Martin Tracey: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:825. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First):Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the bill. But before I address the bill itself I want to give credit where credit is due. I want to give credit to the speech-writers and the marketing personnel inside Steven Joyce’s office and inside Hekia Parata’s office. If people out there the New Zealand public go back and have a listen to Ms Parata’s speech and Mr Joyce’s speech they could be forgiven for mistaking a fact about the 1525 submitters who actually represented the Minister says 102837 currently registered and practising teachers. She makes small of the fact that of the 1525 individuals who actually came to submit to us—who represented organisations and groups of teachers that as she mentioned travelled many distances to get there—only 13 of them supported this bill.But the Minister shouted across when Mr Hipkins was making his contribution that 3 million people had given the Government a mandate. That is very dangerous in a politician New Zealand. It is very dangerous for a politician to say: “Now I’m here I’ll do what I like for 3 years. I won’t bother listening to you the country I won’t bother consulting or sharing information or any of those things because now I have a mandate and in 3 years’ time if you’re lucky you can get rid of me.” Well in 3 years’ time you had better hold out New Zealand. That is all I can say. In 3 years’ time you had better hold out.Hon Hekia Parata: Speak to the bill.TRACEY MARTIN: Speak to the bill? It is the bill. And I want to be clear also that Ms Parata and Mr Joyce again and again and again mentioned the phrase: “the select committee did it by majority”. I want to be clear: New Zealand First was not part of that majority—was not part of that majority. And if a member of the Opposition had not been sick on that day or been caught somewhere else on that day this Government would not have had a majority. So do not let it imply to you New Zealand or to any of the teachers out there that this Opposition in any way supported this bill.Once again the Government has taken some positive recommendations from the review of the New Zealand Teachers Council. It looked very sensible. They were very sensible and logical changes. I also want to apologise to you New Zealand and to the teachers of New Zealand for the current Government members of the Education and Science Committee. Not a single one of them appears to have read this bill. If that was the contribution from the chair of the Education and Science Committee then we are in for a hell of a time over the next 3 years. You did not address this bill.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!TRACEY MARTIN: The chair of the Education and Science Committee in no way addressed the bill and spoke on a completely different topic around a completely different area of the education system in an attempt to pretend that he had any concept of what we are discussing here today. The same appears to go for Mr Seymour. So I apologise to you the teachers of New Zealand that this Government and its hangers-on do not appear to think enough of you to even read the piece of legislation it is bringing in here in the first instance.This Government took the original review of the New Zealand Teachers Council—and the review had some sensible and logical changes in it—and once again instead of working with the profession to try to create a better environment that would actually support and improve educational outcomes in New Zealand it completely buried those changes. It buried any logical and reasonable review topics under these unnecessary and dictatorial measures and it further insults and attacks what were once our most trusted professionals.The very interesting reason that has been given for why for example the Minister will appoint all members to the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is that there was not apparently according to the officials enough participation in the democracy of putting forward candidates for the council in the first instance. What is interesting about that New Zealand is that one should note that it was because apparently there was not enough involvement in that democracy. Having given 6 years’ worth of being bashed by this Government why would teachers come out and feel all up and powerful about it? But because they did not participate instead of the Government actually deciding: “Well hang on a minute let’s work with the sector to encourage participation in democracy let’s work with the sector let’s actually do some planning and some support for the sector.”—no no no. Instead of doing that let us take away democracy.All I can say is that the New Zealand public had better hope that there is not any further drop in the democratic process and the participation in New Zealand society because using this as a marker perhaps this Government will decide that it will just appoint everybody in this House if the New Zealand public does not step up and start to vote in the next election.If we just talk about the code of conduct I want to be very clear and it is very interesting. Teachers right now already have a code of ethics. They already have professional standards within the appraisal documents. They already have codes of conduct inside their school policies. They already have registered teacher criteria that they have to meet. So this is supposedly a knee-jerk reaction to the inquiry. And it was to the single inquiry—David Seymour: “Toooo”.TRACEY MARTIN: You would not know Mr Seymour. Listen! You might learn something. The absence—Hon Hekia Parata: I doubt it.TRACEY MARTIN: No you are right. You doubt it. I agree Minister. It is highly unlikely Mr Seymour will learn anything in this House. You are quite right Minister. It is highly unlikely he will listen to or learn anything. The absence of a code of conduct—this is the departmental comment—for the teaching profession was noted by the ministerial inquiry into the employment of a convicted sex offender in the education sector in 2012. This is the single reason why supposedly the teachers now must have—Hon Hekia Parata: No.TRACEY MARTIN: This is the reason the department gave. The reason the department gave to remove the code of ethics and to ignore everything else that these teachers already have to meet is this single review. Yet what is interesting is that no code of conduct can override the law of the land. Anybody who abuses a child breaks the law. A code of conduct is not necessary and not needed in order to instantly dismiss that person instantly arrest that person and instantly put things into process. A code of conduct will not change the situation that happened here. Nor should the schools themselves be held to account for a failing by many organisations and many Government departments that allowed that to happen. To use that as the reason for the code of conduct is merely a smokescreen for what the code of conduct is truly about.The code of conduct is another step along the way of this Government being able to control what teachers and principals say. This is about the fact that this Government—even after 6 years of excellent speech-writers who can spin words on a dime; wiggly words—after 6 years still has not convinced the majority of teachers that the path it wants to take around narrowing the curriculum around pulling children into testing and the progressive achievement test tool and so on and so forth is good for our education system. It has not been able to convince them so it now requires a code of conduct because the teachers are still fighting back. Even battered and bruised as they are they are still fighting back. So this is what the code of conduct is about. The Government hides it under an emotive smokescreen that is not required anywhere else.There are several other points in the bill that would be worth talking about but we will address them. Let us have a talk about the LATs—just quickly because Mr Seymour is shouting out. Let us talk about the LATs—the limited authority to teach. We are now going to have individuals who are able to apply to this body with no teaching requirements—no teaching qualifications at all—but they have a skill.Hon Hekia Parata: That’s what LATs are.TRACEY MARTIN: So they have a skill and the Minister keeps shouting out but this is the problem. The Minister either does not know or is ignorant on so many levels. At the moment the school must prove that it could not find a qualified teaching individual to take up those positions. There is more to be said about the limited authority to teach. It is a nod to the ACT Party and it is a nod we should instantly stop.