Willis Nicola; Mallard TrevorNICOLA WILLIS (National): This bill is an outrage and if a National Government introduced this bill the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) would be marching in the street. Every teacher in New Zealand deserves to understand exactly what this bill does. First of all it gives the Teaching Council broader powers to set whatever fees it wants. Second of all this bill retrospectively tidies up unlawful fee setting by the Teaching Council.I have in front of me the High Court ruling that has led to this bill and I would put to you that a Minister of Education who was on the ball of his education role would not be introducing this bill but instead would be sitting down with the Teaching Council and saying Sort it out. You are not given a mandate to charge teachers whatever you want whenever you want to. That is not actually what the law allows you to do. Tighten your belt because teachers around this country are already faced with extraordinary increases in living costs and what they don't deserve is to be given increases in their registration fees because you the Teaching Council are breaking the law."So first I want to congratulate the PPTA on having the courage to bring this case to court because actually it's not every day—is it members of this House?—that the PPTA takes a Government entity to court. I think actually before it spends its union fees on taking anyone to court it thinks carefully. I thank them for doing that because this court ruling I have in front of me sets out very carefully exactly what it is that the Teaching Council have done unlawfully. It sets out how poorly they have behaved and it sets out all of the bad behaviour that the Minister of Education is just going to hide in the corner and fix up with this retrospective piece of legislation.So let's go through why we need this bill because what the court found was that the Teaching Council broke the law because it failed to consult before imposing annual certification fees. So that's the first thing the Minister of Education does with this bill—he says "Look they broke the law that's a bit tricky and embarrassing but I'll tidy it up with a little bill to cover their tracks." The second thing that the High Court said was that "the Teaching Council failed to properly consider the merits of annual certification". Then they said in a very clear judgment that they had misled the Minister on the payment by instalment idea—they had misled the Minister of Education. But you know don't worry he's here to tidy it all up for them! Then they said that they didn't properly consider the pros and cons of annual certification. Then they said that they imposed a blanket one-year period of certification inconsistently with the Act and that they set an unlawful fee—and set an unlawful fee—which bundled together all of the costs of the council services.Now Mr Speaker when I say this I'm going to look at my notes because if I don't look at my notes for this you might think I'm exaggerating. But actually what the High Court said was that "the Teaching Council's decision to set a fee for issuing a practising certificate amounted to an unlawful tax" and that's what the members on the opposite side of the House think that we should use Parliament's time to validate. We should use Parliament's time to validate Government quangos going off and setting unlawful taxes and they expect this to all quietly happen on a Thursday afternoon in Parliament and not a teacher in New Zealand will notice. Well I will tell the House this: when ratty little pieces of legislation are put through to put unlawful taxes on New Zealand teachers New Zealand's teachers will find out.It is fair to say that it is not every day or every week in Parliament that the National Party finds itself in strong agreement with the PPTA. But I do want to quote the PPTA's views on what is occurring in this House right now because what the PPTA say is that they are concerned not only with the detail of the bill but what it says about the Teaching Council because they say they were "concerned that the Council had mandated annual certification without consulting the teaching profession."—without consulting the teaching profession. So here we have the entity whose responsibility it is to represent that profession to ensure its reputation is kept in good order to certify those who are allowed to be members of that profession and you have the union for that profession saying they didn't even consult the teaching profession effectively and that has been upheld by a court of law.Now I listened very carefully to Minister Hipkins' speech because I waited to hear him say "I'm disappointed in the Teaching Council." Did he say that? Did he express any disappointment?Stuart Smith: No.NICOLA WILLIS: No. No he didn't express any disappointment. I also listened very carefully because I waited for him to say that he was angry that he was going to have to introduce retrospective legislation—that he was disappointed that the entity hadn't lived up to his expectations. Did I hear that anger? Did I hear that disappointment?Stuart Smith: No.NICOLA WILLIS: No members of this House I did not. And I listened to the Minister of Education to hear something I think is pretty important and that is an apology to New Zealand's teachers for being subjected to an unlawful tax because what sort of a Minister of Education are you if you say "Look teachers it's OK there's been an unlawful tax. The Teaching Council did it to you but I'm here to make it all OK by making it lawful."? Well what a serious lack of responsibility because I think the opportunity that the Minister had here with this court ruling was to say to the Teaching Council: "Sort it out. Pull your socks up. You cannot behave in this way you can't act in an arbitrary way without consultation you can't act in a way that operates outside the law and you can't charge too much for your fees."Now what this bill also doesn't do and the Minister expressed this clearly in his speech is it doesn't deal with the fact that the Teaching Council has created for itself—and this Minister introduced legislation to empower it—a leadership function. Now that leadership function that is empowered is costly it's costing a lot and what I think teachers around the country will want to know is why in this bill are we not ensuring that the Teaching Council isn't just going to empire-build on that leadership function and charge teachers for paying for it because it does allow it. This bill widens the scope—we'll quote its policy statement—it "broadens the Council's … fee-setting powers". That is what we are doing in this House today and yet we aren't at the same time being very directive to the council about the circumstances in which it can do that. I return to the PPTA statement because I think it's important it is in the Hansard for this bill. Here we have the PPTA saying that they "welcome the Council's announcement … that it will abide by the judgment". Well actually what the Minister of Education has come in and said is: "Don't worry you don't need to abide by the judgment." and that is what this bill does.So I look forward to a select committee process in which the teaching unions in which everyday teachers in which those concerned with the professions in our classrooms get up and submit and say that actually they don't want to have to pay ever-escalating registration fees that that cost actually matters to them; that every time they have to write that cheque it's money that isn't in the household budget and it's money that isn't available for groceries; that when it gets higher and higher every year it affects them; and that actually some of them find it pretty insulting when it goes up and up and yet they're not seeing any improvement in the standards of their professional body. I look forward to them sharing that view and I look forward to them at select committee also asking why it is that their professional body that is charged with ensuring they comply with the law is unable to comply with the law itself. I look forward to them putting to the Minister of Education that when he is setting standards for our education system it is unacceptable to validate unlawful action by a professional body without even expressing an ounce of disappointment. This is a retrospective bill—Simeon Brown: Outrageous.NICOLA WILLIS: It is an outrageous validation of an unlawful tax. It is a bill that has been brought about because the PPTA was forced to bring the Teaching Council to court and actually if the Minister of Education were anyone but the Minister for COVID recovery there would be headlines on this. It is unacceptable and I am pleased that National will be opposing this bill.SPEAKER: Before I call the next member on the bill I have had time during the member's speech to read the bill and I want to make it clear that this bill is about the fees and not the certification periods. If members try running another argument down that line again—if I had read the bill before I would have stopped the member. She was lucky I hadn't. I have now and it is a very narrow bill—even narrower than I thought from the Minister's speech."