Hobbs Marian: Education (School Boards of Trustees Single Transferable Vote Option) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hobbs Marian: Education (School Boards of Trustees Single Transferable Vote Option) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:620;Page:15489] 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I want to ask whether this bill is about enhancing democracy in schools or as I suspect about promoting an electoral system regardless of the context. I am speaking as a former school principal and I am very much aware of the kinds of scenes I always experienced. When we had a parent teacher association meeting we were lucky to have a quorum and when we desperately tried to form a committee we were lucky if we got enough people to nominate themselves to be on the committee. The same often goes for a board of trustees because this is more about volunteering and social service than about politics. 
There is a difference between local body elections and school board elections. I support the single transferable vote (STV) in local body elections but when we have elections in schools—and it is hard enough to get an election with not enough people standing—we know they are apolitical and we know they are more about service. They are not about policy planks. I do not think I have ever experienced a board of trustees election at which someone has arisen and said: “I think our school needs to spend more money on the maths curriculum.” or: “Our school needs tennis courts and that’s what I’m on the board of trustees for.” I have never ever heard a policy plank put up at a board of trustees election. Instead I have seen people stand up and say: “This is me. I’ve got ‘this sort of’ experience and I’d like to serve.” 
Will STV improve the composition of boards? I want to remind the member Mr Donald that school boards at the moment have a variety of mechanisms to ensure that we have a good representation on them and a good level of skills. There are things like staggered elections. Boards can hold elections every 18 months for 50 percent of the trustees. Most important boards can co-opt up to four trustees. I know that in Christchurch where it was very difficult to get representatives from within small ethnic communities that is exactly what I did. I would go to NgaiTahu or to the Maori parents and sit and work with them—it was the same with the Somalis and with the Chinese—in an effort to get their representation on the board. If I was unfortunate enough to have a board that had no one with treasury skills or financial skills I would also go out to seek those people. It was not just about representation of the kinds of parents; it was also about representation of skills. So I do not think that STV will improve the composition. 
What are the problems with this model? First up is the cost. I heard Mr Donald ask: “What price democracy?”. I think that we do have democracy in our boards of trustees in terms of their composition and representation. Therefore I must make a choice of what I spend my money on. I know I would want it spent on special education more than anything else if I were thinking in my own portfolio as Associate Minister of Education. I would much rather spend any extra small amount of money there than I would on a strange and wonderful voting system—which is good but in its own place. 
We can talk about complexity. God save us! If we have staggered elections and STV that could be highly exciting. We can talk about inappropriateness because STV is about representation of different kinds of parties or policies—but not so inside schools. If we are looking for a good spread then let me tell members what the spread is in our schools now. At the national level school elections elect male and female trustees in equal numbers. In terms of ethnicity the 2001 boards of trustees election figures show that 16 percent of elected trustees were Maori compared to 13 percent of the adult population. On the other hand—and I will accept it—Pasifika and Asia are under-represented but there we have the ability to co-opt. So I do not believe that STV is the way to go. 
If I go back to my original argument I ask whether this bill is because we want a method of election popularised and understood by the community or because we want improved boards of trustees. I have to say that I do not accept either. I want to remind members of something. In 2001 34 percent of schools did not hold elections and another third of schools had only one or two surplus candidates. So if we have no surplus candidates or only a few candidates STV would not be the thing that made the difference. I am sorry but I truly suspect that this bill is more about trying to use boards of trustees elections and schools to educate the public about STV than about ensuring representative boards of trustees.