Woods Megan: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):I would like in this call to address clauses 1 2 and 3 in reverse order. I want to pick up where my colleague Grant Robertson left off in acknowledging where this piece of legislation the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill sits within the tapestry that is the history of industry apprenticeships and skills training in this country. I think that it is a big missed opportunity as we have been saying throughout our speeches on this bill at every reading. We have really missed an opportunity to add something to that history. We are immensely proud of what the Labour-led Government coming in in 1999 did in terms of reinstating apprenticeships training in this country because it is so critical to us being the country that we want to be and the country that we can be.I do notice—if I flick very briefly to schedule 2 which lists out the consequential amendments to the principal Act that is referred to in clause 3 of the bill—that one of those pieces of legislation that is amended is the Maori Housing Act of 1938. I just want to acknowledge the proud history we have in this country of Māori trade training and how that has been such an important part of our history. What we did during and after World War II in terms of training a workforce and producing a stock of good houses for this country is something that we can rightly be proud of.Grant Robertson: Someone ought to write a thesis on this.Dr MEGAN WOODS: My colleague tells me that someone should write a thesis on this. As I referred to in other readings of this legislation this was the subject of my PhD thesis. It is an area that I am incredibly interested in. It has shown me the potential of what a well-crafted trade training scheme can be and this is not it.What we have heard about from submitters on this bill if we are thinking about the Acts that have gone before it and about the legislation that we are amending here today is the lack of pastoral care that this bill contains. What we know from history if we do look at history is that pastoral care is absolutely critical to the success of any apprenticeship training scheme. We know that the success of the Māori trade training scheme of the mid-20th century was as much about the technical skills that the largely young men were able to gain in terms of framing and plastering and all those kinds of things as it was about the matrons in the hostels who were absolutely critical to the success of those schemes. The fact that the Government is passing legislation that completely does away with the emphasis on pastoral care is not something in which I can have any faith that we are enacting a piece of legislation today that is going to stand us in good stead and set us up with the kinds of skills and apprenticeship training that we need to be the kind of innovative country we need to be in the 21st century.I said I was going to do it in reverse order so I will talk about clause 2 of this legislation. Of course I note the commencement date of this legislation in terms of the Act coming into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. What we do know is that already the tender process for the privatisation of training has occurred. We already have four tenders in for non - industry training organisation providers of skills training. I spoke in the debate on Part 1 of this bill about seeing a large health-care provider that is one of these tenderers—surprise surprise—and that we are in real danger of having business specific training put in place rather than industry-specific training. That is something that is absolutely critical. It is critical when we are using public money when we are spending taxpayer funding that we are doing stuff for the industry good and we are doing stuff to make New Zealand a better place not subsidising what a large corporation would otherwise pay for itself.What we are doing here today is shameful. We are taking money away from the public provision of industry training which is the absolute underpinning of the economy that we have in order to be in the 21st century and putting it into the pockets of private businesses which will absolutely leave out small to medium sized businesses. What we are seeing is not the small to medium sized enterprises that are already tendering before this legislation has its commencement date under clause 2. What we are seeing are large corporations. Small to medium sized enterprises are going to be potentially left behind in this. In Labour we want to back our small to medium sized businesses. We do not want to back just the big end of town. The fact is that we had businesses come to us at the Education and Science Committee and tell us that this bill was going to be to their detriment because there is a Government that is absolutely content at looking after its mates and backing the big end of town and that is absolutely shameful. We are in danger of undermining our skills in industry training in this country because of ideological commitment on the part of this Government in an absolute blinkeredness to anything but big business. Well small businesses mean something to the New Zealand Labour Party. They always have and they always will.David Bennett: Oh yeah right—get real.Dr MEGAN WOODS: The fact is that that member sits there and chirps but never takes a call. He will sit there and pipe up from time to time but when business came and told the committee how detrimental it was going to be there was not one murmur from the Government members on that committee. I would like to hear a call from a Government member on that committee that addresses small to medium sized businesses are going to fare under this legislation. So rather than just the squeakings of that member over there perhaps we could have a substantial contribution.Before I conclude I want to turn to clause 1 of this bill—the title. I think one of the very interesting things that a submitter came to us and said was that it is debatable whether the bill could include the words “industry training” if other organisations can qualify for funding in this way. The very substance of this legislation belies the title of this bill. The Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill perhaps does not seem apt when in our minds this is a piece of legislation that undermines what industry training is about. It undermines the industry good that we need to be looking to when we are spending public money. It is a simple transfer of public education money into the pockets of corporations. It is a continuation of the privatisation agenda.So I would like to suggest some alternative titles for this piece of legislation. I think that the “Privatisation of Education Act (Part 3 Hot on the Heels of Private-Public Partnerships and Charter Schools) Bill” could be a more apt name for the piece of legislation that we are debating in this Committee today. I think that if we were not going to go there Government members might like to consider an amendment that goes along the lines of the “Ideological Blinkers of This Government Bill”. That would perhaps be a more apt name because this bill is all about this Government’s commitment to privatisation in our education system and not about visionary thinking about what is going to make a better country a better economy and what will equip our workforce with the necessary trades skills and education that are required for us to go forward into the 21st century.We on this side of the Chamber know that if we really are going to address inequality in this country then having robust industry training robust apprenticeships and good skills training is absolutely critical and this legislation is doing everything it can to undermine it. I find the name of this bill the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill a little absurd given that all the players involved in industry training came along and told the Government that the bill was not going to work. It seems a little like it is a piece of irony that we are in this Chamber debating today. I would like to have a Government member take a call and tell us how it is that this bill is supporting industry training because in our mind all this is doing is undermining industry training. To give it that title in this legislation is nothing short of shameful.Why does a Government member not take a call get on their legs and justify their position? Why is it that the Government thinks that it can run industry training and that industry’s voice should be silenced? So perhaps that is another name that we could give this bill—the “Government Knows Better Than Industry Training Bill”. That would be another contender for my alternative title of this legislation. It is a sad day that we are not here today debating a piece of legislation that is going to enrich the tapestry of a history of industry and apprenticeships training in this country and that we are about to pass a piece of legislation that is going to undermine it.