Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10543. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): I want to pick up where my colleague Chris Hipkins left off looking at clause 42 of this Education Amendment Bill. Let us be absolutely clear what clause 42 does. It takes away the rights of New Zealanders to find out what is going on in a charter school via the Official Information Act. It says that people who operate charter schools will not have to be subject to that Act. I want to be very specific about who the people are who should care about that. They are the parents of the children who end up at those schools because they will not have the same rights as parents of children at other schools. I have been dealing—Dr Cam Calder: Why not?GRANT ROBERTSON: Because they will not have. Dr Calder says “Why not?”. He does not even know. He says “Why not?” and that is what we want to know Dr Calder. That is the very thing we want to know. Why should those parents not have that right? At the moment John Banks has defended this by saying that it is all right because the Secretary for Education can find out what is going on in a charter school. So it is OK for the Secretary for Education to be able to ask questions about what is happening in a school but it is not OK for the parents of the children who attend that school. That is wrong. It undermines the fundamental nature of the relationship between parents and the schools to which they entrust their children. That is being undermined by this approach from National.When the Ombudsmen were asked to comment on this proposal that these schools not be subject to the Official Information Act the Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem said that these proposals were unconstitutional and catastrophic—unconstitutional and catastrophic. Beverley Wakem is a very good Ombudsman and she is not a person who is prone to exaggeration or going over the top.Hon Trevor Mallard: She is an understater.GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed. She has had to go to the Government to try to get money out of it so that her office can actually operate properly. We did get some advance on that but still there are thousands of complaints backlogged. She came to the Education and Science Committee and said that the proposal was unconstitutional. Once again after having been here through urgency just over a week ago where more and more unconstitutional provisions were put forward where there were regulatory impact statements with everything blacked out where we did not have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet and where we were not able to access the pieces of legislation until the moment they arrived here we are back here again with another provision clause 42 which is being described by the Ombudsman as unconstitutional.I want members of Parliament and those watching and listening tonight to think about that for a minute. The Government has been told by the person who is charged on behalf of all New Zealand citizens with upholding our openness and transparency within the Government that this provision is unconstitutional and the Government presses ahead with it anyway. Modifications were made around access to the Ombudsmen but not around the Official Information Act. That I believe is one of the most shameful things about this bill. We can argue about the ideological drive that is behind it sure but once upon a time the National Party stood for some kind of transparency. It actually passed the Official Information Act in 1982. But today it comes to this Chamber and it says to some parents: “You don’t get to access that.” Well what kind of transparency is that? What kind of accountability is that?It is not only for the parents but also for everybody else because these charter schools will be getting large amounts of public money. John Banks’ party is supposedly called the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—except Mr Banks does not want those consumers and taxpayers to know about what is happening in his precious ideological experiment that is charter schools. Paul Goldsmith wrote the biography of John Banks. Perhaps he could get up to take a call to justify to this Committee today why it is that somebody who purports to represent the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers is denying the rights of New Zealanders to actually see what these institutions are doing.Paul Goldsmith: You’re just jealous I never wrote a book about you that’s all.GRANT ROBERTSON: What was that? Oh no. Mr Goldsmith sits there but he is not prepared to stand up to take a call to actually justify to this Parliament why the Official Information Act should not apply. As I said we can argue about the merits of charter schools but what on earth is the argument to stop New Zealanders being able to follow where their taxpayer money goes? I thought that is what people on the other side of the House purported to stand for—transparency—and that we would know that taxpayer money is used well. We constantly hear from the National side of the Chamber that New Zealanders need to know what their taxpayer money is being spent on and that it cannot be wasted. But tonight they come to the Chamber with clause 42 of this bill and say to New Zealanders: “You don’t deserve to know what is happening in these charter schools. These charter schools will be looked after by us. Trust us. There is nothing to see here.” Well I agree with my colleague Chris Hipkins. The reason for that is that National does not want New Zealanders to know. It does not want New Zealanders to know about just how much money is going in and just how much profit is being extracted off the backs of New Zealand children. It does not want New Zealanders to know about what is going on when you have got unqualified teachers in front of a classroom of students.That should be even more reason to allow the Official Information Act to apply to these charter schools because this is an experiment. It is a fundamental change to New Zealand’s education system. Things will be being done completely differently.Hon Trevor Mallard: If they had nothing to hide—GRANT ROBERTSON: Well no that is one of Mr Banks’ favourite phrases Mr Mallard—“Nothing to fear nothing to hide.” That is what he told us about Kim Dotcom. Well the same thing should apply here to charter schools. If there is nothing to fear here New Zealanders deserve the opportunity to be able to make Official Information Act requests.Let us be clear. It does not mean that it is opening the door. We all know that the Official Information Act has a number of sections that allow material to be withheld if there is good reason for that. Judith Collins thinks that it is OK to withhold the name of someone who interviewed Jackie Blue. I do not think that that is justified but there areother issues that are justifiable. So it is not an open slather; what it is is a window for New Zealanders as to how their taxpayer dollars are being spent. And it is a very important function for parents to know what is happening in the school where their children go.I have just been dealing with an electorate case where a parent has had a significant issue with their school over the treatment of a child with special needs and they used the Official Information Act to ensure that they could find out information that was relevant to the case for their child. There was no other way we would have been able to find that information out for that parent. The only way we could do that was under the Official Information Act and that is being denied to the parents of the children who are in these schools.Clause 42 is actually about much more than charter schools. Clause 42 is about a fundamental closing off of an aspect of our democracy. When the Chief Ombudsman comes to Parliament and says that this is an unconstitutional provision that will have potentially catastrophic consequences the Government should be listening and it has failed. Chris Hipkins mentioned earlier on the case where the systemic bullying at Hutt Valley High School was uncovered only because the Ombudsman was able to be involved. Having clause 43 which narrowly defines the issues that the Ombudsman can be involved in is also unacceptable. It does not provide parents with the recourse that they should be able to expect to be provided. It does not provide communities with the ability to actually take cases and know that there will be an independent watchdog that will cast some light on what is going on in there.This entire process of the implementation of these charter schools goes against everything that the New Zealand public education system has stood for—qualified teachers every child getting the same opportunities and parents having confidence. This bill should not pass.