Woods Megan: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10512. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am very pleased to take a call on this Education Amendment Bill after I have just been speaking to two schools in my electorate of Wigram that have been closed today by the Minister of Education to make way for charter schools in the network in Christchurch. This is a dark day for education in the city that I represent part of and members opposite should be ashamed that they have sold out the education of Christchurch children for a vote cooked up over a cup of tea. This is the price of coalition. Today the children of Christchurch and the communities of Christchurch are paying the price of this coalition and they are paying it dearly.Let us have a look at the problem with charter schools. Let us go through this and through the very weak and feeble excuses that we have had put up by Government members opposite as to why charter schools are a good thing. My colleague Chris Hipkins has already gone through a number of our objections to this. The first of these and perhaps one of our most fundamental of these is that we do not believe that our education system should be run for profit. Let us be very clear here. We are talking about public money taxpayer money being put into a system of schools that private organisations will be able to make profit from. This bill is not about the education of our children. This is not about improved educational outcomes. This is about the privatisation of New Zealand’s education system and this is about an educational agenda.We have had a range of excuses put up about why the Government is doing this and a number of crocodile tears cried by members opposite about how this is about the ability to be innovative and to do truly innovative things and different things. Well we heard from a number of schools that came before our Education and Science Committee time and time and time again and talked to us about the truly innovative things they were doing in their schools. I would like to hear the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Education Nikki Kaye take a call and tell us why it is that her Government thinks that we need this legislation when we have heard from educational expert after educational expert that they are able to do the truly innovative things that they want to do.Only last week I and my colleagues Chris Hipkins and Carol Beaumont were at a very innovative and very excellent school in Mr O’Connor’s electorate of Tāmaki. We were at Tāmaki College and we were able to see the absolutely innovative work that this school was doing—that this public school was able to do under the current legislation. It certainly did not see the need for a charter school. It certainly did not see that need. This is a school that is servicing a school population that is 98 percent Māori and Pasifika and we were seeing some very special and some very good things going on there.I would like to hear from Mr O’Connor a member who sat there and listened to submitter after submitter come before our committee and tell us that these charter schools were not needed. There are a number of very good schools in this country and a number of excellent teachers who are doing amazing things in the name of the education of our children. On this side of the Chamber we celebrate them; we do not denigrate them as the price of a coalition deal cooked up over a cup of tea. That is what members opposite are willing to do.We also hear from members that this is all about educational achievement and about lifting the educational achievement of Māori children. Well in the area that I come from in Christchurch Ngāi Tahu gave us a very good submission about exactly what their thoughts were in relation to charter schools and the fact that they did not see the need for charter schools and certainly did not want them. So to hide behind that is something that members opposite actually need to get on their feet at this detailed stage of the legislation and justify. They need to tell us why it is that they think it is OK to makeprofit out of our education system why it is that we do not need qualified teachers and why it is that we do not need to teach to a curriculum. That is not something that anyone should be proud of.When Ngāi Tahu looked at the issue of student achievement in their submission they told us and they were very clear that partnership schools will not address the real factors affecting low student achievement. There is a strong correlation between lower educational achievement and childhood poverty. These are not issues that this Government is willing to address in any meaningful kind of way. Instead what it is going to do is strip money out of the education system and turn it into a for-profit venture.But what I really want to dwell on only hours—well a matter of a couple of hours—after learning the fate of Christchurch schools is the way in which this Government is using the children of Christchurch as guinea pigs. The justification that has been put up for the closure of many of these schools simply does not stack up. The Government does not have solid demographic data to base this on. Nobody in Christchurch knows exactly what is happening to our populations—where people are and where they are likely to be. When we have the details of the census we will know more.But today we saw seven of our schools close before we even know that information. We saw a further six of our schools merge. We saw in my electorate Branston Intermediate School and Manning Intermediate School close—both schools that sit on the fringes of huge population growth. This is in the south-west of Christchurch where people are moving to. We are seeing subdivisions expanding families moving in and you do not actually need to be a genius to see that there is going to be a need for schools in this area.We have seen absolutely no consideration of the children. Look at the member for Christchurch Central—a school in her electorate Phillipstown School is going to merge with Woolston School. How it is that the children of this community are going to be served is beyond the comprehension of any of us on this side of the Chamber because they simply are not going to be. These are communities that have been through enough.We heard from submitters about how this is an exact take from the playbook of disaster capitalism. This is what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This is the kind of experimentation that was taken out there and this is what we are seeing from this Government. We have no evidence that this is going to lift educational achievement in this country. The international evidence shows us that that simply is not the case. There is absolutely nothing to that. In the second reading we had many examples bandied about—examples that simply do not stack up. There were international examples that do not bear the scrutiny when put to the lens. This is not about raising educational achievement; this is about experimentation on a vulnerable group of children and it is something that this Government should be ashamed of.Tonight there are communities and parents and children and teachers whose lives have been dealt a further blow from this Government. They are sitting there despite being assured by the Minister of Education that if they enrolled their child in a school she would let them see out their education there and that those schools would not close until the end of the 2014 educational year. Well she has backed down on this problem. She lied to the communities of Christchurch and she is now telling them that their schools will close in January 2014.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I think I know what the member is going to say. The member cannot infer that other members lie. It is absolutely something that is not actually done in Parliament.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You cannot say that someone lied to the House. Misleading the House is a breach of privilege and a breach of order. You can say that members lied to the public.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well I do not like that personally. Personally I do not like that because it means that members of Parliament are not telling the truth and I do not think that that is the sort of impression we should be inferring from this House. I would like the member to be careful in the way in which she couches her language—public perception.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have dealt with the issue.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes. This is a new point of order.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): A new point of order.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I was going to raise two points of order. That was certainly one of them. The second is one of scope because although it was an important issue it was very very far outside the scope of this bill to continue to talk about school closures in Christchurch.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Thank you for drawing that to my attention. If the member could—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member was referring to matters raised in a submission to this bill by a Christchurch school. That must be within scope. It was a submission on this part of the bill by a Christchurch school.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): In that case it is totally permissible.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a further point of order. The Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings as I am sure Mr Woodhouse is well aware make it very clear that it is out of order for any member to question the Chair’s judgment on relevance. The Chair is the sole judge of relevance and interrupting a member who is speaking to question the relevance of what they are saying is in fact out of order.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well it is one all and I am happy to continue the debate.Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I was saying we heard from Karran Harper-Royal an international expert who travelled here from the United States to tell us of the experience of what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She spoke to this bill and what is happening here is straight from the playbook. It is about experimentation. It is just about trying things out on vulnerable children and taking advantage of natural disasters to do educational experimentation. We think that is shameful we do not think that is something that should be done to our children and we do not think this is something they deserve.What is more we think that our children in Christchurch—as all children do all across New Zealand—actually deserve some certainty from the Minister and this is not what they have received. They have lived through 9 months of uncertainty while those proposals have been live. This is not going to add to the educational achievement of these young people. These are young people who have been left out in the cold by this Government. There is absolutely no way that Labour can support this legislation. This is not about what is best in terms of educational outcomes; this is about political manoeuvrings by the National Government.