Ogilvy Bernie: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Ogilvy Bernie: State Sector Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12158] 
BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 United Future supports this bill because we do not think it is fair to put boards of trustees in the kinds of difficulties and circumstances they found themselves in during particularly the negotiating round for the secondary school teachers contract in 2002. That put a tremendous amount of pressure on the entire system. The purpose of this bill as we see it in summation is really to attempt to take the boards of trustees out of the equation and to transfer their employer functions back to the State Services Commission and also to tidy up some arrangements when it comes to the question of school closures programmes and mergers which are current around New Zealand at the present time. Those two things emerged as part of the rationale for this bill. As has been pointed out the bill as it was presented to us initially had a number of hooks and snares in it that would have been counterproductive to what the Government intended and/or the teachers would receive as a result and certainly what the students and pupils at schools would incur. The purpose of the bill is really to make things a lot easier and happen more quickly. 
We heard submissions from the main institutions and supports for teachers and students around the country. The New Zealand School Trustees Association presented its views on the bill as it stood and brought out a number of issues that needed clarity. The Education and Science Committee put them into effect on its behalf in a very clear way. I want to touch on one or two of those as we go through even during the Committee stage. The Post Primary Teachers Association also submitted quite strongly with regard to collective bargaining; it wanted to ensure that whatever goes into this bill does not affect the whole covenant it has with the State Services Commission. The same could be said about the submissions made by the New Zealand Educational Institute for primary teachers. It and the New Zealand Law Society acted as a group to ensure that any changes we make to this bill are at least in line with current law and there are not any conflicts in it. I appreciated the input by the submitters. As a result and as the chair of the select committee the Hon Brian Donnelly mentioned the bill has come out looking like given the nature of the Government’s own position it will make things work a lot easier. 
Sometime later on I would like to address the issue that—it is one of the contradictions of this bill—because of centralised bargaining and collective agreements with teachers the Government has got itself into trouble and this bill is an endeavour to untangle that. It is not a position that United Future members would have been in favour of. Many boards were very sympathetic towards the teachers’ claims in the last strike in 2002. We know that the State Services Commission is responsible for collective agreements with teachers. The boards of trustees did not know who to lock out and who not to lock out in that particular strike which went on as we know for a protracted period. This bill really focuses on untangling that and on the whole it does so. There was a lot of inconsistency among and across schools as to whether teachers were facing financial consequences for their actions and that created quite a lot of inequity among teachers as to who was getting paid and who was not. Of course in the sort of befuddle that took place in 2002 with secondary teachers there were a lot of consequences in terms of children missing out on education. Quite honestly that is why this bill has to come in—to guarantee that they do not suffer as a result of any further strikes in the future. It sorts out who gets locked out who gets their pay docked and who does not. 
The amendments to the bill—and I will have a look at one or two of those—are very very useful in that they ensure that the difficult and almost impossible original bill can now be functional and work properly. It is very very important to note that the majority of the select committee saw fit to throw out a whole provision that tied people down to irregularities that would obviously have come up when a strike was on. As has been referred to earlier one of the provisions that was taken out allowed the Minister to deduct from a board of trustees any amount of money the Minister thought fit. With the employer function being moved from the boards of trustees to the State Services Commission it no longer is an issue and the Minister cannot just do that at his will. 
United Future members were happy for the bill at the end of the first reading to go to the select committee in order to sort out these difficulties and in our minds they have been sorted out. We are most happy to see this bill progress. United Future supports this second reading.