Mallard Trevor: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16338. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Labour will be opposing this legislation. I say that more in sadness than in anger because it actually contains quite a few provisions that Labour supports. It includes policy that Labour supports but thinks is unnecessary to put into legislation. There is a combination of quite a lot of good stuff in this legislation including the amendments that were made late in respect of the Teachers Council which involved a degree of cooperation. I think it is fair to say there was searching questioning from the Greens at the Education and Science Committee. Those of use who are slightly more familiar with the problems that teachers can cause in schools and sometimes the urgency of getting it sorted were maybe less concerned about process and more concerned about the immediacy of kids. There is always a fine balance and I think it is fair to say we were on one side of a boundary and the Greens were on another. It is not a big division. While I am speaking about the select committee and what happened there I thank again Allan Peachey who chairs the committee. 
Chris Hipkins 
: He should’ve been the Minister. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it is fair to say that he does a good job of sorting out what is contentious and what is not getting rid of the non-contentious stuff identifying any room to move where things are contentious and if there is not making it clear. Members accept that. The process generally works well. I have never heard people who have come to that committee say that they have not had a fair hearing. That is not something we could say about all select committees. It does not mean that people always agree with the results but that is politics and that is life. In current circumstances I wish Allan Peachey well. 
There are some things that Labour disagrees with in this legislation. In the earlier stage Chris Tremain referred to the inherited rights to attend a State school. It is just a straight question of what one believes in. Labour does not believe that people should inherit their rights to attend a State school. We think that the priority should go to people who live closer to those schools and the idea that some people must go further away in order to give up their places to others who have rights based on who sired them or who their mother was is wrong. 
There is an acceptance that the limited-attendance centres legislation that Labour introduced fairly late when it was in Government went a step too far because it treated those early childhood education centres areas as being for very short-term care with no pretence of education. The changes that have occurred now come closer to getting a balance. I want to place on record at the third reading that Labour campaigned to ensure that police checks are maintained for people who supervise young children at limited-attendance centres and those checks have been maintained. We will support at the third reading the changes to the Health and Safety in Employment Act but we will be opposing the changes to the Education Act. 
There are some other matters and I want to focus on the Law Commission’s report  
Private Schools and the Law 
. Through the debate this issue probably has not had the focus that it should have and I think many people work on an assumption that all schools publish their disciplinary procedures and that all schools including private schools follow due process in implementing those disciplinary procedures. But unfortunately that is not the case. There have been a number of examples recently. I know quite well a couple of examples where schools have not followed the process. I can accept the fact that I was ignorant in the area. I was the Minister of Education for 6 years and I sat on the select committee for a couple of years but I was not aware that we had a vacuum in the law on the rules until the Law Commission reported on it. I accept that the current Minister of Education picked up a couple of the recommendations but I do not think she provided a good explanation for not picking up the rest of them. When a Law Commission report recommends draft changes it has to be a question of whether we will implement the changes and if not why not. The Law Commission conducts very thorough research and the assumption is that its recommendations will be implemented. That is not always the case and clearly the Government can take a different point of view but the Minister has not provided us with any reasons why the recommendations are not to be implemented. 
The next point I make—and I will put myself in some relatively dubious company here—is that I support Cameron Slater in the comments he has made— 
Grant Robertson 
: They don’t even support Cameron Slater. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No Cameron Slater hardly supports National any more but I will support the comments he made on the way that teachers’ names are suppressed when there is no good reason for that to happen. The Teachers Council rules are currently drafted—and I am not blaming the Teachers Council—so that there is a $1000 fine. It could draft all the rules it likes but if the maximum penalty for a breach is $1000 then media organisations will breach. The point that Cameron Slater makes is absolutely correct—that is there are a lot of teachers whose names are blackened as a result of the activities of a very few. Having a presumption of openness for the hearings and the ability to suppress the names of the victims currently does not exist. The cases are either opened or closed and there is no suppression ability. If we could have that sort of arrangement—it probably would not satisfy Cameron Slater who might want to have all of the details—it would go a long way as far as most reasonable media is concerned in order to not have names blackened in those particular cases. 
Seeing that the Minister of Justice is in the House and he is bringing in legislation I presume to deal with the courts he might like to note that I have a question relating to those organisations that have rules so out of date and much poorer than those of for example the medical legal and accounting professions. I ask whether as he changes the rules for the court he can consider mirror legislation and create a package where all of those professions are considered together rather than separately. I think it is fair to say that the principles are very similar. In fact the principles that he has outlined are so good that I picked them up and incorporated them into a Supplementary Order Paper that the Committee decided not to pick up. 
Hon Simon Power 
: It’s part of the Criminal Procedure Bill so it’s actually tacked on to another piece of legislation. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well I am sure that the Business Committee would be quite supportive if the member wanted to consider an omnibus bill. I am not sure whether the Clerk of the House would be entirely supportive but I am sure that the Business Committee would be supportive of an omnibus bill in order to get all of those related matters out together. I think having consistency through that legislation would be a good idea. It might be the last refuge of fools but having different rules especially when we are doing a total rewrite in both areas does not seem to me to be logical. It might actually help the ministry to get on with its basic redraft of legislation as well. 
I thank the House for moving to accept the maintenance of protection of little children who are in care. We will all be voting for that part at the third reading because it is a separate vote but we will not be supporting the bill because there is too much that is wrong in it.