of opportunity in the 1990s to break out of that but we never succeeded in breaking out of it. I acknowledge that; we never succeeded in breaking out of that big government big union model. 
It is not just that good teachers deserve to be paid more and freeing up the system would enable that. It is not just that. It is the consequence of keeping good teachers in the classroom teaching children that is so important because children benefit and that is my concern as I speak to the title of this bill. The children seem to be the forgotten people in this legislation. It is all about schooling. It ought to be all about our children and advancing their learning needs regardless of disadvantage; helping the most disadvantaged more. It is known that the one-size-fits-all model does not work. International research shows that New Zealand’s good students do well by international comparison. Students in the bottom 20 to 30 percent are some of the worst performers relative to our best students in the whole of the developed world. What this should be is a chance to change that.