Martin TraceyTRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Just to pick up on the last part of Catherine Delahunty's contribution in fairness to the universities not a single university came and submitted and said it wanted to open a charter school—not a single one. The only organisation that came to submit and say it would like to open a charter school was the Manukau Institute of Technology and Mr Stuart Middleton. So universities never asked this Government to open up the opportunity for them to open charter schools. I can only assume that the only organisation that did was the Manukau Institute of Technology and Stuart Middleton and it is of interest how much influence he appears to have had—that we have it inside this legislation when nobody else wants to do it. That would be the first thing. Can I pick up on the next thing: a couple of statements made by the Minister of Education. Just to be clear New Zealand First will be opposing the bill. Just to be clear let us just get that out there. I know it is Shock horror!" to you Mr Deputy Speaker but I thought I had better put it on the record just in case there was any any misunderstanding about where New Zealand First is going here. The Minister mentioned in her contribution that about 40 percent of the schools here in New Zealand have fewer than 100 to 150 students. She is right about that. For those very small schools that have 50 to 100 students they have what are called teaching principals and the schools between 50 to 100 are called U1 to U3 schools. This Government has recognised that it has actually had a great deal of difficulty finding principals to take on those positions in those schools to the point where previously this Government has offered an extra $50000 a year on top of the standard salary of a U1 to U3 principal to encourage principals to go out into U1 to U3 schools. Those U1 to U3 schools—our most rural of schools—hold some of the most challenging of our behaviours because they are so isolated. What happens when you are a teaching principal in those schools is that you do not have the access to the resources inside the urban centres. But instead of actually coming up with a rural solution as New Zealand First has inside its manifesto where we would establish an early intervention staffing component for a full-time teaching equivalent for every year 1 to year 3 school so that we can support the students and the principals who are the learning professional leaders of those schools this Government has decided to take principals out of those schools—out of those schools. I do not blame the Government members on the Education and Science Committee. The reality is they are so ignorant about how education actually works that the bovine scatology that Minister Parata can feed them with is accepted by them and just swallowed and then they stand in this House and try to justify what they do not understand. They accept this from a Minister. So this is the reality of what is happening regarding this piece of legislation enabling a principal to manage more than one school. This is because the members of the Government believe that the principal is merely a CEO. They do not understand what a leading learning professional inside a school does. I would have thought that Minister Bridges having sat on the Education and Science Committee for a short period of time in the last parliamentary term and listened to some of the evidence that was provided would stand up for the fact that principals are vitally important inside and on the ground in their schools. But no no because there is this misunderstanding by the members on the Government benches that this is a CEO position they are more than happy to go ahead with it. So instead of supporting some of the most vulnerable some of our most isolated and some of our most rural with more resourcing they are going to take away the learning leader of the school. That is the first reason why New Zealand First will oppose this bill. The other thing that is very interesting—let us get to Teach First NZ. What it is now called is employment-based trainee teacher salaries. This is quite clearly—and it has already been a pilot. The fact is that these are graduates. They have done a 3-year degree—it could be in whatever—they have done an 8-week block course over a Christmas period and then they are in work training basically. They are placed inside a classroom and up to this point they have been incredibly well supported by the University of Auckland. There have been 20 inside the environment. It is of incredible interest—Ms Delahunty and Ms Salesa referred to the interaction that took place at the Education and Science Committee when after the first round of public consultation suddenly a Supplementary Order Paper appeared putting employment-based trainee teachers into this piece of legislation. There was a massive fight at the select committee. The relationship at the Education and Science Committee almost completely broke down because there was no intention from the Government to go to public consultation about this change. I then went and had a conversation with the Teach First NZ founder actually and I asked him why it had moved away from the arrangement that the Ministry of Education Teach First NZ and the Post Primary Teachers Association had come to. How Teach First NZ graduates were actually breaking the law was that it was schools that were breaking the law by the fact that they did not advertise the positions publicly for the jobs that they then placed those graduates in. He said to me: "It was news to us." It was news to us on the select committee. We found out only 3 days before that Supplementary Order Paper was placed on the table of the select committee. So I am going to suggest that the reason why originally this Government did not want any public consultation around that Supplementary Order Paper was that it did not want it to be made public through the submission process by the teachers' unions which have every right like every other citizen in New Zealand to participate and place their voice inside this legislation if only the Government would every now and then actually listen to them—listen to the professionals listen to the people who have trained and taken years of their lives to dedicate themselves to the education of children. This Government continues to suggest that when the educational professionals do not agree with them it is because they are self-serving. This is the sector that stayed in the classroom when this Government did not pay teachers because it stuffed up Novopay. These are the people who stayed on the job making sure that children could still come to school and would still be educated even though they were not paid because this Government stuffed it up. But no no when they do not agree and when they stand up to speak against things that they know are going to disadvantage children this Government suggests they are self-serving. So I would suggest that that was the reason why the select committee originally—the majority—did not want to reopen the submission period. It was very clear that a directive had been given and it is only because of the hard work and the tenacity of the Opposition that that situation changed. Let us be clear also that the reason given by Teach First NZ as to why these graduates do not just go on to do the 1-year teacher training that they could do to actually be a fully qualified and registered secondary school teacher is because of the student loan scheme. It is because the gentleman said it cost too much money and they needed to go and get a job. I would suggest to Teach First NZ and anybody else out there that they should vote New Zealand First at the next election so that our Up Front Investment Tertiary Policy can come into play so that we would not need to then put apprentices inside our classrooms to teach our children. They would actually have fully funded teaching places so that we could put 100 percent qualified and registered teachers into our classrooms for children. That is a solution to a skill shortage. A little bit of workforce planning would not go amiss either—a little bit of workforce planning. That is a solution to our skill shortage; not putting an apprentice in front of our children. Now under this bill because the Government refused to support Supplementary Order Paper 214 these apprentices can be in front of 5-year-olds all the way through to 18-year-olds.Stuart Smith: They're getting better results Tracey.TRACEY MARTIN: Mr Smith do not argue with me. You know you will not win. In closing there are so many things wrong with this piece of legislation—that is only two. Unfortunately I do not have enough time to impart the rest of my wisdom upon Parliament. Mr Smith I can see you later if you would like a one-on-one lesson about what actually happens in education. New Zealand First will oppose this bill."