King Colin: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Colin: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 March 2010. Volume:661;Page:9824. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak on this bill during its Committee stage. The bill has quite a number of clauses in it. Many of those clauses were put into a category of corrections. Of the approximately 80 clauses 37 would fit into that category 33 of them were considered to be minor amendments and 15 clauses were policy changes. 
When I talk about minor corrections I should articulate clearly that inside the Education Act there is still a lot of residue from previous legislation. If members turn to section 159 “Interpretation” of the Education Act 1989 they will see mentioned “New Zealand apprenticeship committee”. Of course we know that under the Industry Training Act the New Zealand apprenticeship committees passed out of existence. That was a reference to section 27 of the Apprenticeship Act 1983. That was an example of a correction made to the Education Act in the Education Amendment Bill and we can appreciate that that change was quite appropriate. 
With regard to minor amendments one example is in clause 15 with regard to the registration and inspection of private schools. The clause effectively states that the chief review officer would ensure that a review is taken of all schools in accordance with Part 28 of the Education Act. That was considered to be a minor amendment. 
But when we look at policy changes we see some far more sensitive areas. One of those that I will turn to relates to police vetting. I believe that the matching of registration information has been well traversed by members on the other side of the Chamber and they brought out many many good points. But when it comes down to police vetting we see that fine balance between protecting children and ensuring that there is a safe learning environment and setting up a system where the school has better control and is able to manage things in a timely way. Until this amendment the Teachers Council ran the whole process. It is deemed by the select committee that we have the balance right. 
One point that came out with regard to home schooling was quite important and I think it is appropriate to draw the Committee’s attention to it. New section 319FB which is to be inserted in the Education Act by clause 70 talks about vetting household members who are either 17 years of age or over. It talks about how police vetting should be conducted. It is a very sensitive area because on the one hand we are protecting the children and on the other hand we have to protect the reputation of the individual. The point that is made quite clearly is to do with the validation of the information that the police get and it is a very important point: if the service provider has had a reasonable opportunity to validate the information but has failed to do so within the reasonable period then action can take place. 
Although there are not a lot of major policy changes in the bill it corrects a lot of aspects of the Education Act 1989. Altogether it will make the Education Act work better. It will be a bit more balanced and it will certainly take our children forward. We look forward to the changes to this bill being written into the Education Act 1989 in due course. It is a pleasure to support the bill.