Donnelly Brian: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1648] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I could use up the whole of my 10 minutes picking holes in the previous contribution from the National education associate spokesperson but I will not and I will tell members why. I think that member has a lot to contribute to the debate and discourse on education and to what the Education and Science Committee has to do. He has without a doubt a great passion for education. I do have to mention that I did spend some time with an education spokesperson from the ACT party who had a great passion for education and she happens to be in jail now—but that is neither here nor there. 
I am very pleased to be speaking in this debate. I am the fifth speaker in this debate but I am the first speaker who actually knows anything about what this legislation is about the first speaker who has actually sat and listened to the debate and the first speaker who has had any involvement in making contributions to the changes made to the original bill. I would like to work through that process in a sensible way. 
I want first of all to pay due tribute to the members of the Education and Science Committee in the last Parliament. In particular I pay tribute to the two members of that committee who are no longer in the House for a variety of reasons: Bernie Ogilvy and Deborah Coddington. Although much of this bill was motherhood and apple pie and the report is a unanimous one—and I would like to point that out to members of the Opposition; there was no opposition and there is no minority statement in the report back—we worked our way through the issues and made a number of changes. The members of the Opposition parties on the select committee at that particular time contributed to those changes in a very positive way. I want to acknowledge that. The report was a unanimous one but as I said there were a number of changes. The need for those changes was identified as a result of the careful work undertaken by the committee. 
It was identified for example that certain clauses of the original bill—the bill as it was presented to us—had the unintended effect of preventing a teacher whose registration had expired from undertaking relieving teaching. I can tell members now that my registration has expired. It has been expired for quite some time. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: And all the kids are clapping their hands. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: And on election night I was really glad we had made that change. I was really happy. It was a bit like 1999 I might add for Mr Henare. I had to really reconsider my registration process then! The bill contains a number of other provisions that improve the teacher registration process. 
There are also a number of issues relating to the composition of the disciplinary tribunals. We recommended for example changes that would ensure that at least one member of a disciplinary tribunal—a disciplinary tribunal for teachers—must be a member of the Teachers Council and that one may not be teacher which allows for the appointment of someone with specialist knowledge such as a lawyer with expertise in employment law. However even with those changes the way the original bill was drawn up meant that the disciplinary tribunals could have been composed of members none of whom was a teacher. That seemed to the committee to be contrary to the objectives of the legislation that had established the Teachers Council. Those objectives were intended to professionalise teachers. I think it was the Education Standards Bill which was in the name of the National member Alec Neill. One of the classic criteria of a profession is that it controls its own membership including disciplinary action. Yet this legislation was going to take that away. The committee therefore insisted that any disciplinary tribunal must be composed of members the majority of whom are registered teachers. We believe that is right. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Why? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Because of the professional process. That does not mean to say that other people cannot be brought into it but if teaching is to be a profession it must control the entry and exit of its own members. 
The bill in its original form extended the prohibition in the principal Act that makes it an offence to abuse insult or intimidate teachers in front of children to early childhood education and care services. It also increased the penalty from $40 to $1000. The committee explored in detail the issue of the abuse or intimidation of staff because it had come to our attention that many teachers largely female teachers in small and isolated rural schools were operating in fear and trepidation because of the current P epidemic. I take the opportunity to put on record that this is an issue the Government needs to address. However the provision in the Education Act is specifically about abuse or intimidation of staff in front of students. What the bill intended to do was to extend that to early childhood education providers. What came about as the result of our extensive exploration of this legislation was that we found that under the present Act a student who abuses a teacher in front of his or her fellow students could be liable to a fine of at present $40 and maybe in the future $1000. So the select committee put in a clause to make it clear that this provision did not apply to students as we believed that such behaviour should be dealt with through the ordinary school disciplinary process or through the general law. 
The bill also allows for people who renege on bonded scholarship contracts to be required to repay outstanding amounts through student loan scheme processes. That was unanimously agreed to by members and it was good to have that position endorsed by members of the students association of Christchurch teachers college when I met with them on Monday. 
Surprisingly there was no objection from any party representative to the provision in the bill to extend the use of national student numbers to the early childhood sector and the compulsory sector. New Zealand First is extremely supportive of this move. Our particular concerns are issues of truancy and transiency. One of the real downsides of the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms was that large numbers of students fell through the cracks. They fell through the cracks during the transition process from one schooling level to another and they also fell through the cracks when parents shifted homes particularly from one location to another. This move in fact will enable systems to be developed that better track some of our most at-risk and vulnerable students. 
However notwithstanding the careful scrutiny by the select committee a part of this bill is still of genuine concern and I wish to focus upon this area of concern and bring it to the attention of National’s early childhood spokesperson. It lies in new section 317 in clause 43 of the bill—specifically subsection (2)(b). The member who might have railed against regulations happened to have sat in Cabinet when the last set of regulations—Desirable Objectives and Practices—were put through in 1998. But this bill is actually trying to put through a different framework and the Desirable Objectives and Practices will be collapsed into it. New section 317 allows for a process of putting regulations in place. That is fine and I do not think any one would disagree with it. But subsection (2)(b) states: “authorise the Secretary after consultation with those organisations that appear to the Secretary to be representative of persons likely to be substantially affected by these regulations to prescribe criteria to be used by the Secretary to assess compliance with the minimum standards imposed by these regulations:”. I want members to focus their attention on that. What it actually means is that potentially ministry officials could have the power—and Parliament could be giving them the power without any review by the Regulations Review Committee—to determine exactly what every early childhood centre has to do down to the colour it has to use— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: And you like that. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: No we disagree with that. We think that power is far beyond what was ever intended by the legislation and if that is what the legislation is actually doing we believe that in the Committee stage we need to draw back on it. We are signalling at this particular stage that we have a concern. We are in discussion both with members of the Opposition and with members of the Government itself to ask what exactly it means and what powers it gives. It was never drawn to the attention of the select committee but it has been drawn to our attention since then. We want to ensure that the intentions were to set the regulations then to allow some examples to be given for early childhood centres to draw on rather than to provide that power. 
 Later on in that provision section 317(2)(i) talks about: “prescribe offences punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding $500 in respect of the contravention of or non-compliance with the regulations.” In other words if a sleeping room is not coloured the colour that the ministry has determined is the right colour for children one could be up for a fine of $500. That is completely the converse of the whole notion of keeping the diversity that is the very strength of early childhood education. 
So I signal here and now to the House that we will be proceeding to explore this issue and to try to resolve it— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Explore or resolve it? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: —to resolve it in a sensible way to ensure that what it may be saying is not true. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Are you going to bring it up in a Supplementary Order Paper? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: We will bring it up and amend it at the Committee stage if that is necessary yes.