Mackey Moana: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Mackey Moana: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:646] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on this part and I will address a comment the Minister of Education made when she got to her feet during the debate on Part 2. She said that the Opposition was confused because we say that the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill does nothing but that we are voting against it because of the content. I would like the Minister to listen very carefully because I think that she is the one who is confused. We are opposing this bill not because it does nothing but because it achieves nothing and there is a very very big difference. 
This bill does do something. It absolutely replicates what schools are already doing. It adds to the compliance costs and the load on our teachers and it makes them do what they are already doing. Why does it do that? It does that because the Minister needs to save face. She went out on the campaign trail and promised national standardised testing and she was beaten down by a howl of opposition from anyone who knows anything about education. So the policy was watered down watered down and watered down to the point where it is now simply replicating what is already happening in our schools. 
So this bill does do something. This bill makes it harder for our teachers to teach because they will be forced to implement a national standards system and a system of assessment that they are already doing. That is why this Opposition is opposing the bill. The title of the bill could be the “Increased Compliance Costs and Less Time for Teaching for Our Teachers Bill” because that is exactly what it does. 
The Minister would do well to listen to the education sector. The problem with being an education expert is that everyone thinks he or she is an education expert because everyone went to school. The fact is that there are people in this country who are actually professionals in this area including teachers and principals who oppose this legislation. 
I ask the Minister how she will avoid having league tables. She says that this is not the purpose of the bill and that she is the only one who will be able to see the comparison. My colleague Kelvin Davis who knows an awful lot more about education than the Minister does who has been in the sector for a long time and who has been the principal of a school that greatly increased its performance under the current system pointed out that parents will vote with their feet. The community will know which of these schools are the ones that are not doing well. 
Allan Peachey 
: Shouldn’t they? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Allan Peachey said that people should be able to see the league tables. Well he might want to talk to his Minister because she is saying the public will not be able to see those comparisons. 
Allan Peachey 
: Why shouldn’t parents know? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I tell Mr Peachey to ask the Minister. The Minister said that they will not be able to see those comparisons. The reason the community will know is that it will be harder to recruit teachers into those schools the students will leave and the resources will leave. If there will be no league tables then I ask the Minister whether when more resources are going into the schools that the league tables show are not doing well she will guarantee that no local MP will get up and trumpet the extra resources for this school in their electorate; resources it is getting because the league table shows that school failing. If she cannot guarantee that then her promise that this bill will not lead to league tables is vacuous—absolutely vacuous. 
A teacher from the Minister’s own electorate emailed me last night to say that this measure will mean we will lose the collaboration that occurs between schools now. Teachers and schools work together at the moment. If they are forced into competition with each other through league tables then that collaboration will disappear so I ask the Minister whether she has considered that. 
If we were to rename this bill it could be called the “Listen to Your Own Constituents Bill”. I will read from a blog by the principal of Opotiki College which is a school in the Minister’s own electorate. He stated: “NZ schools already regularly assess student progress to inform further strategies. There is no need to have a centrally imposed and driven programme which has the intention (according to their policy) of comparing students in one school with another. This crock of”—and then there is a word I cannot use in this House—“is a populist strategy for which there is no credible research to support it.” He goes on to state: “The NZ education system is in good health. Young people are more literate and numerate as a group than any before.” He also states and I think this is important: “If National are elected and push this policy through I will struggle to remain involved in education to my current level in New Zealand.” That is from a principal in the Minister’s own electorate. 
I ask the Minister whether she takes the comments of principal Maurie Abraham from Opotiki College seriously. This college is in an area that has many of the issues the Minister reports that this bill is trying to assist with. Here we have a principal a very good principal who is working very hard in a very poor community to do well by his school who is saying not only that this bill will not work but also that it will be damaging.