Delahunty Catherine: Urgent Debates — Schools Canterbury—Proposed Closures and Mergers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Urgent Debates — Schools Canterbury—Proposed Closures and Mergers 
[Sitting date: 18 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5279. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe. I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. The Christchurch educational renewal plan is a plan for cluster learning—or is it a cluster bomb? This education plan has a context that has to be acknowledged as a terrible natural disaster now made more complex by a very difficult response by the Government and there is deep mistrust between Christchurch communities around democracy and around issues of education. So we are looking at a stressed community who are asking for a logical and fair response to a natural disaster. Instead there are going to be 13 school closures and 18 mergers and people are very concerned about their ability to influence this—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! Would members carrying on private conversations like to take them outside the House. I am trying to listen to the honourable member Catherine Delahunty. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY 
: —and about what is the underlying agenda behind this. That is why we already have an online petition by people concerned about children we have had public meetings already referred to in this House today and we have a rally tomorrow and Saturday in Christchurch by a community who are very very concerned about both democracy in education and Christchurch people who have had it up to their necks with stress with change with instability and with shock. 
The Christchurch  
Press 
 has made some interesting comments today quoting other people from that city quoting principals parents and teachers about what is actually going on for them right at this moment. As one principal said to their children “You have been through enough.” We are not denying the need for change. It would be foolish to pretend that anything can go back to the way it was. We are not denying the importance of reassessing education because it is an opportunity to do so but unfortunately what has come out of the renewal plan in the context of the mistrust that we exist in has not been successful to date. It is very unfortunate what happened last week. It is very unfortunate that the way in which the plan was launched created if you like an earthquake of its own. It is not being made up by people in this House; it is being communicated to us strongly to all of us who are open to hearing it that there are real problems. 
This is an issue of education as well as location and that is why I am standing here in support of the members of this Parliament from Christchurch from my party who have told me that they are flooded with emails from local people as I am myself as an education spokesperson. And all of this is occurring in a city that has been shattered and is seeking hope and regeneration in a city where facilities such as schools have been the key support for the devastation of those communities where local really matters more than anywhere else. I myself having spent time in Aranui during the earliest days in February saw the role of those schools. I walked those streets and I know nothing compared with those communities who are saying: “We want change but we want it on our own terms.” and I think that is a fair call. 
Many of these schools have been the single stable factor in the children’s lives. Their parents may have lost their jobs their parents may have lost their home and they may have been moving around their suburb. They may have been through all kinds of changes. And for children who are young they may have lost the certainty that the earth actually supports us. Now the school which has been their key place of reference and source of resources may be going to close. Maybe some of them need to. If you take the example of Le Bons Bay School on Banks Peninsula where the predicted roll growth is something like six there is a logic to it and they support it. But if you take Aranui and the Wainoni area and some of the intermediates there are real problems with this renewal plan. 
Many of the schools are asking us to raise issues about the real agenda. For many people the idea of super-sizing is not logical. It smacks more of what Naomi Klein calls shock doctrine post-disaster reorganising than of a plan based on the educational needs of some of our youngest citizens. A core issue for people is trust. How can they support and trust a Government that has already attacked Environment Canterbury and cancelled the local body election and now is saying it is going close 13 schools and merge 18 when the criteria have not been made clear? 
What happened last Thursday did nothing to reassure anybody that they are going to be heard. The possible option of merging Shirley Boys High School with Christchurch Boys’ High School—although some say it will never happen and it was never meant to happen—is a good example of how if you put up an option that is clearly a worst-case scenario from those schools’ point of view you will get that kind of reaction. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY 
: So the renewal plan—sorry Mr Speaker—is actually putting up options that have perhaps made the situation even more fraught which is really unfortunate so we have had a lot of principals speaking out and being very concerned. Because of the level of stress people will take the worst-case scenario from their point of view. They will not just jump on the fact that it may be just an option. I think that is why there has been so much concern. 
The other issue is educational reform. What the Government is asking us to do is trust it on education. Well I am sorry but we have been in this House for a number of years seeing national standards imposed on schools whether they liked it or not. We have seen the whole issue of class size turning into a ludicrous debacle then we have the bizarre spectre of experimental ideological charter schools and people in Christchurch—and I have been there and attended public meetings on those issues—do not trust that this renewal plan is not connected to that agenda. In fact the renewal plan is explicit about taking opportunities but for whom and for whose benefit is what the people of Christchurch who are affected by the potential closures would like to know. 
So what are the criteria? We were told last week there are three—that there is demographics earthquake damage and also a quiet mention of educational achievement. We would like to know what that means. What is meant by judging a school on the third one? If those schools are being closed because they are failures then that needs to be put up front so those schools can challenge that because it is a very interesting criterion to use. So whatever we need to examine those three things. Demographics—there is a huge debate about demographics in Christchurch right now. There is a huge debate as to whether the 4500 or so students who have left will return during the rebuild. There is a big debate about what is happening in early childhood education. There is a considerable debate about what is happening in terms of the buildings. 
Some of the schools—as the Hon Lianne Dalziel just pointed out in her question—do not have damage. So if they do not have a demographic collapse and they do not have damage then it is very difficult for them to accept the rationale. If the rationale is they are failing students then let us go there for a moment. If they are failing students such as Maori and Pacific students then let us go there for a moment because the plan is very strong on that. Of course I myself am very interested in that discussion but what I am hearing from the two kura is that they are going to be merged against their will if this goes ahead. The two kura are in the paper today saying they are actually going to the Waitangi Tribunal to lodge a complaint about what they describe as a new round of colonisation which is hardly to the benefit of Maori students who are asking for the choice of having two kura. These two kura are very different from each other and have asserted that they do not want to be put together. 
Te Whanau Tahi in Spreydon and Te Kura Whakapumau i te Reo Tuturu ki Waitaha are actually complaining that they are going to be merged when they come from really different cultures. They compared themselves with Catholics and Jews and said it is like saying that they should all be in one school which is an interesting comparison. But what I think they are really saying is: “Just because we’re Maori don’t say we have to merge. If you’re serious about lifting the achievement issues if you really want to talk to us be really explicit about these educational criteria that you’re applying in the renewal plan. Don’t just say it is demographics don’t just say it is geotechnical unless you have finished the work.” We have got a situation where at Shirley Boys High School for example and at other sites the work is not actually finished yet the options are being put up that they have got to be moved. So it has created this huge level of confusion. 
It was never going to be easy and I am not saying the Government had an easy task but what is interesting is what we are hearing back from communities—and parents in particular—about how they see the consultation to date. So 544 people were involved in the consultation and many of them emphasised points that I believe have been manipulated such as the word “school” as “hub”. If you read the analysis of the summary of the submissions what you are hearing is not that people want bigger schools but what they want is that if their existing local school can be rebuilt if there is sufficient logic and if they agree with it that they have more services available on those sites which is actually a hub but not necessarily to be merged with bigger schools because bigger is not always better. 
There are a huge number of issues that I would like to canvass: issues around early childhood and the concerns around waiting lists that already exist and issues around school transport in a city that is already really difficult in terms of transport. The rural schools such as Duvauchelle School and Okains Bay School are raising concerns because they do not necessarily want to be merged with Akaroa Area School. There are issues around unfinished reports and all kinds of community issues. I went to Banks Peninsula recently and I saw the size of some of those schools. For some of them there is logic to the mergers but for others there is definitely not. The intermediate parents and teachers have raised a lot of issues because they think there is actually an agenda around it. There are core issues around what is really going on with the plan. 
 Renewal is about the right of education for professionals parents and teachers to talk about the kind of hope they want for their city—and they did that. They participated. But many of them are now reacting and saying that they are not actually happy with what is being proposed. I have many quotes in front of me from parents saying things like “This has added to our uncertainty.” “Every person we have spoken to is furious with having something else ‘done to us’ by this Government.” “The schools have been a real focus of our community. With this side of the city in a constant state of flux they have been the rocks of our community. By offering the children something normal and stable and predictable that’s what’s been important.” and “The communication and transparency has been confused contradictory and amateurish.” “There has been a lack of”—this is quoting from parents—“compassion or empathy.” Other concerns are that consultation is a mere talking shop: “To be honest there will be a further push to leave Christchurch.” And one of the last comments that parents sent to me was: “Don’t experiment with people in vulnerable situations. Don’t experiment with their children’s future.” 
They are worried about charter schools. They are worried about super-sized environments. They know there has to be change but they want the plan to reflect what they are saying about local resilience and local power. Because if there is one thing people care about—and it is obvious in the analysis of submissions—it is that they care about their local cultures and their local very specific traditions. The people on the west side are very concerned but the people on the east side have been through far worse. So if there is a logic to making change they have to have buy-in they have to be negotiated with in a way that is respectful for them. 
Unfortunately the launch was a really bad beginning to a very difficult process and it is really really important that from here on there is a constructive engagement about the criteria. So the demographics the issues around whether it is building damage or not and the issue particularly around the education agenda—whether it is failure or whether it is underachievement or what that means—has to be made explicit to those communities because they are asking to know “What have we done wrong? Why are children going to have to move?”. I think if you are going to talk about closing a school even not in a disaster zone it is always very emotional it is always very sensitive. If you are going to do that you have to say you take the community with you. 
There is a lot of wonderful rhetoric and there is all this wording about dual shifts and recapitalisation but it sounds more like de-capitalisation and decapitation. We have to be more careful than this because I do not think that the people of Christchurch who are writing petitions and who are holding public meetings are being manipulated from Wellington. What they are saying is: “We live here. We want more dialogue. We want to be part of the decision making and we want educational change to be based on the robust and resilient issues that we actually live with.” And everybody like me who comes from a small community knows what a school can be. If it is down to six close it but if it is not if it is an intermediate like Chisnallwood which is actually seen as highly successful by its community then we have to make a better argument than say a whole lot of rhetoric about consolidation rejuvenation with lots of lovely shiny documents and lots of beautiful words. But in the end people who are traumatised and children who are traumatised need a great deal of care and there needs to be more care than was shown last week. I appreciate the difficulty of what is trying to be done but hope is based on respect and respect must be based on listening to the people on the ground. Kia ora.