Tolley Anne: General Debate 
Tolley Anne: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15060] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 I will start today by reading the comments of a principal with 20 years’ experience who is retiring from education because of the bureaucracy in the system. He stated: “I am well qualified to tell you what is wrong with the system because it is not doing its job any more.” He talks about the Ministry of Education staff hiding in their big new offices and delivering less support to schools than they did 20 years ago. He says that the ministry is four times larger and delivers less that the Government bureaucracy increases the cost of running our schools and that the ministry does not trust schools or principals. 
I want to talk today about the mess that this Government has put its payroll services in—that is the payroll services that pay our teachers up and down the country for the fantastic job they do. What does it say about an organisation when it cannot even pay its staff correctly and on time? Six of my local principals contacted me 2 weeks ago. One had sent in information about seven staff to the payroll people in December of last year and was told that the emergency pot had run out. So many other people had had to go to the emergency pot because the payroll services were so poor that the emergency pot had run out. The solution suggested was that the principal should break the law and pay the staff out of the school’s operations grant with no guarantee that that money would be refunded. 
This Labour Government is all about growing the number of public servants. It is about growing processes and growing forms. It is not about growing public services and that is what National is about. Since the year 2000 the number of teachers has increased by 12 percent but the number of bureaucrats has increased by 40 percent. What do they do? [ 
Interruption 
] That member says that we need them. Well I ask what they do. I have emails here from principals who say they are at their wits’ end over this continual paper war. Once they would have had to send in one piece of paper to change a staff member’s pay but now there are 28 forms—28 forms! They have to spend their day ticking boxes and sending forms backwards and forwards. One principal told me that he had to submit his form seven times. Another principal stated: “We are now in week 7 and as yet have not had one accurate staff payroll run.” What are those 40 percent extra Ministry of Education bureaucrats doing if they cannot get the payroll services for their staff right? 
Principals are tearing their hair out up and down the country. What is the Government’s response? What will it do about it? Do members know what the Government has said? It has said that it is easy and that it will set up a payroll reference group to consult with the sector to see what it can do to fix it up. I ask where the Government is saying that it is terribly sorry that it will get the pay right next week and that it is very sorry because these people have mortgages and bills to pay and are relying on that salary to feed their families. No there is none of that. The Government says that 99 percent of teachers have been paid correctly. They may have been paid correctly but for some of them it has taken 7 weeks to get it right. 
What the Government is doing with all those extra bureaucrats is creating 28 different forms. Principals tell me that if they miss ticking one box on one of those forms then no one is there making a decision about that. No one is there saying that this is a primary teacher’s form and the principal has not written the “P” in the box that designates it as a primary teacher’s salary so the ministry sends it back and the principal has to resend it after filling in the box with a “P”. None of these bureaucrats uses any discretion. This Government is all about growing the number of bureaucrats. It is not about looking after the man or woman on the street and it is certainly not about looking after its own employees. I ask what business in this country could get away with not paying its staff and what business could ever get away with not paying its staff correctly or on time. What business would get away with not paying staff correctly for 7 weeks? Would the unions not be in there and be down on that business like a ton of bricks? I ask where the unions are here. Where is the Government looking after its employees in this case? This is an outrage. 
I seek leave to table the list of education service payroll forms that principals now have to fill in for payroll purposes. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.