Martin Tracey: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Martin Tracey: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 25 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3906. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 I will just straighten my speech notes here which have technical details on them. This Government believes it can contract out accountability. It has privatised corrections it has privatised energy generation and last week it pushed through a bill that is going to privatise many of our social welfare services— 
David Bennett 
: What did Winston do? 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: —and what is worse the Minister actually promises us there is even more. There is even more Mr Bennett. Look forward to it. New Zealand First believes that the New Zealand public is actually starting to wake up to what the real agenda of this Government is. The aim of this Government is to keep its population in a state of apathy around the economy with the continual references to “There is no alternative. We must do this.” but at the same time it is going to privatise the State by stealth. We can see that in almost every piece of legislation that is coming through this House but nowhere is it more disturbing than in the field of education. 
I am talking about charter schools and I am talking about the privatisation of the State education system creating an industry for profit not for our children not for academic outcomes and not for our communities. No no no—this is an industry for profit and those two words prominently appear in the supply and confidence agreement between this Government and the ACT Party. At the moment it is called charter schools but officials quite rightly pointed out in a Cabinet paper way back in February at the beginning of this year that we already have charter schools here in New Zealand. Every single State school has a charter so it has recommended that as early as possible the working group come up with another name. It has also recommended that a bit of money be put into actually promoting and putting a bit of spin on this so that the New Zealand public think that it is a great idea that their hard-earned taxpayer education dollars are given to people who are going to make a profit off it. 
The fact that the Government is going to drop the first two of these schools into South Auckland and Christchurch in its own disturbing little way makes it worse. So this name is up for grabs. We have got some names. We can all put them in a bucket. Let us put some forward and add them to those of the working party group. How about: “Fleece the Taxpayer of Their Education Dollar Schools”. How about that? Shall we chuck that into the pot and see whether that—or what do we say: “We run it up a flagpole and see if anybody salutes.” Is that how you say it Mr Bennett? What about “Another of John Banks’ Stupid Ideas Schools”? How would that go? Shall we try that? We need to get another name because we already have charter schools. Actually— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I think she needs to read it. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: None of this is written down Mr Henare. Some of us actually can create it on the spot Mr Henare. These are notes Mr Henare. 
If ever there was a sign that this was a stupid idea surely it was the flashing sign above Mr John Banks’ head that this idea came out of an ACT Party meeting that was held in a telephone box. I mean that is how many people basically voted for and participated in the ACT Party yet this was the idea. Or was it? This is interesting; I want to quote here and I will just consult my notes. I am quoting here: “At a meeting between Mr Banks and a group of education officials Mr Banks was quoted as saying: ‘I have outsourced all thinking.’ ” Now we would suggest— 
David Bennett 
: You had to read that? 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: I wanted to make sure I got it right because it is hard to believe that somebody would say that. But we would suggest that Mr Banks actually outsourced his thinking some time before. We would suggest that it is a shame that Mr Banks did not outsource his memory because it would be nice if somebody else could remember whose helicopter he was on. But he was referring to charter schools and the working group. 
Mr Banks and Mr Key are attempting to sell this charter schools idea as I said to the New Zealand public as a silver bullet. This is the silver bullet for the tail end of our education system. As I say they are going to pop it into South Auckland and into Christchurch. Mr Key has gone on record as saying: “This is to provide choice.” Choice! These are the same words the Bush administration used to actually stop central government investment into the American education system. There are some very interesting parallels particularly as our Minister of Education seems to be going to the United States to do some professional development on it. 
But I suggest that we might be being a bit unfair to Mr Banks and the ACT Party. Perhaps we are crediting them with an idea that actually was not theirs. Let us look at the employment of the Secretary for Education Lesley Longstone. She was actually appointed in June 2011. That was well before the November election. That was well before any supply and confidence agreement and she has actually been hired at $160000 more than the person who had the job before her Karen Sewell a New Zealander. Her previous position was actually as a director-general of infrastructure and funding in the United Kingdom from September 2010 where she was responsible for delivering free schools. This is privatising and it is wrong.