Power Simon: Education (Trustee Ineligibility) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Education (Trustee Ineligibility) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I thank Mr Speaker for the call; it was a wise choice in the circumstances. I thank Steve Chadwick for her contribution. She is a member who should have gone to Cabinet instead of David Benson-Pope. She would have handled this week much better than he has. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: It’s members’ day; let it go. 
SIMON POWER 
: Yes I say to the Minister that it is members’ day so that is fair. The Education (Trustee Ineligibility) Amendment Bill is useful legislation. When I first returned to my home town after completing my law studies I ran for election to the board of my old secondary school. I am not sure whether the situation is the same now but back in those days one did not need to have children at the school which is just as well because I was about 23. One probably does not have to even now. Does one have to have children at a school in order to run as a board member? [ 
Interruption 
] No I do not believe one does. I ran and managed to get myself elected to that board. I can tell members that it was fascinating 6 years after leaving school to be on a board of trustees and particularly to be on the appointments panel for people who had taught me. I just say that I thoroughly enjoyed that and I will leave it there. 
It is also worth noting that in my final 18 months to 2 years as a practising lawyer I did quite a lot of work in education law. One of those areas involved training new trustees on Privacy Act issues and other matters. What I thought was quite interesting about conducting those seminars for new trustees was that their hearts were huge. They were in there doing their bit for the community. They had stood for election. They wanted to help at the school their children were present at in order to make a difference. But generally speaking—and I do not think this is too harsh a statement to make—once the realities of governance were put before them it was clear to me that perhaps it was a step more than they had initially thought it would involve. I guess that some people had probably formed the view that it would be a little like being on the Parent Teachers Associations. Of course it is not. The legal obligations of being on a board are huge and the potential liability is huge. 
I was also fortunate to be in a position on several occasions to give boards of trustees advice around the greater Manawatu-Wanganui region on how to remove non-performing senior staff members. The comments that Brian Donnelly made about the criss-crossing of the employer as well as governance roles is absolutely lost on most trustees when they first find themselves in such a position of governance and influence. They are people who just want to put their hearts and souls into helping their school communities and I do not want to take that away from them for one moment. 
But the point made by Helen Duncan was dead right—during the elections we do not know a lot about the people who run for election. Steve Chadwick spoke about smaller rural schools. I have about 69 schools in my electorate and in many of those schools there was no election. People simply put their names up and were appointed by the returning officer to the boards without any election or any background work being done by those wishing to make informed decisions. For that reason legislation like this is very important. I was on a board of trustees at the time when a very unfortunate incident arose in relation to a particular teacher. Legislation of this sort will be very important indeed. 
I finish by saying that members’ day is about giving ideas such as this a crack. The support that Government members are giving this bill at its first reading is welcomed by the National Party and by the Opposition. I think it is an idea worth pursuing in the Education and Science Committee and I endorse the comments made by other members of that committee who are present. Yes we have our moments but generally speaking good educational outcomes are paramount in the minds of all the committee’s members. I would like to think that this bill will continue its passage through the House and protect those most important people whom it is designed to protect. No member of this House would disagree with this closing statement: if this bill makes it safer for kids to be at school we should pass it.