Mackey Moana: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Mackey Moana: Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:621] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on this part of the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill. Truancy is an issue that everyone in the House is concerned about. It is an issue that the previous Government did much work on. It is an issue of course that this Opposition will be happy to work with the Government on if it puts before us measures that we genuinely believe will combat truancy and will not potentially make things worse. 
I start off by acknowledging Hekia Parata and her maiden statement. Her sister Apryll was my sixth-form English teacher at Lytton High School. She was a very very good English teacher. She was also my sixth-form and seventh-form dean. I am not worried to say that we were all a little bit scared of her but she was a very good teacher and it is very nice to have Hekia Parata in the House. 
One of the things that I think is important and we need to acknowledge this when we look at the statistics is that we do now track children through the ENROL system. There was a time when we really had no idea where a lot of those children were particularly the children of those families who travelled around a lot and changed schools regularly. When we consider the statistics an important part is acknowledging that we do track children now and that we have a far better idea. 
We are concerned that this bill will have no select committee process. None of the bills in this urgency motion will be referred to a select committee in order for the public and the sector to have their say. I just make a comment to Mr Flavell who has just resumed his seat. The reason we are concerned about that is not that we do not think there is a truancy problem but that we do not know whether this bill is the solution. We believe that the sector should have the opportunity to have its say because the bill might make things worse—we never know. If a family that is burdened with debt gets another fine on top of that when they are desperately trying to hold it together it might actually make things worse. That is why we believe this bill should have gone to a select committee. 
I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Anne Tolley what evidence she has that parents who cannot afford the fines now will be able to afford them when they are greater and what difference increasing them will make. If those families are throwing up their hands now and saying they cannot do it then why will making those fines so much more burdensome make a difference in those families? If it will make a difference and the Minister can show us the evidence then why not make the fine $10000 or $100000 for parents whose children truant? I ask why we do not do that if the level of fine is what is important. 
I think the problem is that we have been told that other measures are coming but this bill is putting the cart before the horse. We do not know what those measures are. We do not know how they will fit in with the raising of the fines and how it will make a difference. [ 
Interruption 
] Maybe Mr King can tell us what these extra measures are. All the evidence we have seen this week so far under urgency is that this Government will pursue policies that hurt the most vulnerable families. We have seen tax increases for our low-income families. We have seen an employment relations bill that will take away rights at work for members of those families who are the most vulnerable in the first 90 days of employment. 
I ask the Minister to consider this scenario. Let us suppose a mother is working two or three jobs trying to hold her family together. It is hard to be a parent and try to hold the family together at the same time especially for a solo parent. Let us say that she is in her first 90 days of work and she gets a phone call from the school telling her that her son or daughter has not turned up and that the school does not know where the child is. What does she do? Most people would say she will go to her employer and say: “My child is the most important thing. This is the thing that matters most so I will leave here go home and try to find out where my child is and get that child to school.” By doing that she flags to her employer that this might be an ongoing issue. This parent might be constantly called away from work and what can that employer do in the first 90 days of that job? 
Let us remember that hundreds of thousands of people change jobs every few months. They are mostly low-income people who go from part-time job to part-time job and who work a lot in the hospitality industry and in other areas where there is a high turnover. 
That employer now thinks that he or she has someone here who will want a lot of time off because this mother obviously has a kid who is in trouble or will truant a lot even if that is not the case. All the employer has to say is: “Don’t come Monday.” Under the legislation passed in this House under urgency where the public had no chance to have a say all the employer has to say is: “Don’t come Monday.” The employer does not have to give a reason. 
Kate Wilkinson the Minister of Labour might say that the mother can take a human rights complaint because she is parent and that situation is unfair. Well she cannot do that because how will she prove that she was fired because her child was a problem at school and because she is a solo parent? She cannot prove that. All the employer has to say is: “I am sorry. You do not look happy in your work. Don’t come Monday.” 
I want to know whether the Minister is connecting these dots. I ask whether she is connecting the dots between the policies we have seen this week under urgency which disadvantage our poorest families and give them no security at work and the scrapping of a billion-dollar fund—as my colleague Dr Russel Norman has pointed out—that would have meant more healthy homes and more kids at school. 
I want to raise another issue and that is about a blog about a parent with a child with autism.