Lees-Galloway Iain: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10534. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I would like to start by taking a slightly different tack than other members on this side have taken and that isactually to quote Dr Don Brash. In parts I am going to quote him favourably which is a little bit concerning. But why I want to quote Dr Don Brash is that in 2011 he came to Palmerston North he had a look at one of our schools and then he went back to Wellington and he gave a speech. Actually most of the speech was a load of old rot because it was about his privatisation agenda for schools but he referred to Tū Toa school in Palmerston North. Before he got on to Tū Toa he was talking about the Swedish free schools and he waxed lyrical about the number of free schools that developed after the legislation was changed to allow them. He talked about how popular they were and how many of them there were. Interestingly he did not talk about the metrics around educational success and educational outcome; he was talking more about the politics of how popular they were.But he then went on to say this: “Such schools have already proven they can work in New Zealand.” He cited Tū Toa in Palmerston North which is “operated as a charitable trust though funded by government [and] has since 2005 been taking on Māori children written off by the state system.” Those are Don Brash’s words not mine. “The school emphasises Māori culture sports and academic excellence and the results are impressive. Not only are those who were previously failing school now going onto tertiary education but in 2009 this school of just 30 students won the National Secondary Schools Netball Championships.”So what is Tū Toa? Well Tū Toa is an education initiative based at Massey University. There are currently 103 students there and it is a joint initiative between the Tū Toa Charitable Trust Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and the Ministry of Education. Are we seeing some familiar things here? It is run by a charitable trust. It is a partnership with the Ministry of Education. It is focused on sport. To get in there you have actually got to have an interest in sport you have to take up a sport—[Interruption] It is based in Palmerston North at Massey University. The curriculum delivery is multimodal. It works in partnership with The Correspondence School providing direct resources in areas such as chemistry English health and physical education information and communications technology mathematics Te Reo Māori Te Reo Rangatira Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource and Gateway delivery. That is all done by personnel at Tū Toa. It is a blend of text online and face-to-face learning. “All students have individualised plans that reflect their broad career aspirations and needs. Individual plans assist in maintaining a positive blend between students’ academic and sporting career pathways. Students individual plans are reviewed three weekly to ensure they are ‘living documents’ focused on students’ short medium and long term outcomes.” That all sounds like exactly what this charter schools programme is supposed to be about.That is why I would like Nikki Kaye to get up and tell the Committee what the dickens we need this legislation for. It is already happening in New Zealand. Our education system is already flexible enough. What is it about Tū Toa that Nikki Kaye does not like? What is it that Tū Toa is not producing right now that means we need to change the legislation so that we can bring in Don Brash’s and—Grant Robertson: Nothing. She just said: “Nothing.”IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Nikki Kaye just said “Nothing”. We do not need to change the legislation because we have already got exactly what this legislation purports to be about. So here we have got to the heart of the argument. There is absolutely no need for this legislation unless the Government wants to implement the rest of the substance of Don Brash’s speech on that day which was about his agenda to privatise the education system and to have schools that take public money taxpayers’ money to make a profit for businesses. That is the only thing that the Tū Toa model does not do but this legislation will allow.So I want to hear what it is that the Government is trying to achieve. What is it that our education system does not already deliver? What options are not already there? If we have Tū Toa and examples like it all around the country what is it that this legislation is trying to achieve? In Don Brash’s own words we already have the model in New Zealand. It is already there. In New Zealand we have a flexible system one of the most flexible education systems. Tū Toa does teach to the curriculum. That is not a problem. Tū Toa does teach to the curriculum. Maybe that is the problem with it.