Foster-Bell Paul: Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7230. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Fakaalofa lahi atu Mr Assistant Speaker and warm Pacific greetings to you in this Niue Language Week. In speaking in the first reading debate on the Education (Charter Schools Curriculum) Amendment Bill introduced by the member Phil Goff I am going to—unfortunately for Mr Goff—be opposing this measure. I appreciate that he probably brings it with very good intentions to this House but it does not do what it says on the label: introduce “a broad and balanced curriculum” into the New Zealand educational system.We are proud in this country to have one of the most permissive curriculum systems in the world. I should pay credit to previous Ministers of Education from both sides of the House who have done a very fine job in ensuring that the New Zealand national curriculum is of a good standard and provides appropriate settings for the training and courses that are offered in New Zealand schools but it is appropriate that these decisions are made at a community level. I think that having people in this House deciding what is appropriate and what is not appropriate to be taught in New Zealand schools—be they partnership schools be they State schools be they other schools with special character—would not produce a particularly desirable outcome.I had the privilege of attending the Conservative Party conference in the United Kingdom in Manchester last week. I was interested to hear the British Prime Minister David Cameron announce as one of his set piece policies during his keynote speech at that conference the addition of a further 500 free schools—what we would call partnership schools or charter schools here in New Zealand. The United Kingdom public returned Mr Cameron’s party with an unprecedented majority at the election they had in May. Mr Cameron’s party campaigned on the policies of having better choice in education and of improving quality.When a country like the United Kingdom is leading the way with this it is appropriate that New Zealand does look to those international models of good practice. We are not only seeking to emulate what others are doing but we are innovating in our own ways here particularly around offering Māori students Pasifika students and other students from ethnic minorities the choices that are appropriate to their needs. So for that reason I think it is a good thing that there are genuine choices in New Zealand and that we are freeing some schools from the administrative rigmarole that is imposed upon them by the Ministry of Education.This bill amends the Education Act 1989 and one particular aspect of this bill clause 5—which amends section 158U of the principal Act by applying section 60A “National education guidelines” of the Act to partnership schools—would impose the administrative guidelines promulgated by the ministry on partnership schools. I think it is actually a good thing that we have schools now that are free from having their opening hours set centrally. It might be appropriate in a Marxist country—if we go back to 1980s Romania—to have people in this House deciding what hours the schools should open their doors. But actually there may well be children who would benefit—learners who would benefit—from going to school for an early morning class and then having trades training in the afternoon. There might be others who would be better off taking computer graphics classes at the local polytech in the mornings and then having the schooling component offered in the afternoon.This legislation would actually be a significant step backwards in terms of the level of flexibility we have in partnership schools. The success of these schools relies on the freedoms they have been given and this legislation would restrict them and tie them back to those old-fashioned old-style Soviet-era central command-and-control education diktats coming out of Wellington.There is one more point that I would like to make Mr Assistant Speaker. I should have raised a point of order at the time. There was a scurrilous word used by the member Tracey Martin. I usually like Mrs Martin—she is a very good member and a well-intentioned member—but there are certain words that are unparliamentary and I was wondering whether you picked it up. It was a word beginning with “b”. I am not going to repeat it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No I did not. But I also did not interrupt the member when—PAUL FOSTER-BELL: No. You are a very generous Assistant Speaker for that reason. But I thought that was a ridiculous allegation from a party where a member once accepted the other “b” word—the “baubles” of office—in exchange for policy concessions. So I think that member should really have a look at her own party before slinging words like that across the House.