Cunliffe David: Education Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10611. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I appreciate that this is my first call on this bill the Education Amendment Bill and I hope the first of many in this Committee stage. I have come to the Chamber because I am extremely concerned about the bill. I am extremely concerned. I once held the office of Minister of Health. I am trying to imagine a health parallel for this bill. Imagine public money going into a private hospital where by special dispensation from an Act of Parliament they had unqualified doctors unqualified nurses and medicines that did not have to go throughMedsafe and that were never trialled. Just imagine putting your family into a hospital where you could not by law have access to your medical records. It sounds so preposterous that it is creating excitement—even disorder—around the Chamber. But that is exactly what this bill says about education.From the people who brought you Novopay the people who brought you the Christchurch schools debacle the people who brought you the record number of unfunded contingencies in the education budget and the people who brought you increases in funding for private schools while cutting money for public schools they are bringing you the big granddaddy of them all the innocuous-sounding Education Amendment Bill. This is the thin end of a very very dangerous wedge. This is the idea that private for-profit interests are going to be on the take for public money with no scrutiny no financial accountability no curriculum no qualifications required for teachers and no qualifications required for principals. You have got to ask what an appropriate title is for this ridiculous piece of rubbish. The answer is: how about the “Education (You’ve Got to be Joking) Amendment Bill”?This is so ridiculous it is like some neo-liberal Martian—let us call him “John Banks”—landed on planet Earth and thought that they were going to lay waste to public education because they just hate anything with the word “public” in it. This is so ridiculous. Wake up New Zealand. Your treasured education system is going to be ripped apart into a two-tier for-profit discriminating against minorities discriminating against the poor pile of rubbish—pile of rubbish. If you do not like a two-tier health system you are not going to like a two-tier education system.Or perhaps we should call this the “Education (Death of the Kiwi Dream) Bill”. The death of the Kiwi dream that the daughter of a doctor and the son of a driver could grow up and have equal access—Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am struggling to see how this fits in with the title and commencement of the bill. Perhaps the member could be brought back to the actual clauses.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Speaking to the point of order—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I do not really need any assistance on this. Relevance is a pertinent issue particularly on clauses 1 to 3. I just remind the member to bring us into his realm of thinking pertinent to clauses 1 to 3.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Thank you Mr Chair. Of course we are discussing the title of the bill and that is an opportunity as Standing Orders dictate and as you have previously reminded us to draw together the general themes of what the bill is intending and of course that is what we are trying to do by emphasising the craziness of disembowelling the concept of public education in this country. It is a very serious matter.All hyperbole aside all jokes and argy-bargy aside this is a precious thing that we are handling here. This is the idea that Kiwi kids all should have a good start in life—in fact all deserve an equal start in life. We know that in our country we are already too far from that. We know just from recent international surveys that we are now one of the most unequal countries in the entire OECD—the rich countries’ club. And you know that Kiwi dream that we grew up with the egalitarian idea that everybody could have a fair suck of the sav that everybody deserved a fair chance in life? That is going so fast in this country and it is going further under National Governments.The Labour and Green Opposition parties are incredibly concerned by this bill. We are worried that its genesis was out of a cup of tea a shabby deal between National and its neo-liberal wet-dream ACT partner. We are worried about—Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry to labour the point but I am still struggling to see the relevance in the member’s comments in relation to the clauses.Hon Trevor Mallard: Speaking to the point of order—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will hear from the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon Trevor Mallard: I know that the member is a relatively new member but I think relevance—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order!Hon Trevor Mallard: Well—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No please sit down. When the member gets up to give a contribution to help the Chair decide attacking a member on his length of experience is completely outside because then I think the member is standing up to attack the member and that is not appropriate. If the member wants to make a contribution I will hear it but he must desist from making comment on other members.Hon Trevor Mallard: And I apologise Mr Chair. I was being generous rather than attacking him—I think he would know if I was.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): You must not speak on my ruling.Hon Trevor Mallard: The point that I am trying to make is that the question of relevance is one for the Chair to determine and not one for which points of order are meant to be taken.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member is correct on that point.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Let us take this down to the level of evidence. We have heard from Government members that it does not matter if charter schools have unqualified teachers it does not matter if the Official Information Act and other forms of accountability to the public for public money do not apply and it does not matter if principals do not need teaching qualifications. None of that matters. Well I think we should look at the evidence. Here is a very interesting study from none other than Stanford University. As it happens it is a private university—[Bell rung]