Martin Tracey: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1426. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Firstly can I acknowledge the teachers who have all in the last 2 weeks returned to the classroom. I hope they had a break. I know that with the schools that I have driven past teachers have actually been there at least a fortnight before the students have returned doing preparation making sure that they are up to speed and having teacher-only days to set the course for the rest of the year.I want to reiterate what Catherine Delahunty just said which is to hold on. I mean it has been 7 years—we are entering our seventh year I believe—of the attack on the teaching profession by the National Government and all I can say is to support what Catherine has said to you. This Government cannot last for ever—hold on. We will get through at the end of the day.This is a profession that only the most honourable of us actually enter. Out of I do not know how many thousands upon thousands of teachers there are in this country in the last 10 years or something like that there have been only 55 of them who have caused any serious misdemeanour or whatever. Yet this code of conduct conversation that goes on in this bill—the rhetoric from this Government—would suggest to parents that their children are in peril when they go to school. The code of conduct alterations in this bill are we believe a knee-jerk reaction to a mistaken belief out there—which has been encouraged assisted and helped along by National to shift across its programme of privatisation and distrust of the public education system—that you cannot get rid of a teacher.I went to the Vanguard Military School because I have an open mind. Unlike what some people might accuse us of being New Zealand First is open to having a look at things and seeing whether they work for children and for New Zealanders and so we go and have a look. I went to Vanguard and it was very interesting. A haka was put on by the children—a lovely haka. I do not know what you would call the gentleman—I do not think he is a principal; I think he is a general manager. He said to me as we walked away: “You would never be able to get a full school haka at a public school.”. I said to him: “Oh how funny. There are 1500 children at Mahurangi College who can do their own school haka. They don’t have to borrow it off Ngāti Whātua.”Then we went to his office and he said: “Oh but you can’t get rid of teachers—you can’t get rid of teachers.” That is what Mr Seymour thinks too. That is why Mr Seymour—in that insidious little voice that he has—starts to push education policy through the National Government because he also believes that you cannot get rid of teachers in this country. But we have appraisal processes we have competency we have laws of natural justice. But the code of conduct—you have a listen to what it says in here. It is specifically there. Here you go this is from the revised departmental report of July 2014: “The lack of a code of conduct could make employers’ assessment of professional conduct arbitrary and problematic.” That is actually a really nice way to say that if we want to get rid of you we want to get rid of you now; that if we do not like something about what you are doing in your classroom or if you stand up against us because you are standing up for that child because you believe that that child should not be ostracised or excluded or whatever you will have broken the code of conduct and we will fire you. That is what this is about.This is about making sure that teachers do as they are told. That is what this is about because the Government mistakenly seems to believe that the teachers are its employees. The Government seems to think that teachers are its employees and therefore its employees should do as they are told or it is down the road with them. The boards of trustees employ the teaching staff; the Government is merely the paymaster. The boards of trustees are the people who through the direction of the principal are responsible for the employment and the appraisal and the competency of those employees and it is all there. There is no need for a code of conduct—there is no need at all—but it is a quick way to fire somebody and it has come out of the business association I guarantee it.Out of 1525 submissions only 13 were in support. There is consultation for you. It is getting tiring. What a shame it is to start the political year again trying to explain to National Government Ministers that consultation is not asking everybody what they think and then doing what you want anyway. I know that the National Government Ministers find consultation incredibly irritating—I know they do. Mr Finlayson has said it before. He said that it is nothing but a waste of time. Ms Parata did the same thing again around Christchurch. I know it is annoying. Democracy takes time. Democracy takes energy. Democracy means you have got to work with other people.Unfortunately the National Government does not like democracy which is why we had the Minister of Education repeat the word “independent” three times in her contribution here this evening to try to get that embedded into the psyche of the New Zealand public when what is true about the bodies that are being organised here is that they are all Minister-appointed. If she does not like you you will not get on. If he does not like you you will not get on. They can say it is at arm’s length—left right and centre—but it is not. Until there is true democracy and the people who pay for the body get to elect the people on to the body it is not independent. It is a farce and it is a misrepresentation of that word “independent” and a misrepresentation of this legislation.I want to pick up on one thing however. Dr Jian Yang chair of the Education and Science Committee said in his contribution that this Government gives special attention to education. Poor things. That is all we can say about that: poor things. You have had the special attention of this Government for 7 years. Again I say as Catherine Delahunty said hold on. Do not let them grind you down. We are coming. We will get there.I say to the rest of New Zealanders who are not teachers that teachers are people too. Teachers are people too. They deserve the same respect inside their workplace they deserve the same levels of natural justice they deserve the same rights as everybody else. A teacher said to me the other day: “If my students do well inside my class they are rewarded. They get a pat on the back. They have worked hard and their parents take them out for tea or something. If my students fail it is my fault.” That is what is being perpetuated by this Government.Unfortunately Mr Davis said the same thing. Mr Davis said in his contribution that teachers do really well in reading but not so good in writing. I will guarantee you that every person who is a registered and qualified teacher inside a mainstream school—not a person inside a charter school—can read and can write at an appropriate level. This is not about the teachers’ reading and writing; it is about the students. We have lost sight of the students. We have turned them into numbers.We have got a new league table out in the last couple of days that now sets iwi against iwi. How interesting. We now know which iwi outperforms which other iwi depending on where their rohe is and how they have identified themselves in mainstream schools. How useful is that to the contribution of education in this country? So you have got Ngāti Whakauē now standing up and saying: “We are at the top of the iwi trail because that league table tells us so.” How useful! If you were any other iwi why would you self-identify inside our schools?Mr Joyce talked about the fact that this bill is to make tertiary governance more streamlined more flexible more whatever. There is no proof of that—no proof of that at all. But I will tell you exactly what this is New Zealand. Not a single university came and supported this legislation—not a single one. The wānanga did not come to submit. The wānanga did not put in any submission around this bill but when we pressed the public servants what we found out was that this came from the wānanga. This is a nod to the wānanga. The removal of the student voice the removal of the staff voice came from the wānanga. I suggest the staff and students ask the wānanga why.