Donnelly Brian: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Donnelly Brian: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12178] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I want to make just a few comments on this part of the bill. The first is to Dr Wayne Mapp who has been fairly critical of New Zealand First’s position. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Philosophically. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Philosophically. I say to Dr Wayne Mapp that during the 20 months that New Zealand First was part of the Government the one thing we did do at least was to get the bulk funding formula right. That was something the National Party could not get right in all those periods of time before that. 
There are a few other issues that need commenting upon. The first one is to make note of the— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why did you give up? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: We gave National the opportunity to be able to— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why did you give up? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Because New Zealand First had a coalition agreement with National and we withdrew from it. We gave National the opportunity to impose bulk funding with a good formula. National had the opportunity to make it compulsory for all schools and it did not do it during that time. That suggests that National was not committed to it in the first place. 
I want to comment on the penalties for not complying which was the Minister’s original intention. I am glad that provision has been taken out of the bill because it was draconian. It would have led to boards of trustees being penalised over and above any other non-compliance issues. In the long run it would have impacted upon the quality of education. New Zealand First is very pleased with the part it played in having that provision removed. 
I turn to the issue of technical redundancies. The bill as it came into the House was untidy and it was not really clear which schools it applied to. I will give an example. A number of schools in the Moerewa area are under the network review but just over the hill is Pakaraka School which is not within the review. However it is very possible that the decisions the Minister makes concerning the Moerewa schools could impact upon Pakaraka School. The question is whether that school falls within the compass of this particular legislation. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Not this time but maybe next time. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: OK but that was one of the issues that had to be tidied up. I think the wording has now been tidied up but the problem is that when the bill first came in it was not very clear whether those schools would have been captured or not captured so we did our job on behalf of the House of Representatives. 
But I also say to the Greens that teachers cannot have it both ways. One of the things teacher associations really push for is job protection and it has always been the case that they would prefer job protection over redundancy packages. There were priority rights schemes in the past where teachers had access to other jobs in other places and had first priority with regard to those jobs. It has always been the position of the teacher associations to protect jobs first. Whilst redundancy packages have been negotiated the preference is still to ensure that jobs are offered to teachers as a first priority when it comes to downsizing merging closures or anything else. 
So teachers cannot have it both ways where first of all there is job protection. In other words this bill says first and foremost that those jobs have to be offered to the teachers who are coming out of the schools then at the same time the Greens say that if teachers choose not to take the jobs they should have full access to redundancy packages. I think that is asking too much. It is wanting additions to both sides of the equation. 
I think that what we have here is fair. If teachers are offered jobs they should be required to take them. They should not be able for example to collect a redundancy and then pick up a job at Pakaraka just over the hill even when they have already been offered a job. It seems in this particular case that the Greens really want the teachers to have it both ways. 
However I want to make another point that no one has raised with regard to this particular matter and that is the issue of principals. The bill states that when schools are closed the principal’s job has to be advertised which is the reverse of what is offered the teachers. There are some very sound reasons for that. In the past for example if several small schools were merged the job had to go to one of the principals. But with the way the Minister was running his network reviews if several small schools merged with a larger school and the principal of the larger school did not want the job then one of the smaller ones had to get it and he or she might not have been experienced enough.