Hughes Gareth: Education Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Education Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8670. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. The previous speaker got the formal title for the architect of charter schools David Seymour incorrect but I guess I am not surprised because it is an entirely secretive role not open to the Official Information Act. So I am not surprised that Government members do not actually know the formal title of their support parties—the parties that are foisting charter schools on the kids of New Zealand. It is not surprising.There are some parts of the bill that the Green Party supports. We have heard that from our education spokesperson Catherine Delahunty. But the thing that rang true for me in her speech is what this bill really is—it is the “Business of Education Bill”. It is not the business of educating kids to top-quality highest international standards; it is the business of business educating kids.There are four parts of the bill I would like to touch on. The first is the deeply damaging potential changes we see with allowing some early childhood centres to be also opening as after-school centres. We heard about the ratios and the concerns there. We could be seeing more kids crammed into private homes that have been turned into after-school centres without trained teachers with big concerns. Secondly this bill also allows tertiary education institutes to sponsor charter schools. The thing is we have seen I believe—I may be wrong—only a single applicant declined from running a charter school. That was of course Destiny Church—the only one the Government did not want to see running a charter school. But what we have not seen are long queues of people wanting to set them up. In fact it has been a dismal failure the number of people wanting to run charter schools. So now the Government is literally going out trying to cast its net wider and trying to get our tertiary education institutes to sponsor and run charter schools.As the Greens’ tertiary education spokesperson I want to see those institutes focusing on good tertiary skills training to get those people into employment to set up the entrepreneurs of the future and new business enterprises not running charter schools and getting into the business of educating kids for profit. A big concern of course when you allow private training establishments—from which we have seen some concerning practices in New Zealand over many years—is whether these are the groups we want to see also running the secretive charter schools. Of course when these tertiary education institutes become sponsors for charter schools their employees who are currently State employees are removed from the current provisions that apply to State employees—for example the Official Information Act.Thirdly we also see a change to tertiary education institutes when it comes to setting their fees. Currently consultation is protected in the statute as a 2-month period. Although the term “consultation” is still in this bill which will be going to a select committee it entirely removes the 2-month consultation period. I believe in consultation. I think it is important that students get to have a say when their fees are being raised or—it has not happened in an awful long time—lowered. The fact is we should have an appropriate consultation time. Look I have seen a number of what I would consider sham consultations over the years and not all from the current Government. These sham consultations are run just simply to get an outcome. If you remove the statutory 2-month requirement that is a legitimate fear.Fourthly and lastly as a dad with two kids in schools the idea of a principal running two schools is a little bit concerning. I know it has been happening since 2000 but it is kind of like the captain of a ship. How many ships can a captain be running and managing at the same time? When you look at the idea that a principal can be responsible to two boards where is the buck going to stop? Is a parent able to go to a school and know where the principal is—which office they will be in that day? I think it is important that although there is a case—and we have heard the argument of the rural schools—we need to set some common sense. Parents want to know that their kids’ education is going to have someone where the buck is going to stop who is responsible to a board. What we see here is another piece of education legislation focused on the business of education with an emphasis on business.I think actually it is the last night this House will be sitting.David Seymour: Who made the member’s suit?GARETH HUGHES: I would not say it is robust debate—in fact what we have seen is some incredibly rude interjections from this side from the member who I guess from want of an intellectual argument would prefer to barrack from the sidelines in lieu of a debate.