Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I wish I could say it was a pleasure to take a call on this bill but it's absolutely not a pleasure. It feels more of a duty to draw this House's attention to this absolutely blatant attack on public education which is going through this House at the moment.In New Zealand we have a public education system. Yes it's not perfect; but yes there is a lot of work that goes into making sure it's good. This bill will just take money away from the public educators that are currently doing the best job that they possibly can educate—Andy Foster: It doesn't.CAMILLA BELICH: Yes it will and I want to draw the House's attention in the short time I have in this first reading to some great contradictions that this Government currently has in relation to charter schools. Recently in scrutiny week the Minister that brought this bill to the House the Hon David Seymour said and I quote I'm never comfortable with any level of Government spending that could be reduced." Well I'll tell the Minister: there is a huge amount of money that is about to be going into charter schools with absolutely no justification and it is a waste. It will take money away from the public education system and it will mean that there is less ability to ensure that a good public education is occurring for our students.It is completely contradictory to the measures that this Government say they're proud of that the current education Minister Erica Stanford is implementing. Rules about cell phone use rules about time spent on literacy rules about time spent on maths—none of these will apply to charter schools. So if those are good for children in New Zealand why are they not good enough for children that end up going to charter schools? It's an absolute disgrace.Now you may say "Oh actually it's not going to be a waste of money." Well I'll draw the House's attention to two statistics which show that charter schools end up costing New Zealanders more in contradiction to what this Government says is its absolute priority in reducing spending. The average annual operational cost per student of all charter schools is over $18000 almost triple the $6000 for public schools of the same period. The National-ACT charter schools from 2014 to 2018 cost up to $48421 per student and needed more than six times the average amount of money spent on children in State schools. Why are we not putting this money where it should go: into our State education? Why are we not backing our local schools and our local teachers? I don't have the answer for that.I don't understand why we need charter schools. We currently have private schools we have integrated schools we have home schooling. There is choice available for parents. Why do we need to establish a totally separate—[Interruption] totally separate—type of school that gets public money but has absolutely no accountability for our curriculum; it has no accountability in relation to an hour of reading writing and maths? They can look at their cell phones for all we know. All of these things that this Government stands against. It makes absolutely no sense. It's a huge contradiction; a huge waste of money.As workplace relations and safety spokesperson from the Labour Party I feel it's also my duty to raise some very serious concerns that we have around the way that these will be incorporated. The Minister can establish a charter school. He can also tell a State school that it can become a charter school. Now what are the consultation requirements around this? Does this have to be with the permission of the State school? I can't see that in the legislation. That is an outstanding question that I think should be of absolute concern to every New Zealander watching this debate.The Minister David Seymour—who is opposed ideologically to the State—as a libertarian head of a libertarian party is able to go around and make all of the public schools into charter schools. I'm not clear that there has to be adequate consultation with the community to ensure that that happens.What happens to the teachers? As workplace health and safety spokesperson I have a duty to ask what happens to them. Well their contracts—that they worked so hard for—go into the bin. This is a Minister who is opposed to unions. He has spoken in his first reading speech absolutely disrespectfully to the mandate that unions have to represent their members. He has spoken and represented their views incorrectly in this House to say that they are secretly in support of charter schools. Well I tell you—I challenge anyone in this House to look at the New Zealand Educational Institute website the Post Primary Teachers' Association website and see their absolute opposition to charter schools.Hon Member: Oh unions? Unions!CAMILLA BELICH: Unions represent the teachers in this country—they are opposed to charter schools. So I challenge any member in this House—[Interruption] I challenge any member of this House to go and read those.In relation to their working conditions they have an absolute mandate to have an interest in this area because what is going to happen to their terms and conditions? Their collective agreement goes into the bin. They are all under individual conditions. It means that anything that they have bargained for in terms of the way that they like to work in a particular school all the work that their union has done to make sure that their terms and conditions reflect what they need as teachers—gone."