Hipkins Chris: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:615] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I pick up from where I left off last night. I was talking about the importance of the democratic process and of the importance of the Minister Anne Tolley answering the questions that have been put to her by my colleague Grant Robertson and other members of the Labour Party. We should bear in mind that this bill has not been through the select committee process. The public has not had a chance to have a say on it. Teachers parents and boards of trustees also never had that chance. So the Minister should write down the questions we have put to her. She should pay attention to what we have to say and she should stand up and answer our questions. 
We all agree that truancy is a bad thing. We all want the kids to be in the classroom and learning but we have yet to be convinced about the way this bill will make a difference. For the Minister’s benefit I will run through some of the questions we raised last night. One of the most important questions asked what consideration had been given to whether increasing the fines would make any difference. The explanatory note of the bill states that there is a low rate of prosecutions under the current law and under the current level of fines so we need to consider both the reason for this and the resources that are given to boards of trustees to take these prosecutions in the first place. Is it that schools are not prosecuting parents because they do not have any support to do so? I suspect that that is a good part of the problem. How will this bill increase resources to school boards of trustees? The explanatory note states that boards are unaware of their ability to prosecute under the Act. What steps are going to be taken to remedy that? What information will the Minister be giving school boards of trustees about the current provisions and the new changes? What resources are schools going to get? 
The second issue is that this bill increases the powers of the Secretary for Education but we have no information about how that will be implemented. I draw the Committee’s attention to some of the things said about that in the explanatory note. One of them is: “The Secretary for Education’s ability to take prosecutions will enable the Ministry of Education to intervene when schools are not taking action to deal with chronic parent-condoned truanting. These changes will not incur significant costs for schools.” But presumably someone is going to have to pay for them. They will have to be paid for somehow. At a time when the Government has put a sinking lid on expenditure by Government departments we are going to load a few more responsibilities on them. So much for cutting red tape! 
Furthermore the explanatory note states: “Increased prosecution activity may impose new costs on the Court system.” What satisfaction can the House take that the court system will be given the resources needed in order to be able to do that? The explanatory note also states: “There is some risk that prosecutions for non-attendance may be pursued inappropriately with parents being unnecessarily exposed to the threat of serious financial sanctions.” 
Hon Member 
: Good parents. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That is right. These are good parents who could be exposed to serious financial sanctions. The bill itself says that. What protections are going to be put in place? What guarantee are parents going to have that their kids have not been at school before they find themselves standing in the dock? In order for that to happen schools need the resources to be able to tell parents that their kids are not attending school. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that the schools actually get the resources they will need? 
This bill takes a very punitive approach to student attendance. It does nothing—absolutely nothing—to turn schools into places where students want to go; it simply threatens to punish them and their parents if they do not actually arrive at school. I want to know how this fits within the Government’s wider agenda for education.