Thursday, 15 February 2018
Volume 727
Sitting date: 15 February 2018
THURSDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2018
THURSDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2018
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia.
Business Statement
Business Statement
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. On Tuesday, 20 February the House will consider the first readings of the State Sector and Crown Entities Reform Bill, the Families Commission Act Repeal Bill, the Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill, and the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill. Wednesday, 21 February will be a members’ day. On Thursday, 22 February the Food Safety Law Reform Bill will receive its third reading.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I wonder if the Leader of the House can indicate to us just how many of the bills he’s just mentioned will suffer the same treatment as the bill in the House last night, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2), which saw the Government voting against a closure motion, and therefore its progress.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I do understand that the National Party didn’t bother to show up in the House last night, and there were very few contributions from the National members. I’m somewhat surprised, but given the other distractions they’re dealing with at the moment I guess maybe I shouldn’t be.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you know, it’s not appropriate for anybody, let alone the Leader of the House, to refer to others’ commitments that take them away from the House. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. If Government members want to stay in the House, they’ll hear it in silence. Well, it might be a point of order.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Are we two up yet?
SPEAKER: No. We haven’t had question time yet.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The real point here is that the question was a genuine one. Will the Government be moving to prevent progress on bills, as they did last night on a bill that they had earlier in the week required the House to take urgency to pass?
Hon David Parker: Point of order.
SPEAKER: Well, there can’t be a point of order until I’ve ruled, all right? The member David Parker might have another one afterwards. We have not hit question time yet. At question time, some rules around answers apply, but I think if the member Gerry Brownlee applies his memory back not too far, there were a number of occasions where he has set precedents in answers of a similar type that were not that helpful.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My understanding is that the Standing Orders prevent mention of the absence of a member, not a party.
SPEAKER: My view is that the member is trifling with the Chair, and he will stand and withdraw.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I withdraw.
Points of Order
Members—Conduct in Chamber, Moving About the Chamber
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the Hon Clare Curran’s speech on the committee stage of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) yesterday, the Rt Hon David Carter walked across the floor, stood in front of her, and dropped a copy of the bill on her desk. His point was that the speech that she was delivering was not relevant to the content of the bill. [Interruption] There’s no relevant—
SPEAKER: Order! Which member interjected then? Someone over here interjected—right. Mr Bennett will stand, withdraw, and apologise.
Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.
SPEAKER: I just want to really emphasise that this is an important point of order, and all points of order are heard in silence.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There’s no specific Standing Order or Speaker’s ruling about walking across the Chamber to distract a member or interrupt their speech, which does reflect it’s a somewhat unusual practice. There are, however, numerous rulings about interrupting a debate—including, for example, Speakers’ rulings 59/1 and 59/2, which forbid interjections while standing or changing seats to make an interjection. If those practices are out of order, I would argue to you that walking across the Chamber in such a fashion should also be deemed to be out of order, and I’d ask you to give consideration to making such a ruling.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I thank you, Mr Speaker. During the debate, it was developing into a very, very wide-ranging debate. I raised that with Madam Chair Williams at the time. She allowed such a wide-ranging debate to continue. When the member in question took her speech, she was not referring to the legislation. Attempting to be a very helpful member to this House so that we could have a debate that was focusing on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2)—in no threatening fashion at all, but in an attempt to be absolutely helpful—I just passed a copy of the bill to her for her information.
Hon CLARE CURRAN (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Point of order—
SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order.
Hon CLARE CURRAN: —speaking to the point of order—number one, the speech was relevant to the bill. Number two, it was highly unusual practice. It was a confronting practice that in my nine years in this House I’ve never experienced before, and I think it’s very unusual, and I do ask the Speaker to consider making a ruling.
SPEAKER: I have the advantage of having viewed the incident on television. I will say to the Rt Hon David Carter that he is aware that questions of relevance are matters for the chair and are not matters for stunts, even if the member was attempting to be helpful. So I think he was not helpful. But the main point I’d make to the Hon Chris Hipkins is that the matter was dealt with quite properly by the Chair at the time—very well by the Chair at the time—and if there was any objection to the Chair’s ruling, then it should’ve been taken up immediately, and it was not.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Economy—Salvation Army Report
1. Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the statement in the Salvation Army’s State of the Nation Report that “it is clear that the benefits of this recent strong economic growth have not been shared across the board, or trickled down, as theory would have it”; if so, why?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do; because, despite strong GDP growth over recent years, there has, as the report says, been no discernible change in child poverty rates, the number of young people not in employment, education, or training has increased by tens of thousands, and an OECD report has said that we have the worst homelessness rate in the developed world. Unlike the previous Government, this Government sees economic growth as a means to an end, not an end in itself. For us, that end is that all New Zealanders get a fair share in prosperity.
Dr Liz Craig: What is his response to the statement in the Salvation Army’s report that “the things we bother to count are an indication of what we think is important.”?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Salvation Army’s report demonstrates that the real measures of success for an economy have to go beyond traditional measures such as GDP to the overall health and well-being of our people and environment. That is why this Government will use the Living Standards Framework to inform future Budgets and why we are developing a set of sustainable development indicators, including having our first “well-being Budget” in 2019.
Dr Liz Craig: How else will the Government address the issues raised in the Salvation Army’s report?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government’s Families Package will deliver, on average, $75 per week to the most vulnerable families. Our KiwiBuild programme will deliver a hundred thousand affordable homes across the country over 10 years, and our fees-free tertiary education and training policy will improve access to such institutions for tens of thousands of young people not currently in education, employment, or training. We can do this because this Government is united in prioritising spending on things like health and education rather than tax cuts, a position I now see that one aspiring—
SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!
Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister also agree with the statement in the Salvation Army report that says, “There is much to celebrate in the progress which the youth of New Zealand have made … These include the continuing declines in youth offending, in teenage pregnancy rates and improving NCEA pass rates—especially for teenagers from less well-off communities.”; if he does, why are they scrapping partnership schools?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I can say is that the report presents a picture of New Zealand as a country over the recent years. Of course there has been some progress, but I think the report gets it right when it says, “If we exclude some, whether by intent or indifference, we are diminished as a nation. We are diminished because we forego the energy and creativity of those we exclude.” On this side of the House, we seek to include all New Zealanders in prosperity.
Hon Louise Upston: Does he also agree with the Salvation Army’s State of the Nation Report of 2008, which says, “The social outcomes which we as New Zealanders have achieved over the past five years are somewhat mixed and in some areas quite disappointing. More of our children appear to be at risk of harm, more of our young people are engaged in petty crime, there is more violent crime and more people in our jails. None of these trends can be seen as progress … we are chronically indebted and our homeownership rates have fallen. This is mixed progress at best.”; if so, why?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well—
SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. Asking a member a question relating to something before 2008 can’t come close to the member having ministerial responsibility for it.
Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question that was put down on notice as the primary was related to the Salvation Army State of the Nation Report, which monitors trends over 10 years. The report that I referred to is part of that series and, I believe, should be ruled in order.
SPEAKER: The member might well. Does she have a further supplementary?
Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: Well, can I just make absolutely clear that, having made a ruling on it—and we’ve worked through, I think, pretty carefully with a number of members in the House who have decided to come and talk to me about how these judgments are made—what we have agreed with those members who have been in there is that people will focus on areas that the Ministers have responsibility for. It’s not that hard to get a question that works, but the member didn’t.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister actually has had nothing to do with or no responsibility for this area during the period during which the report was covering, but a previous Minister from his party most definitely had full responsibility for everything that was in the 2008 report. The Government can’t have it two ways. It can’t say, “If it’s a good report, we’ll claim it, no matter who was responsible”—in this case, the National Party—“for those successes, but if we don’t like it, then we’re just not going to answer it, particularly if we’re responsible for it.” That’s what’s happening here.
SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Brownlee.
Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: Not on the same matter I hope, is it?
Hon Louise Upston: No. I seek leave to table a document. It is written by the Salvation Army’s social policy and parliamentary unit—[Interruption]—2008 report, entitled What Does it Profit us?
SPEAKER: Right, before I rule it out, I’m going to ask Grant Robertson to apologise for interjecting during a point of order.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I withdraw and apologise.
SPEAKER: You can do that as well, thank you. And I’m not going to put that to the House, because that’s a widely circulated document.
Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’ve referred to Speaker’s rulings 149/2—
SPEAKER: The member is now not going to dispute my ruling, is she?
Hon Louise Upston: I’m just referring to a—
SPEAKER: No, no. I want an assurance from the member that she is not going to dispute my ruling.
Hon Louise Upston: I’m bringing a Speaker’s ruling to the Speaker’s attention.
SPEAKER: Relating to the ruling I’ve just made?
Hon Louise Upston: Maybe, maybe not.
SPEAKER: OK, well what we’ll do is if I judge that the member is disputing my ruling when she makes her point of order, her team will lose a significant number of supplementaries. It is the member’s call.
Hon Simon Bridges: Well, we’ll need to know how many, in advance.
SPEAKER: Well, the Hon Mr Bridges wants to know how many. We’ll say five.
Hon Simon Bridges: Stay seated!
SPEAKER: All right?
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given your ruling, which you’re now enforcing, and you’ve said you’ve had discussions with members and other such, can you consider, then, Speaker’s rulings 155/3 and 155/5—not for now, but I think they may need to be adjusted or perhaps replaced to fit in line with what you have today ruled.
SPEAKER: I’ve just looked at 155/3 and that needs no adjustment at all, and nor does 155/5. I think the member might need to get himself an up-to-date set of Speakers’ Rulings—2017 is the required one.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Minister—
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have the 2017 Speakers’ Rulings and 155/5 says “Just because a Minister may not have been present at the time does not relieve a Minister of being answerable for what took place.” And it goes into brackets: “(A Minister was asked about a decision that occurred in his portfolio before he became a Minister.)”
SPEAKER: And that’s right, and that refers, as I’m absolutely certain the member is aware of, to actions of the Government where there is a change of Minister in a portfolio. It does not allow people to go back three Governments.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Two.
SPEAKER: No, well, actually, if we think of—
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, I see, right, yes.
SPEAKER: All right? OK?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister of Finance this: if the much loved trickle-down theory works, how was it that last year 1 percent of the population got 28 percent of the wealth growth and the bottom 32 percent got 1 percent of the wealth growth?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is exactly the point that the Salvation Army is making and, indeed, this Government is making. If we want to do something about addressing inequality, we need to take up excellent ideas like the one that Judith Collins had, which is to say no to tax cuts and yes to funding for health and education. Go, Judith, go!
Government Policy—Statements
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): My question is to the Prime Minister: does she stand by all her Government’s—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry, I am going to ask the member to repeat it. I won’t take supplementaries off people, because it would have been both sides. Paula Bennett.
2. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government’s policies?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Most definitely, yes.
Hon Paula Bennett: Which one of these two statements by her Minister of Finance articulates current Government policy, “future generations of New Zealanders are again being saddled by a National Government with huge levels of debt”, or “When you look at the fundamentals of global economic growth, and indeed of the New Zealand economy, I’m reasonably reassured … Essentially the low level of public debt is a really important part of it”?
SPEAKER: Before the Prime Minister answers, can I just seek an assurance from the member that both were made by the Minister of Finance, and not by someone before they were a Minister?
Hon Paula Bennett: Oh, I’m fairly sure that they were by the Minister of Finance. Sorry, I’d have to go back and double-check my—
SPEAKER: I think we’ve run into trouble with one of those quotes in the past.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I can answer it.
SPEAKER: So what we have is me giving leave to have it, but I think I will ask members to check pretty carefully before they suggest that quotes are made by Ministers, when I think I might have been present when that comment was made, and I wouldn’t have been if it was by a Minister.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The answer is both statements, because the first one relates to, and is best evidenced by, Mr English on Morning Report two mornings ago saying that he had left, in effect, this Government with no money at all. It’s in his transcript. And in the second one, there’s—
Hon Paula Bennett: But you can make those statements—that’s fine.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, I’ll table the transcript, if you like. Right, I’ll bring it down in the next hour. But if you want to get like this here, why not enter the contest and show that you are serious about politics? The second matter, I want to say very clearly, it’s our Government debt target set for 2022.
Hon Paula Bennett: Which of the following policy positions is current Government policy: her Minister of Education’s comments that all current partnership schools will be terminated by mutual agreement or by forced termination, or the reported comments by her Associate Minister of Education on Radio New Zealand that the Māori partnership schools will be allowed to remain open?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The answer’s really rather crudely put in question No. 11 today, which says, “the existing partnership schools will continue so long as they have registered teachers, teach the New Zealand curriculum, and have the same level of funding as State schools”. Now, it is possible that a school that was on one day under a certain designation is the next day under a different designation. It is quite possible that school’s still open.
Hon Paula Bennett: Which one of the following policy positions by her Minister of Police is current Government policy: all 1,800 new police will be sworn; some of the 1,800 new police will be sworn; some of the 1,800 new police will be from the former Government’s 880 new police; or we’re not really going to have 1,800 but are striving towards 1,800?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Some of those statements are correct and the others have been made up, no doubt by the member. The last one is a make-up—
SPEAKER: Order! No, the member will withdraw that. It is improper to suggest that members make things up and say them in the House.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Dear me. I withdraw and apologise. Things have got supersensitive around here, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! I ask both members to behave themselves.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, never mind. Things must be tough in the National Party when she’s offering me something. Can I just say that those statements disguise the serious intention of this Government to find the requisite number of police to ensure there is law and order on our streets, in our hamlets, and around our country. Most particularly, the figure that we inherited, 800, was way, way short of what’s required.
Hon Paula Bennett: So which one of the following policy positions is current Government policy: we are going to plant 1 billion trees over the next 10 years, or 500 million, or 250 million—or would you like to catch up with Shane Jones now and should we just go for 100?
SPEAKER: Order! Before the member answers—
Hon Paula Bennett: Oh, come on! He’s had digs all the way through.
SPEAKER: I’m trying to keep some order in here, and the member has been around quite a long time and she knows she does not ask me questions, as she did. Mr Peters, take the question, it is to you.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I don’t mind these attacks, but the reality is that the New Zealand diaspora is going to grow 1 billion trees over the next 10 years, and that is so critical for the development of our regions, the change in our approach with respect to climate change and our responsibilities, but, above all, to give the neglected provinces real hope into the future.
Hon Paula Bennett: Which one of these positions articulates current Government policy: the comment by the Deputy Prime Minister that every child who is caught by the police should be arrested, charged, and convicted, or the comment by her Minister of Police that pre-charge warnings are part of the hard work the police do with our communities to ensure that youth are given opportunities away from crime?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The answers—in order—yes, and the second one is no, because she didn’t say that.
Hon Paula Bennett: Which one of these positions articulates current Government policy: the closure of partnership schools will cost the taxpayers nothing, or the comment by the Secretary for Education that the closure of partnership schools will cost the taxpayers up to $15 million?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: If one is dealing in hypotheticals, and if they were all—as the Opposition claims—going to close, then the second statement might have a remote proximity, but I think it’s grammatically wrong. But the reality is they won’t be closing, because in consultation with my colleagues and the education Minister, there will be a continuance but under a different framework that we believe in, and not an unbridled capitalistic answer that costs the taxpayer so much money.
Charter Schools—Māori Education
3. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education): What discussions and visits has he had with schools to discuss Māori education and any opportunities for improved achievement?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education)): I’ve visited schools and have had many discussions as both Associate Minister of Education and as the local MP for Te Tai Tokerau. We are working on ways to improve achievement, including removing national standards and increasing the supply of Māori and Te Reo teachers.
Hon Nikki Kaye: Has he made any undertakings to a partnership school helping young Māori that he would ensure that their school would be approved as a special character school?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No.
Hon Nikki Kaye: When he said in relation to a discussion about Māori education, “I’ve been working closely with He Puna Marama Trust, and the CEO and the senior management there and we’re very confident that together we’ll make sure this transition happens very easily with very little fuss.”, was he speaking to this partnership school in his capacity as a Minister?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No. And when I was speaking to them, I talked them through the information that the Minister has made publicly available to allay the fears of the scaremongering and misinformation that the Opposition has been bandying around.
Hon Nikki Kaye: When he said yesterday in Parliament in relation to Māori education, “I’ve had communications with some current charter schools.”, has he had any communications with partnership schools that are not in his electorate; if so, which ones?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No.
Hon Nikki Kaye: Can he confirm that when he said yesterday that he’d had discussions with charter schools in his electorate that he has given preferential treatment to some partnership schools in his electorate but the cold shoulder to others?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The premise is just wrong.
Hon Nikki Kaye: Isn’t it true that he made himself available to discuss education impacting young Māori with He Puna Mārama, but when Villa Education Trust, in his electorate, sent him 50 pieces of correspondence, the only thing they got back was being asked to be taken off their mailing list?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I have absolutely no idea what the member is talking about.
Hon Tracey Martin: Can the Minister confirm, or is he aware of, other Associate Ministers of Education who have had interaction with the sponsors of Villa schools or conversations with chief executives of charter schools such as Vanguard—among the other Associate Ministers of Education?
SPEAKER: No, that’s actually not a matter that is the Minister’s responsibility.
Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership—Differences with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
4. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Minister for Trade and Export Growth: What recent announcements has the Government made regarding trade and export growth?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Last month, our negotiators finalised the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (CPTPPA) in Tokyo. The 11 nations plan to sign the agreement in Chile on 8 March. Securing this agreement ensures a level playing field for our meat exporters to the world’s third-largest economy, Japan. Without the CPTPPA, our meat exporters face far higher tariffs than their Australian and European counterparts, rendering them uncompetitive. This coalition Government made it clear that it would seek a fairer deal for New Zealanders than the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA), and thanks to the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister we’ve negotiated changes to the agreement that address the concerns that New Zealanders raised.
Darroch Ball: How has the Government improved the CPTPP in comparison with the TPP?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The new agreement retains the market access improvements from the TPP agreement that will benefit New Zealand firms, large and small. The jobs of 620,000 New Zealanders depend on exports, and this agreement will sustain and grow those jobs and income, not least across our regions. We’ve done away with the TPP agreement’s 20-year extension to the copyright term, put an end to the imposition of additional costs on Pharmac, and removed limitations on our intellectual property rights. We’ve narrowed the scope of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses. Additionally, through a side letter with Australia, 80 percent of foreign investment from TPP or CPTPP countries is exempt from the ISDS clauses. We also hope to announce a number of side letters that will further limit the use of ISDS clauses. In short, the CPTPP is a fairer and better deal for New Zealand than the former TPP.
Darroch Ball: How is this Government ensuring New Zealanders’ rights are protected under the CPTPP?
Hon DAVID PARKER: Before the CPTPP comes into effect, we will ensure that only those who have the right to live here long term have the right to buy a home here. The past Government said this was impossible and could not be done without breaching many free-trade agreements and losing thousands of jobs. They were wrong. We don’t have to choose between improving exports and controlling who owns our land; this coalition Government is doing both.
Hon Todd McClay: Will the Minister give an assurance to the thousands of New Zealanders he joined in protest just one short year ago against the TPP agreement that the New Zealand Government cannot be sued under the new ISDS provisions contained in the revised TPP agreement?
SPEAKER: Before the member answers, I’m going to ask the member to re-state his question. I will let him have another go at it without the extraneous material—only what’s necessary for the question.
Hon Todd McClay: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could you direct me as to which part was unnecessary—
SPEAKER: I think, for the sense of the question there was one very obvious part that was unnecessary. If the member can’t work it out, we’ll move on to someone else.
Hon Todd McClay: Can the Minister give an assurance to the thousands of New Zealanders who protested against ISDS clauses in the original TPP agreement just one year ago that the New Zealand Government cannot be sued under the revised ISDS provisions in the new agreement?
SPEAKER: That was closer, and so I’ll let the member have a go.
Hon DAVID PARKER: I can assure the member of that, but for the changes that we’ve made in respect of land, if we as a Government had chosen to do that later we would have been at risk of being sued under the old TPP agreement. I can also say that, whilst the ISDS provisions have been narrowed, they have not been completely eliminated as we would’ve liked. We’ve narrowed them as to scope: you can’t be sued on a contract with the Government now. We’ve narrowed them as to the number of countries who can, in effect, use them, but, sadly, we couldn’t get rid of them completely because the prior Government hadn’t even tried to start that process. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Before we move on, I’m having a little bit of trouble focusing on what are very important answers, mainly because the nearly father of the House and the person with the most experience are having an interchange across the House—I think, mainly the responsibility of Dr Nick Smith. I will ask him, if he can, to restrain himself.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: It would help if the member answered the question.
SPEAKER: Oh, for goodness’ sake!
Hon Todd McClay: Can the Minister confirm that under the revised TPP agreement, the New Zealand Government and New Zealand can be sued under the ISDS provisions, for fracking, over environmental policy and water policy in New Zealand?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The national interest analysis, which will soon be released publicly as well as be presented to the select committee, answers that very question and says that in the view of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which I share, there is no prospect of New Zealand ever being successfully sued in respect of those measures.
Hon Todd McClay: Successfully sued?
Hon DAVID PARKER: That’s correct. The member is correct, as I have already adverted to, that there is no absolute prohibition on ISDS cases being started. We have narrowed that. We have narrowed it substantially. We’ve reduced the number of countries that would do that in respect of their foreign direct investment (FDI), in respect of over 80 percent of that FDI, but in respect of less than 20 percent remaining foreign direct investment they could bring a case but they would not succeed.
Hon Todd McClay: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There was some noise and I just didn’t hear a part of the answer. Could the Minister just clarify. Did he say “couldn’t be sued” or “couldn’t be successfully sued.”? I didn’t hear that bit.
SPEAKER: The latter.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have just ruled that the previous questioner had introduced what I think you described as extraneous material into the question. I would like you to have a look at today’s Hansard particularly with regard to answers in the House today from at least three other members on the front bench, and indeed Mr Parker himself, and consider how much extraneous material was in their replies. Perhaps early next week I could come and discuss those with you.
SPEAKER: I’m happy to discuss it with the member. I think at least two of the front-bench members’ answers have been curtailed today because they were going too far. I think I’m possibly equally unpopular.
Housing—Ownership Rates, Policies, and Supply
5. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Other than those already signalled by the Minister, what new policies does he intend to pursue in response to the findings of the Stocktake of New Zealand’s Housing Report released this week?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): One aspect of the national housing crisis that the report reveals, which has been ignored in the past, is the problem of hidden homelessness—those who feel they cannot seek Government support for their families. The extent of hidden homelessness has never been adequately assessed, so I’ve asked officials to look into how best to count the number of homeless, to provide a more accurate picture of the national housing crisis and the real demand for transitional and emergency housing. New policy may well result, once the true extent of the failure of the past Government is uncovered. However, the main solution is obviously to build more houses.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: If the housing problem is deeper and more entrenched, as the Minister said this week, and his officials are advising that KiwiBuild will deliver only 13 percent of the expected 30,000 extra dwellings in this term of Parliament, why is his talk on the issue not backed up by more action?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It is.
Andrew Bayly: Does he agree with the repeated statements made by the MP for Te Atatū, that special housing areas are, and I quote, “a spectacular flop”; and, if so, why does he intend to use special housing areas to prop up his KiwiBuild programme?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I generally agree with the member for Te Atatū. He has some excellent things to say on the state of the housing crisis. I agree with that member when he says that the former National Government’s policy of special housing areas, which promised 39,000 houses in Auckland in the last parliamentary term and delivered about a thousand, and couldn’t, up until the date of the last election, tell the public how many affordable houses were built by that policy over three years.
Harete Hipango: Does the Minister accept the findings that, despite the apparent availability of land owned by Māori, there are inherent challenges and complexities associated with the opportunities to build on multiple-owned land, and that being so, in your capacity as Minister, concerned about housing and as it impacts on Māori, why has the new Government overturned and rejected Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill, designed in part to unlock Māori land potential, but also housing development potential?
SPEAKER: No, no. There were about three ways that could have been ruled out, and I think there’s general acceptance of that. I will give the member a crack at rephrasing the question in a short form that goes right to that Minister’s responsibility, not to the Minister of Māori affairs or whoever else is responsible.
Harete Hipango: Minister, in your capacity as the housing Minister—bearing in mind what the report notes, as has been stated, and the impact that it has on Māori housing development potential—why has the new Government overturned Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill?
SPEAKER: Right, no, it didn’t get there. Sorry.
Hon Alfred Ngaro: What specific conversations has the Minister had with the Minister for Pacific Peoples to identify strategies to increase the low Pasifika homeownership rate identified in the report?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’ve had a number of conversations and commenced a number of streams of work that are designed to address the plummeting rate of homeownership among Pasifika and Māori families, which is such a stain on our country’s housing record. What I won’t be doing as housing Minister—
SPEAKER: Order! The member’s answered the question.
Paul Eagle: What policies has the Minister already signalled?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We’ve signalled a number of policies that relate directly to the findings of the housing stocktake report. We’re going to build 100,000 affordable homes for young Kiwi families. We’re reviewing the rental laws to make renting work better for the half of the population who rent. We stopped that party’s mass sell-off of State housing, and we’re going to build thousands more. We’re improving the financing of infrastructure—
SPEAKER: Order! I do want to remind Government backbenchers that they are not to ask questions that are patsies that are designed to attack the previous Government. I want to remind Ministers that there is a lot of precedent around being able to be political in response to political questions from the Opposition, but not to do so off the back of patsies.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does the Minister appreciate that it is impossible to talk houses into existence, and apart from pinching existing developments off the private sector, does he not need to do a great deal more action rather than talking?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I think it’s a bit rich coming from a Government who for nine years talked and talked about the housing problems, refused to admit there was a crisis, and built virtually no affordable houses.
Government Tree-planting Programme—Statements
6. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Forestry: How much land has been secured for the Speech from the Throne initiative of a “new planting programme planting 100 million trees a year to reach a billion more trees in ten years”?
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): In response to the question, nigh on 12,500 hectares has been secured to proceed with the planting programme this year.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he stand by his statement on The AM Show on 19 January that “Fifty-five million trees will be planted this year.”, which is no more than the restocking of existing areas being harvested, and is he aware that this is actually a reduction on the 62 million trees that were reported by his ministry as planted last year?
Hon SHANE JONES: There will be, likely, 10.5 million trees planted in the upcoming season. He has, obviously, misconstrued what I said on The AM Show.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he stand by his statement in the same interview that undeveloped Māori land is going to be very difficult to access for forestry planting, because of the bureaucracy of Māori land law, and hasn’t the Government shot itself in the foot by cancelling National’s reforms that address these very problems?
Hon SHANE JONES: I am a victim of my own success after that interview. The Crown is now engaging with Māori land owners and other categories of landowners, and the size of the land package, reflective of that engagement, is now up to 30,000 hectares. When one adds the nigh on 12,000 hectares that we have already secured, and in the event that the 30,000 is successful, I am but a small step away from 50,000 hectares.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: What does his statement, and I quote, “Officials realise they have to find surplus land to avoid becoming redundant.” mean for the Director-General of Conservation, who told the Environment Committee this morning that they had very little suitable Department of Conservation (DOC) land for his billion-tree planting programme?
Hon SHANE JONES: I have never once spoken to that individual running DOC. Talk to another Minister about his fortunes.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the Green Party conservation Minister that only native trees will be allowed to be planted on conservation land?
Hon SHANE JONES: If one goes back to the Prime Minister’s speech, it is quite clear that the planting programme will comprise native trees as well as exotic. The percentage and the mix of trees that might be grown on the DOC estate has yet to be settled.
State Services—Oversight of Pay for Chief Executives
7. VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of State Services: What is the Government doing to bolster the public’s trust and confidence in Crown entities?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of State Services): Today, Parliament will debate the new bill that I’ve introduced to provide stronger oversight of pay for chief executives. Boards of statutory Crown entities will, under the law change proposed, need to obtain the State Services Commissioner’s written consent to the terms and conditions of employment for a chief executive. This change responds to the Government’s concern that pay increases at the top of the Public Service are out of step with public expectations.
Virginia Andersen: Why was this change needed?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In some cases, Crown entity boards have not met either the State Services Commissioner’s or the Minister’s guidance. This bill will address those cases, in particular, by giving the remuneration system more teeth. There are good reasons why State services pay is lower than in the private sector equivalents, and there should be some consistency within and across the wider public sector.
Road Safety—Priorities and Roadside Saliva Testing
8. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Associate Minister of Transport: Does she stand by all her statements?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Yes, I do.
Chris Bishop: Why does she stand by her statement on Radio New Zealand National this morning that “I have some concerns [about] … roadside saliva testing”, when the New Zealand Transport Agency’s official advice to her says drug-driving is a significant problem and recommends the Government introduce roadside testing?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Can I start my answer by saying that there’s no question that if someone is impaired, whether that’s because of alcohol, prescription medication, or recreational drugs, they should not be behind the wheel of a vehicle. I’ve asked the Ministry of Transport—it’s not the New Zealand Transport Agency but the Ministry of Transport who’s given me advice—to develop a whole new road safety strategy that will look at the most effective way of dealing with a range of issues that make our roads unsafe, including impaired driving. The advice I’ve received so far does indicate that there are issues with roadside saliva testing.
Chris Bishop: Why does she stand by her statement on Radio New Zealand National this morning that “I have some concerns [about] … roadside saliva testing”, when a ministerial colleague, Stuart Nash, has said, “We should be looking at it” and “I think it has got to be rushed out”?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: In fact, those statements are not mutually exclusive. I have concerns about it, and we are looking into it. We need more evidence if we’re going to be sure that we are spending money in the most effective way to deal with the problems that are caused by impairment.
Alastair Scott: Why does she stand by her statement that “We already have an extremely effective impairment test”, when official advice to her from the New Zealand Transport Agency says, “The threshold to warrant a drug test is high.” and “This approach”—the current approach—“delivers far too few tests to be effective in deterring drug-impaired driving.”?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I think that the members might be confused about what evidence they’re referring to or the advice that’s been given to me by the New Zealand Transport Agency, because I haven’t received any evidence or advice from the New Zealand Transport Agency on this issue. What I can say is that there are issues with roadside saliva testing, and yet currently the police have an impairment test that is over 90 percent effective.
Gareth Hughes: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by her statement that road safety will be her number one priority in the transport portfolio?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do indeed stand by that statement that road safety is a major priority, and we have a very large work programme. We will be assembling all of the evidence. We’ll be speaking to all of the stakeholders, including the police, the Minister of Police, and the other parties in the coalition Government, but our decisions about improving road safety are going to be driven by evidence about the most effective use of police resources to address the risks on the road.
Alastair Scott: Given the comments that have been made by the New Zealand Police, will she support my Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill, at least to a first reading, so that this important issue can be discussed and debated at select committee?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’ll be making our decision based on evidence, and we’ll be looking into it.
Gareth Hughes: Supplementary.
SPEAKER: No, we’ll keep going with Alastair Scott until he’s finished.
Alastair Scott: I seek leave to introduce the Land Transport (Random Oral Fluid Testing) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in my name, and for the bill to be set down as members’ order of the day No. 1.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection? Yes, there is. It will not be—[Interruption] Order!
Gareth Hughes: How many other jurisdictions conduct roadside saliva testing?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Only two jurisdictions currently conduct roadside saliva testing, and what we know about roadside saliva testing is that it’s unable to test for a wide variety of substances that may cause impairment. Also, it costs significantly more than alcohol testing does—$30 to $40 per test, as opposed to several cents per alcohol screening. So there are issues around it. It may not be the most effective use of money. I know that the Opposition was never in favour of using policies that were the most effective use of money, but that’s what this Government’s going to do.
America’s Cup—Base Options
9. Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) to the Minister for Economic Development: What discussions has he had with Team New Zealand since yesterday’s announcement of the Government and Auckland City Council’s preferred option for an America’s Cup base?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Economic Development): Since November, Auckland Council, Team New Zealand, and the Government have been working together with the ambition of hosting the America’s Cup in Auckland. The Government and Auckland Council jointly announced our preferred option at 1 p.m. yesterday. Team New Zealand have long been aware of this Government and Auckland Council’s preference to minimise incursions into the harbour and save costs, while providing a world-class venue for the cup. I’ve not had further discussions with Team New Zealand in the past 24 hours, but negotiations will continue.
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: So what was the feedback that Team New Zealand gave him, because presumably he would have spoken to them before the public announcement on his new so-called Wynyard hybrid option for the base yesterday?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I’m aware that Team New Zealand prefer the option that is already in for consent, which is more expensive by tens of millions of dollars, excluding the value of the environmental impact, which is worse under that option than the one that we have put forward. This option wasn’t properly considered because there was no prospect at the time of the Stolthaven Terminals company moving off the southern part of their tank farm. We’ve negotiated that to occur, and therefore this better option becomes possible.
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Why did he publicly announce the further option for the location of the America’s Cup base—in fact, his preferred option—without seeking the agreement of Team New Zealand before he did so?
Hon DAVID PARKER: We chose to make that announcement yesterday because the Mayor of Auckland city was obliged to tell his council of the revised plans, and it seemed appropriate that we answer the questions from the media, because there’s a public interest in the outcome.
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: When does he expect negotiations to secure New Zealand’s hosting of the America’s Cup to be settled—or is he going to take this right to the end of the August deadline, playing a very high-stakes game that could see the event moved to Italy?
Hon DAVID PARKER: We’ve been working with Team New Zealand and Auckland Council throughout this. We have a responsibility to take care of the Government’s money. The cost of this at the moment is looking like about $180 million, excluding the hosting fee. Team New Zealand tell us that they’re not yet in a position to complete negotiation of the hosting fee.
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked him specifically: when does he expect negotiations to be completed?
SPEAKER: I think it’s worth the Minister addressing that part of the question.
Hon DAVID PARKER: A negotiation may or may not be completed. We are hopeful that it will be. Until it is completed across the agreement that’s necessary between Auckland city and Team New Zealand, we won’t commit finally to the deal, and neither will Emirates Team New Zealand.
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Does he realise that his failure to engage properly with a clearly pretty irritated Team New Zealand puts the whole hosting of the America’s Cup at risk, potentially losing a billion-dollar pay day for the New Zealand economy?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The cost-benefit analysis certainly shows that it’s not a billion-dollar pay day. That said, New Zealanders are proud of the success of the America’s Cup. We do want it to be hosted here if that can be arranged on reasonable terms. We believe—and this is the advice I’ve had from officials—that the design that we have put forward, which is a hybrid proposal that Auckland Council also backs, is a better one.
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Does he want to be the Minister who lost the hosting rights to the America’s Cup because of his dogmatic approach, his refusal to work with others, and his failure to bring Team New Zealand in on his pet project’s plans?
Hon Grant Robertson: He doesn’t want to be the leader.
Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I don’t want to be leader. I’m confident that the Government is handling this responsibly.
Tax System—Brightline Test Extension
10. RAYMOND HUO (Labour) to the Minister of Revenue: What measure has he recently announced to address property speculation?
Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): Today, I tabled a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017-18, Employment and Investment Income, and Remedial Matters) Bill to extend the brightline test on residential property sales from two years to five years. The extension means that profits from non - owner-occupied residential property investments that are bought and sold within five years will generally be taxable. The same exemptions that apply for the two-year test will remain unchanged. This SOP gives effect to the changes that were clearly signalled before and after the election.
Raymond Huo: Why does the Government believe the extension of the brightline test will address property speculation?
Hon STUART NASH: The proposal will ensure that residential property speculators pay income tax on their gains and makes property speculation less attractive.
Raymond Huo: How will extending the brightline help to bring fairness back into the tax system?
Hon STUART NASH: These changes will go some way towards rebalancing the tax system so that speculators who profit from the sale of property have the same tax responsibility as other types of investment and income.
Charter Schools—Applications to Become a Designated Character School
11. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Education: Can he guarantee that the existing partnership schools will continue so long as they have registered teachers, teach the New Zealand curriculum, and have the same level of funding as state schools?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Government’s position on charter schools is well set out in the Cabinet paper that I released last week. Under section 156 of the Education Act 1989, it is my duty as Minister of Education to consider any application from a charter school seeking to become a designated character school. I am required by law to consider applications on a case by case basis, taking into account all of the criteria set out under the Act. It is important that I do not pre-empt the outcome of any potential application and that I make these decisions according to the requirements in the law.
David Seymour: Supplementary.
SPEAKER: No, the member has no further supplementaries this week. That was made very clear yesterday.
David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I received communication from you stating that not only did I not have the supplementaries normally allocated to ACT but was ineligible to receive supplementaries given to me by other parties. Are you now saying—
SPEAKER: No, the member will resume his seat—[Interruption] The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. I just want to make it clear to David Seymour that his disorderly behaviour yesterday resulted in a punishment that he would not have further supplementaries this week, and that is absolutely clear. The idea that another party can give him supplementaries in order to avoid that punishment is something that I’m not going to contemplate. Supplementaries are entirely at my discretion, and he lost them.
David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: If the member’s going to dispute my ruling, he is running the risk of a significant problem going forward.
David Seymour: Should other members—
SPEAKER: No, no—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Point of order, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. Now, if the member has a point of order that is a proper point of order and it is not disputing my ruling, and my ruling is—and it’s a very longstanding ruling—that any supplementary questions are at the Speaker’s discretion. If he wants to dispute that, he will run into problems going forward. And I just want to say to Dr Nick Smith that when I’m trying to hear one point of order, to have someone else yelling in my ear, on his feet in an inappropriate way, is something that he should know better than to do.
David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m in no way disputing your ruling, but there is something that has become quite unclear. I understood that you might take questions away from a party in order to try and incentivise them to be more orderly, but it seems that what you have done in this instance is remove the right of a member or a party to ask questions at all. Now, that seems quite different from what we’re used to.
SPEAKER: Well, I haven’t removed the right at all; it’s just for today, although I’m tempted.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Am I to take from your Speaker’s ruling that you view that in this House that you have absolute discretion on whether there are supplementary questions, that if each Tuesday you woke up and you said, “We aren’t having supplementary questions in this Parliament any more.”, that would be completely within your prerogative? In my view, if that is where you think your authority as Speaker sits, you are mistaken.
SPEAKER: Well, I think the member should look at Standing Order 387(1). If that was the case, I would have the right to do that. I would tend to suggest that if I did do that, I wouldn’t be Speaker for long.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think—not disputing the point that you make that it’s been a long time accepted, and part of the Standing Orders, that the Speaker has full discretion over the granting of supplementary questions—that process, though, has evolved over time. I think it was Speaker Hunt who went from a situation where the Speaker would allow one or two questions to having supplementaries on them, perhaps, up to five, and started the allocation process based on the fact that we’re an MMP Parliament, etc. However, I think it’s a new thing for the Speaker to start using the supplementary question opportunity in the sort of manner that we’ve seen today. I think that if you’ve got absolute discretion, then there’s no need to threaten to remove or otherwise; you simply exercise that discretion, given the circumstances.
I think it is a little unfortunate to have suggested earlier today—and we sat quietly through it—that if there was a pursuit of a point of order that you didn’t particularly find favourable, that would have a penalty of five put on it. There should be no impediment to members standing in this House and saying what they wish, within the Standing Orders—that’s what they’re elected to do. I hesitate to use the word intimidation, but standing over their decision-making process, I think, is quite wrong. Similarly, with your decision about Mr Seymour, it could have been just that you did not take supplementaries from him, and he would soon work out why. I think it’s unfortunate if it looks like this is a pernicious environment where the accepted behaviour is actually punished or is compromised by what the Speaker sees as appropriate for people.
SPEAKER: Sure, and, to a large extent, the member is right. What I am attempting to do is have a lower level of punishment than asking members to leave the Chamber, which, in my belief, is what would’ve happened yesterday and again today with David Seymour’s behaviour under some Speakers in the past. So we’ve got a lower-level punishment, which is the reduction in the number of supplementaries. The number of supplementaries is a guideline, and I use that. I think it’s fair to say that roughly the same numbers have been lost or gained from either side. The feedback that I have had, both from members in the House and from people outside, has been that it has been easier to hear supplementary questions—in particular, for people to understand what’s going on—and so far I’ve been able to do it without requiring members to leave the House, which, in my personal experience, was a pretty ineffectual approach.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I think the point you make is right—that if you simply, at the time, say, “Right, well, look, one more over here, one off over here.”—we seem to hear, over here, a lot more “one off over here” than we do any other, but that will always be the case. [Interruption] Oh, that should take one off.
I think my point was that that’s because you make a decision based on what happens, not an indication to a member who’s exercising a right to speak in this House of what might happen if they persist with that particular line. I think that’s the danger area. But it’s something new we’re working through.
SPEAKER: Sure, and, as the member knows well, challenging my rulings, as Louise Upston was contemplating doing, can’t be done on a point of order. It’s got to be done through a motion, and she clearly, by not pursuing it, accepted the fact that what she was doing was inappropriate. Now, is there a further point of order?
David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for your ruling or answer on my earlier point of order as to whether the punishment was to remove specific question entitlements or to actually ban a member or party from asking questions for a period of time. You’ve now explained that it’s only for one week, and that sounds like a good thing. But I still don’t quite understand, if this is a totally new type of punishment, where, rather than simply removing particular questions, you ban a member or even a whole party from asking questions at all.
SPEAKER: Well, I think the member is aware he gets two in a week, generally. I wasn’t sure yesterday as to how many he had left, but I assumed that it was one or two, and he lost them because of his ongoing bad behaviour. The member has to realise that when he doesn’t act within the Standing Orders there will be consequences. And he suffers from the, you know, disadvantage of not getting enough votes to have other members here in order to have more supplementaries.
David Seymour: Oh, that’s just nasty. Could I ask, then, for the leave of the House for the National Party to give me a supplementary question, given you’ve just said that all I’ve really lost are those particular two I had?
SPEAKER: No.
Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a new issue. You made a reference to my colleague the Hon Louise Upston. You claimed that because she didn’t do something by raising a point of order—
SPEAKER: I accept I shouldn’t have said that. I apologise to Louise Upston. That was going too far.
Jami-Lee Ross: Thank you very much.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. When you’re considering this matter with respect to, for example, Mr Seymour, we’re a pretty compassionate Government, and I know it must be desperate and lonely to be all by yourself, and I’d hope you’d take a different view to him than the rest of the Parliament.
SPEAKER: Mr Peters, I have shown him more flexibility than I have to the vast majority of members, and I will say that both he and Dr Smith, because of their experience, have also had more flexibility than most members.
Jan Tinetti: Does the Minister accept that only charter schools are capable of meeting the needs of Māori students from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I do not. There are around 190,000 Māori students in New Zealand schools. Around 700-odd of them attend partnership schools. Unlike the members opposite, we’re not giving up on all of the rest of them.
Jan Tinetti: Has he been fair and consistent with existing charter schools?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I absolutely have been. The Government’s position was set out very clearly when we became the Government, it was set out very clearly by the parties that make up the Government before the election, and it has not changed.
Employment, Minister—Statements and Targets for Young People Not in Employment, Education, or Training
12. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Employment: Does he still stand by all of his statements?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Yes, Mr Speaker, absolutely, in the context that they’ve been made.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Regarding his statement to the House on Tuesday, “I’m a person who’s been intimately involved in charter schools, and I’ve seen the strengths, and sadly, there’s a few weaknesses that we have to address.”, does he think the charter schools he’s been intimately involved with have done a better job than equivalent mainstream schools at reducing the number of their students not being in education, employment, or training, after school?
SPEAKER: I was going to rule the question out, other than for the fact that there was an interjection from the Government bench, and therefore I’ll allow the member to rephrase it, going to the responsibilities of the Minister of Employment. If he makes statements outside his areas of responsibility, that’s not a matter for a question.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, the end of the question was about “neets”, which is very much his area of involvement.
SPEAKER: I think the member will get to the Minister’s responsibility early in the question rather than just putting a phrase on the end in an attempt to get there.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, regarding his statement to the House on Tuesday that “I’m a person who’s been intimately involved in charter schools, and I’ve seen the strengths, and sadly there’s a few weaknesses that we have to address.”, does he think that the number of students becoming students not in education, employment, or training, after school, has been reduced by the efforts of the charter schools that he has been intimately involved with?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: When he told a press conference on Tuesday, regarding charter schools, “All the Māori side of things and perspectives can be accommodated under the new model.”, is that his primary consideration as Minister of Employment?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well trained. Regarding his statement this week, “I will be an employment Minister who is intent on coming up with an employment strategy for all New Zealanders”, 3½ months into the role, when does he plan to come up with that strategy?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: We’re at the moment rolling out the strategy, and I’m really pleased with the response from unions—
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Table it.
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, well, we’ll be tabling it shortly, but we have just got our first tranche of funding, $13 million from Cabinet, where we’ll be supporting young people in the regions, and we’re going to start an employment strategy, which the Opposition forgot all about.
Tamati Coffey: Does the Minister stand by his statements about why rangatahi continue to be at the forefront of his employment strategy?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Kia ora. Yes, definitely. Rangatahi are the future of our economy, and it’s vital that we invest in their skills development now so that in the future the economy also works for them. To that end, I’ll be starting next week with a series of hui and meetings in the regions that will be the commencement of a very proactive Labour Party and Government employment strategy. All the regions—
Hon Simon Bridges: How many are you going to?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You can’t come because you’ll be fighting for your life. Good luck to you, though, Simon. Good luck to you—we need a Māori there.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Having said that the unemployment rate is not the real indicator of success in helping New Zealanders into work, how exactly will he measure success: is it the number of hui that he is attending?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: We’ll be measuring success by reducing the inequity for so many groups who’ve been forgotten about by the previous Government: Māori, whose unemployment rates are, sadly, at 9 percent, and underutilisation at 21 percent; women who are lagging behind; Pacific Islanders, who are dragging in employment. This Government is very proud to see the unemployment figures at 4.5 percent, but there’s always a story within a story, and that’s the story that the previous Government forgot all about.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: What does he think is a reasonable target to reduce the number of young Kiwis not in education, employment, and training by the next December quarter?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, we’ve got over 80,000 young people not in education, employment, or training out there, and so we’ll be working hard to reduce that. This is a compassionate Government, and I totally support our Prime Minister, who has made that clear—made it clear at Waitangi. It’s a Government that’s working away at things. We’re hoping to get to a couple of thousand with our first tranche of funding. We’ve been very clear about that, and we’ll be reducing things as we go along. Can I just take the opportunity again to wish Simon Bridges all the very best from Ngāti Maniapoto—kia ora, Simon—even though they disowned you.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked what he was going to reduce it by, and the answer was “as we go along”. I didn’t think that was a response to the question.
SPEAKER: I think it’s fair to say that it might have been slightly circular, but the member did address the question.
Hon Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that the Minister indicated in one of his answers to my colleague’s questions that the Government is currently rolling out his employment strategy, could I ask that he table it now?
SPEAKER: Well, the member can ask, but I’m not going to put it to the House because clearly the member wasn’t quoting from a document.
Question No. 2 to Minister
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Earlier today in question No. 2 in the House, I was challenged by the Opposition as to a transcript’s veracity of 13 February. I have it here now and I wish to table it because of the challenge that happened in this House.
SPEAKER: The Deputy Prime Minister seeks leave to table a document. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Tabling of Documents
Urgent Debate Application—Correspondence
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I seek leave of the House to table correspondence between your and my offices, so that members might better understand some of the reasons used to decline an urgent debate application.
SPEAKER: The member seeks leave to table some correspondence. Is there any objection to that process? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.
Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Bills
Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2)
Third Reading
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): I move, That the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Indeed, it’s an honour and a responsibility, I suggest, to stand for the third reading of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill has been introduced to the House reasonably recently—a couple of days ago, in fact—and has passed through most of its stages under urgency because this Government has needed to pass legislation to ensure that the structure and the stability of the current dairy industry continues on beyond 31 May of this year. There was in the original legislation setting up Fonterra a trigger point that when more than 20 percent of the milk supply in the South Island or North Island was exceeded—that is, in the hands of others than Fonterra—then a review was deemed necessary, and without change, in fact, the structure of Fonterra and the legislation around it would then lapse.
The Government is passing this piece of legislation to ensure that the legislation, as it is at the moment, remains in place. The previous Government in the review that it conducted after 2015, when the trigger point was met, came up with a review outcome and a change of legislation. Unfortunately, it sat on that for some time and this incoming Government deemed that there was insufficient time to bring that piece of legislation into the House, have it considered properly through a select committee process, and be passed by the end of May. So we decided to pass this short piece of legislation—a technical amendment, effectively, to the primary Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) legislation—which says those trigger provisions would not be triggered, that the legislation will continue. But we committed to consider the issues raised in the review and as to the attempt by the previous Government to have them in legislation we said that we would look at these substantive issues through the review that will be undertaken over the next 12 months.
The dairy industry is New Zealand’s largest single export earner. It generated $14.6 billion in export revenue for the year ended June 2017, and that is expected to increase to $16.8 billion—a huge amount of money for any exporting sector—to the end of June 2018. Over 50,000 people are employed in the dairy industry. It’s arguably one of the single biggest contributors to rural and provincial New Zealand, supplemented by the tourism industry, which to some extent relies on, I guess, the reputation of our dairy industry. This Government is aware of challenges facing the dairy industry. They are numerous, from artificial milk and the growth of competitors in the export market to environmental pressures and, indeed, a challenge to the social licence for the dairy industry where an increasing number of people are saying that maybe they’ve got too big too quickly.
I think that there’s a very sensible approach to the dairy industry. When you ask people to submit on it, they will do so, I’m sure, over the next few months, and it will enable us to come up with changes that will be needed, I think, to bring Fonterra and its legislation into the new world. It’s almost 17 years on since the passage of the legislation, and I think we have a responsibility to look carefully at the dairy industry, to look carefully at the legislation governing Fonterra, and to look carefully at the future for the dairy industry. Our country will rely on it for a long time to come.
I acknowledge the support of all parties in the House that are supporting this through the House. There have been some legitimate questions raised by members on both sides of the House, and those—
Hon Chris Hipkins: And answered.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: —absolutely—questions will be addressed through the review process that will be conducted by the Government. So I just want to assure the House and the people of New Zealand and the dairy industry that the relatively quick passage of this legislation, which is just a technical roll-over, does in no way undermine this Government’s commitment to support the dairy industry and to support Fonterra in a form that will carry it and its farmers into the future and, indeed, to protect our environment and protect New Zealand and our communities. Thank you.
Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): This bill today turns around the dairy industry and the nature of reforms that were taken many years ago, and in itself, as a bill, it promotes one of the three things that we were promoting in a bill prior to the election. But the real guts of what you’re seeing in this approach that you see from Minister Damien O’Connor here today is the review that’s coming down the line to the New Zealand dairy sector and New Zealand agriculture and horticulture in total.
Today, we have seen that democracy will be attacked on a number of fronts by this Government. Not only is question time now a farce in this House but the Government is deliberately attacking farmers. They are deliberately attacking them through a review that is wider than any context in which the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) was ever expected to cover, and this is the nature of what we will see from an oppressive Government that does not want to have people have their say.
Question time is not a place in this Parliament any more where parties can have a question and answer session. That has been taken away. That part of democracy has been stripped from New Zealanders in this Government. The next stage will be to strip away the ability for New Zealanders to actually come and submit. We saw this in the Government putting this through in urgency so that no submissions could be made, and when it got through the stages of urgency and where the committee stage had been passed, then it suddenly came back and put it through in the traditional format.
It is an abuse of the parliamentary process that we are seeing by this Government, and this is only month four. Over the next three years, there will be more oppressive attacks by that Government to take away the rights of New Zealanders to be heard, and that is a disgrace for our country.
All landowners should be worried about this bill, because not only are their rights to be heard already taken away in this Parliament but their right to use their land is now directly under threat, because we are going to have a group of politicians from Labour and the Green Party determine what is best for New Zealand’s biggest industry. They know better than generations of farmers—than those people that are employed in the industries to make managerial and structural decisions! They know better than all forms of local and regional government that we have in this country to work through those processes!
We are now going to be dictated to by a group of politicians that have no respect for New Zealanders. They take away your right to be heard in this House. This Parliament will become a farce under that Government, and this bill is a symptom of what they are doing. Mark my words, this is not a bill that will come and deliver the dairy industry regime that DIRA was actually supposed to do. This bill is a proxy for an attack on farmers and the right to use land, and that is what is going to happen, because environmental land use—the things that are said in the press release from the Minister were never in DIRA. They have never been part of DIRA, and now this bill, under the guise of night, will enable the Minister to have a review of all those things and more.
Kieran McAnulty: Rubbish.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, that is what the press release says. Those are the Minister’s exact words, and that is what all members of the Government have been saying for the last two days. It is not rubbish; it is what is happening. Ministers and members of the Government have confirmed that, and the Green members want to take it further. Labour members want to take it into labour relations. They want to take it into contracting of Fonterra. Those are not DIRA responsibilities.
This Parliament is not being effective. Not only is it taking away the ability to question at question time but now we have lost the ability to discuss with people that are affected by legislation and, thirdly, we are seeing legislation and reviews being taken that are much wider than any ambit for which they were ever intended. That is an attack on democracy. That is what this Government is about. They know they can’t win on the public opinion, so they are playing by a different set of rules, and that is a disgrace for this country going forward.
Hon RUTH DYSON (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just was reflecting on the contribution of the member who’s just resumed his seat, the Hon David Bennett, and I believe that he was bringing into question the integrity of the ruling of the Speaker that was made earlier today, and I don’t think that’s appropriate. I’d like you to ask him to withdraw and apologise.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, I don’t understand the ruling that you are alleging he’s brought into question.
Hon RUTH DYSON: So the Speaker was challenged earlier by David Seymour in relation to the Speaker taking away his right to ask supplementary questions—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, OK.
Hon RUTH DYSON: It was that ruling that David Bennett was referring to.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the member is taking a much narrower view of the views that have been expressed by the member. I have asked him to come back to the actual bill—well, I have indicated to him that I want him to come back to the bill—but I don’t accept that he has made the sort of allegation that would warrant a withdrawal and apology. I call the Hon David Bennett. He still has 4½ minutes left. No? He’s gone.
Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Associate Minister of Agriculture): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a delight to take a call in support of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2), and, obviously, standing in support. After that last contribution, by David Bennett, you’d almost think that the sky is going to fall in.
I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge what my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor has done on behalf of particularly the Southland dairy farmers who were looking at the expiry of the regulative provisions in this particular Act.
I wanted in my contribution to talk about the process in which this new Labour - New Zealand First - Greens coalition Government took in response to this particular issue in this bill that we are addressing at the moment. I just want to share with the members that, clearly, this was a bill introduced by the former Government, and remind the House they had every opportunity to pass it, but, like we’ve heard in this debate over this bill, ran out of time.
We had a new Government announced at the end of October. My calculation is that on 18 December, which is nearly 6 weeks, Cabinet agreed to progress this bill under urgency. Why did they do that? Because of the fact that, come 28 February, Fonterra’s shareholding application periods closed. It would close on 28 February of this year. So it was Cabinet that decided to bring this bill into this House under urgency on 18 December, merely six weeks after forming the Government.
So here we are, under urgency. The honourable Minister Damien O’Connor brought the bill to this House and we debated it under urgency, purely because of the time pressures of 28 February on which Fonterra shareholders or farmers could put in applications, and that was looming if we didn’t make amendments to this bill. So I do want to acknowledge the quickness with which this Government addressed the issue that was at hand and the risk to those dairy farmers in the South Island. I just wanted to share that piece of information with the House.
The second, important part that this bill enables—and it shouldn’t be underestimated—is this opportunity to review the dairy industry. The Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) hasn’t been addressed for 17 years. I do want to respond to the former speaker, the Hon David Bennett’s comments around doom and gloom for dairy farmers around the country. It’s clear to me that there has been a significant shift amongst dairy farmers across the country—not just dairy famers; growers, sheep and beef farmers—and we have to now look at the way in which we practise both on the land and the utilisation of water if we are going to keep ahead in terms of international competitiveness for our products to market. It’s clear that there’s a movement that we cannot keep doing the same thing and get different results.
I want to acknowledge this bill enables the review that the Minister has outlined in his earlier contribution. I want to support all dairy farmers and acknowledge that they will all have a contribution in looking at the industry in a much more strategic way as we go forward into the nation.
I think this bill does address and puts aside the real priorities, particularly of the dairy farmers in the South Island, by removing the expiry provisions under the Act, but it also signals very clearly as we move forward as a Government that we need to take a more strategic view of the dairy industry across the board. From where I sit, I think dairy farmers will be pleased to be able to participate in that review so that we do get the right mix, and the system is right, and, like I said, maintains our competitive international advantage. To that end, I gladly commend this bill to the House.
BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s been an interesting week discussing this piece of legislation in the House. I will say that one really positive thing is that I’ve heard a lot of good commentary about the dairy industry this week, and it was really invigorating in the House here the other night with the debate. I am just a little bit bemused with the whole conversation around urgency. Yesterday, during the committee stage—13 Government speeches and two closure motions later—it finally got through the committee stage, so the sense of urgency all of a sudden started to go on and on and on.
A lot has been said during the course of this week, but I think there’s one thing that I’m really keen to find out around this piece of legislation. I know we’re making a timing change here, but I’m really concerned that the terms of reference become clear as soon as possible. I am rather confused. There’s already been a review done. This is a completely commercial piece of legislation. The Dairy Industry Restructuring Act was based around commercial realities and competition, and the question has been asked around what else is going to go into the terms of reference. I know that dairy farmers made a commitment to this piece of legislation, which was around some terms of commercial reality that they feel they’ve met.
So I would ask that as soon as possible, we get fair terms of reference. I would also suggest that the 105 submitters that came in and put submissions into the last review that was done, only two years ago, are probably going to be the same set of submitters. It seems to me a long-winded process to do this with some information that is already available. So I will ask this Government to be upfront with the industry and lay it out as soon as possible. Please, let’s not drag this on, so that the dairy farmers of New Zealand can get on with it. Thank you.
JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is my pleasure to stand and speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2). I speak today, for the first time on this bill, as my colleague Mark Patterson is unable to be here today, following a family tragedy. So I will take this call on his behalf. Thank you for your time here today in the House.
I’m not familiar so much with the dairy industry, other than my short time, as a 15-year-old, as a foster child on a dairy farm. I did spend some time in the herringbone milking shed, learning how to dodge as you run from one end of the shed to the other, in your pair of overalls, hopefully not getting—
Rt Hon David Carter: Keeping a hat on.
JENNY MARCROFT: And the hat, absolutely, with a wide brim as well. So that is a particular love I have from my childhood—those memories of those cold, freezing mornings in the cowshed, where I did actually learn how to milk by hand. I might not be the cavalry coming in from New Zealand First on this particular reading, but I perhaps am the dairy maid and so am able to speak on this with some hands-on experience, so to speak.
New Zealand First will support this bill, as we have all the way through the readings in the House. We support this bill because it will prevent the expiry in May 2018 of certain provisions in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) that regulate the South Island’s dairy industry. When I looked at the purpose of this bill, it aims to prevent that expiry of the certain provisions in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001, which creates a process for periodic reviews of competition in the dairy industry, and to provide certainty for the dairy industry about the regulatory regime.
Certainty is one of the things that farmers don’t have a heck of a lot of. Certainty is something they would like more of, I am sure. They don’t have certainty in the weather. All seasons can blow across a day, especially when it’s haymaking season. Certainty in milksolid prices—they would obviously like to have more of those. So this bill will supply our dairy farmers, and particularly those in the South Island, with more certainty, and that is a very good thing.
This bill will give these farmers certainty around the regulatory environment they’re working in now, while making sure we don’t jump the gun and make rash changes to other legislation. We would like to ensure that our dairy industry continues to thrive. That is very important for us, and it is very important for our economy. So that our farmers too get a fair go, we need to take a strategic approach.
This is a very important issue for our primary sector. It’s important for our South Island dairy farmers. It’s important for all of our dairy farmers and their contribution to the primary industry, and how important that is for all of us. So I’d like to thank the Minister the Hon Damien O’Connor for bringing certainty to this sector. The dairy industry and Fonterra is a valuable institution, a valuable business, and it provides certainty that milk will get picked up from the gates as well.
I’d like to just make mention of my pāpā Manuera Tohu. In his younger days, as a young man, he had a job as a tanker driver, picking up the cream cans in Dargaville. He told a lot of stories to us about how much he enjoyed that job, getting those cans from the gates of the early-days dairy farmers in the 50s, and how often he may in fact have picked up a kid running to school, who’d had to milk the cows by hand, put out the cream cans, and get themselves 7 miles down the road, in bare feet, to school.
I’ve perhaps exhausted my family tales of my experience in the dairy industry, for now, and so thank you for allowing me to do so. I would just like to reiterate New Zealand First’s support of this bill. I thank the Minister and all the supporting partners of this Government. Kia ora koutou.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you. Can I acknowledge the contribution from Jenny Marcroft, on behalf of Mark Patterson. I know why he’s not here. His father was a wonderful man that I knew for 40 years. He was an extremely capable farmer. He was a breeder of Simmental stud cattle. He was a poet. He was a tremendous bagpiper. He made a huge contribution to the Leeston-Southbridge community and he will be greatly missed.
The Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) of course I fully support. I would, of course, also add that the critical process by which it’s been introduced into the House has been nothing short of shambolic. To put the House into urgency is a call the Leader of the House must make, and it should be done when it’s necessary to do so. To put the House into urgency after question time on Tuesday and then to break urgency that night, to bring it back the following day, and to have the Government filibustering its own legislation shows that the Government needs to concentrate on its own legislative programme.
I’ve been here for quite a few years and I don’t recall a time where we’ve seen a change of Government, and a Government coming in that should have had nine years to be ready to go, with a 100-day plan that required legislation, and find that we get into the situation as we did before Christmas and again yesterday, whereby the Government is filibustering its own legislation. It is nothing short of a shambles, and the Hon Chris Hipkins, as Leader of the House, should have a look at his own performance in that regard.
The Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) is totally necessary. I’ve listened a lot to the commentary around the review being held by the Government into the industry. It would be helpful if the terms of reference for that review could be made known as soon as possible so we could understand the extent to which the Government’s going to look at issues beyond normal dairy industry restructuring such as some of the environmental changes that may be pushed by a Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government.
This is a piece of legislation that was necessary to pass quickly—I fully accept that. But the fact that we went into urgency, came out of urgency, and then wasted most of yesterday having a Government filibustering its own legislation—it’s time this Government got its act together with a legislative programme, and stopped relying on the legislation on the Order Paper that was presented to it by the previous National-led Government.
JO LUXTON (Labour): Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor. It’s a real pleasure to be here in this third reading and to take part in this. This is a small piece of legislation, but, as the Hon Nathan Guy mentioned the other day, it is a very important piece of legislation. It is a significant piece of legislation. Why? Why that is is because it provides certainty and stability for our dairy-farming industry, both large-scale and small family-owned farms.
It amends the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) of 2001, and that originated to create Fonterra in its infancy, as Fonterra had 98 percent of the New Zealand milk production. Now, there was concern over the fact that they had such dominance in the market, and the cause for concern was that it could create barriers to new producers wanting to come into the industry. It could lock in current suppliers and pay high prices, also, to current suppliers. This isn’t healthy for industry, so DIRA, in 2001, created regulatory requirements of Fonterra through Subparts 5 and 5A of Part 2. Subpart 5 of Part 2 of the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act ensured that activities of Fonterra are regulated, and thus promotes the efficient operation of dairy markets in New Zealand. Subpart 5A provides for the monitoring of Fonterra’s Farmgate Milk Price, and this is a way of managing Fonterra’s dominant position.
We know that dairying has continued to grow within the South Island, but if this legislation didn’t pass, we would be seeing the farmers in the North Island receive the protection of these regulations of this particular bill and the South Island dairy farmers would be missing out, which isn’t fair—in my view, anyway. There are quite a significant number of farms in the South Island, and, in particular, I just want to draw people’s attention to the fact that there are actually 3,219 total herds in the South Island—although not all of them would necessarily supply to Fonterra. But that actually equates to quite a high number, and of that number there are 595 owner-operators and sharemilkers in the electorate that I live in, alone. The electorate that I live in provides 18.17 percent of the total South Island herds. That’s a really substantial amount, and whilst they might not all supply Fonterra, my anticipation is that quite a lot of them would be supplying Fonterra. What this bill will do will be to provide certainty to those dairy farmers going forward.
What this bill will also do will ensure that dairy farmers still have the opportunity to supply Fonterra with milk but also the option to supply other independent processors a portion of their milk, too. It’ll also allow them to exit from Fonterra should they wish to do so, and to me that’s fair. That encourages competition within the industry, within the sector. So this bill, in my view, will certainly provide certainty to dairy farmers. I don’t believe that it is a pathway for all the scaremongering, all the conspiracy theories that we are hearing from the other side. So I think dairy farmers will be happy to see this legislation proceed, and I commend this bill to the House.
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s quite a privilege to be allowed to speak on something agricultural for a change. I have been in this House through the first review of this legislation, and consequently sat on a select committee that probably listened to nearly three months of significant submissions on that, and engaged quite a significant amount of expertise to get it through the process. This is a pretty complicated bill when you get back into it, because it sets a lot of benchmarks and standards that trigger various things happening. That’s why this bill’s got to the point, in the South Island, where it’s in fact brought the South Island trigger point of around 80 percent of the milk back to us.
To answer the last speaker’s, Jo Luxton’s, question about the percentage that Fonterra gets in the South Island, it’s pretty obvious, because this bill sets it out. So you know how much milk’s being collected by the other companies in the South Island because of the way this bill operates. I also wanted to very briefly comment on Jenny Marcroft’s comments. I thought she did very, very well as well, and I wanted to make the point that it’s a long time since most of us have made hay, but none the less—there are more modern ways of dealing with grass now than, perhaps, hay. People do still make hay, interestingly, but luckily I don’t have to still make hay.
As I said, I sat through the first iteration, or the first amendment, of this legislation. Like many pieces of legislation, when you put legislation in place to deal with business—business changes very quickly in this country, and none more so than the milk industry or than, in fact, dairy farming. So, consequently, the very good piece of legislation that was brought in in 2001 to initiate Fonterra and to get the milk industry, or the dairy industry, set on the path it is on now is constantly under stress at the moment, and, because of the very quickly changing market we’re in, it’s going to continue to be under stress. I, like a number of speakers before, will be very interested to see where they get to—where the Government gets to—with the review of this piece of legislation, because it will be critical. The interesting thing about the review is that by the time they’ve done the review and considered it, the industry will have changed to such an extent they’ll probably have to review it again, and that’s one of the challenges of this type of legislation.
I guess, from my perspective, I’m very keen to see this piece of legislation, frankly, expire and not be required in the industry at all. I don’t think we’re very far from that point, because it’s achieved what it set out to achieve, basically, which was to create competition in the industry. It’s created that competition. In fact, in some parts of the North Island that competition—and I don’t know about the South Island; it’s a little foreign to me. I don’t travel that often overseas! But the North Island and the Manawatū-Rangitīkei area, and Taranaki too, are changing dramatically, and almost daily now you see signs on the gates of dairy farms changing from one company to another. That’s, of course, what this set out to do.
So I think that whilst this small piece of legislation, which took some hours last night, during the committee stage, to get through—I think there’re two clauses in this bit of legislation they discussed for some three hours or two hours yesterday—but none the less, that’s been well covered. I think that having got through that, the review’s going to be very interesting, and where the Government gets to and where this House gets to in the future with this piece of legislation also will be extremely interesting, and, I think, challenging as well for the industry and for the sector, because probably it’s coming time when this piece of legislation may well need to be dramatically changed or done away with.
That’s probably all I need to say. I certainly support it for what it is, and look forward to its progress.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: So this is a split call—five minutes with a bell at one minute, and I call Rino Tirikatene.
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m delighted to speak at the third reading of this bill. It’s a very welcome bill. Can I commend Minister Damien O’Connor for his leadership.
This is very important, because what we’re doing is cancelling the expiry of some key provisions in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) legislation. I know it’s been well canvassed in many contributions that have been made through the various stages of this bill, but this is all about the continued evolution of our dairy industry. We want to see a competitive market within our dairy industry, but there’s still a ways to go yet before we get there, and that’s why we are passing this legislation. It is to ensure there’s a smooth passage and to ensure that the provisions that are currently in place will remain in place until the industry itself, in partnership with the Government, following this comprehensive review, can chart a way forward, so that we can actually look to the future of further deregulation, or whatever other changes are required to continue to support the growth of what is a very vital industry for our country. That’s all this legislation does.
It’s a very short piece of legislation, but it’s very important to the many, many farmers and emerging milk processors and Fonterras of the world that we have across the South Island. Had we not put this legislation through, it would throw the whole South Island dairy industry into disarray come 1 June. Therefore, it’s very important that we just leave the status quo as it is. All we’re doing is actually following the advice of the Commerce Commission that was triggered by these provisions, whereby the Commerce Commission said that there isn’t enough competition yet to remove the DIRA regulation. So we are cancelling the expiry, making sure that the status quo remains, and providing certainty to the whole of the South Island.
There are many players, as we’ve seen. Since 2001, with the passage of the DIRA legislation, we’ve seen the emergence of quite a few new entrants into the dairy processing sector. If you drive around—and Mr McKelvie is more than welcome to drive around with me, around the vast Te Wai Pounamu—we’ve got the Synlaits in Canterbury, we’ve got Open Country Dairy, we’ve got Oceania Dairy, we’ve got Westland Cooperative Dairy on the West Coast. There are a—
Hon Louise Upston: Miraka.
RINO TIRIKATENE: Yeah, they’re not quite in the South yet, but there are very successful new emerging processors.
So it is a dynamic industry. There’s a lot happening. There is a lot of change that is occurring. There are a lot of threats. Whether it’s market-driven or whether it’s biosecurity risks, there are a lot of ongoing threats and challenges that the dairy industry is facing, and competition also is an area that requires close consideration. So we are allowing, through the passage of this legislation, for it to sit side by side with a comprehensive review that can provide the space for that to take place, whereby we will be fully consulting with all the concerned stakeholders to ensure that we can chart a very prosperous and productive way forward for our dairy industry.
So it’s an important piece of legislation, this is. I am very pleased that we’re able to provide that certainty to the whole of the South Island, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Andrew Falloon for the five-minute split call.
ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be taking my third call in as many days on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2). I just wanted to touch on two aspects that came up during debate in previous stages. The first one is in respect of the environmental impact, and this is something that’s been canvassed by a number of speakers over recent days, and the first part of it is in relation to the review that is being kicked off as a result of the passage of this bill.
I hope that review touches on some of the many things that our farmers are doing to improve the environment around them. It’s things like riparian planting, substantial fencing of waterways, and changing feed to reduce carbon emissions. I also hope that it covers off on the economic impact, and I’ve spoken, previously, about the enormous impact that the dairy industry has in South Canterbury, particularly around Temuka, with the Clandeboye plant. Just recently, they’ve employed another 100 people as part of their third extension of their mozzarella plant, and now employ a thousand people in my electorate.
But I also wanted to mention the impact in mid-Canterbury, and I can’t go much better than quoting one of my local farmers, David Clark. He says, “I live in a district whose main town has virtually the lowest unemployment in New Zealand. We have a vibrant, multi-cultural community that offers a wide range of employment opportunities and a very high level of community facilities. … Ashburton is a town that has been transformed in the last 25 years; this is a town that has been transformed by the development of irrigation, both in arable and dairying land uses. … This is a town where professionals view their income earning potential as better than in large cities, a town that offers an unemployment rate equal to the lowest in the country.” That is the impact of the dairy industry in my region of mid- and South Canterbury. We on this side of the House support it, and we want to see it continue to grow. Thank you.
GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I guess in this call I really want to acknowledge the elephant in the room, or I guess you’d call it the cow in the paddock, which is the sacred cow of New Zealand, which is our dairy industry, which is the 10 million beef and dairy cattle we have across this country. I guess the elephant, or the cow, in the room is the effluent it produces. Did you know the 10 million beef and dairy cattle we have in this country are the equivalent of a population of 141 million people, of course putting that effluent out? And it’s not even treated to the same standard you’d expect for humans. So this is the issue that hasn’t been discussed much in the debate. As we talk about the dairy industry and the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) and what happens with Fonterra and South Island farmers, we haven’t talked about the environmental impact of all those cattle on the New Zealand environment.
When the Labour Party came to us about this amendment, we had some big concerns, because, basically, the original Dairy Industry Restructuring Act had created this gigantic machine where any farmer who wanted to farm dairy cattle to produce milk could be part of the Fonterra behemoth. Now, Fonterra, of course, is the second-largest dairy export company in the world. We know it’s responsible for 40 percent of our primary industry exports, one of our main export industries. We’ve created this gigantic machine, and any farmer that wants to bowl over wetland, forests, or existing arable crops can, and they’ve got an existing market.
So we had some major concerns with it, because, basically, this machine has been designed to despoil our environment, and that’s the exact result. That’s why in two-thirds of our rivers our kids risk getting sick if they put their heads under water: because there’s so much effluent and other nasties that go into our water. We want to restructure that machine so it can become a force for good—so that we can still have a prosperous, sustainable dairy industry, but it’s one that protects our environment; it’s one that actually grows more jobs; it’s one that actually earns more internationally, because we’re focusing on value instead of focusing on volume.
So we did have some concerns, and that’s why we’re glad the Labour Party, and in particular the Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, were really responsive to our concerns, which were: how do we get a more sustainable approach to automatic entry and exit provisions under the DIRA? How could we actually take advantage of the organics industry, which we know has been earning $2 extra per kilogram of milksolids? How do we focus on value, instead of volume? Look, we’re great at producing milk products around the world, but on a global standard of value we rank 18th in the world. So we are, I guess, mugs, because what we’re seeing is people making a profit on one side, but we’re seeing a massive environmental cost on the other, paid by all New Zealanders.
What we want to see in this review is the chance not to just have a slight tick over, which is what would have happened with National with the existing legislation. This entirely reasonable legislation simply extends the provisions that would have expired in May of this year to give us a year’s breathing space, to give us a year to get around that table and have a conversation, which is: how do we make our dairy industry a force for good, supporting those family farmers, cleaning up our rivers, growing exports, growing jobs? Look, we’ve got a massive problem when it comes to the fact that our dairy industry is also our largest coal consumer. It’s responsible, our agricultural sector, for half of our emissions. Other countries have their factories and smokestacks; we have dairy farms and coal-fired boilers in New Zealand. Let’s look at that. Let’s focus on innovation, getting us out of the bottom half of the developed world when it comes to our spending on research and development.
So this is why we’re supporting the legislation. We have to change this machine, which has been designed by this Parliament, to make sure it’s a force for good, so we don’t have this constant growth on a finite country. The way we’ve approached the dairy industry in New Zealand is as if we had wetlands for ever, and that’s why we’ve seen the greatest wetland destruction in more than 100 years in this country. We’ve seen the greatest decline in water quality standards in absolute generations—perhaps in our country’s history—from human causes.
Look, we’ve got massive problems, but such a massive opportunity to grow a low-carbon, value-added, innovative, smart, clean and green dairy industry. That’s our vision. We want to work with farmers. We want to work with their industry bodies. This review is a fantastic opportunity. The fact is that we’ve been able to work with the Government to get these very important issues, such as value, organics, and automatic pick-up, into the 12-month review. We look forward to engaging with it. We’ve got such a tremendous opportunity, and that’s why the Green Party is voting for it. Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker.
LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): I rise to take a short call on the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2). I understand that, actually, this is a bill to deal with the South Island under a relatively urgent time frame, but I want to acknowledge the confusion that exists on the other side of the House. The Hon Meka Whaitiri said that it wasn’t possible to have this done because this had to be done by 28 February, which is actually not true. The date is 28 May that the provisions run out, and I question why we went into urgency. And then last night the party across the House from us, in Government, filibustered its own bill; yet the same party, with the agreement of the House, two days before Christmas could actually put through the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill, run a select committee process, and travel the country to make that happen.
The big problem here is this Government seems to have a lackadaisical approach to how it engages with the public. You see, I think, actually, there is going to be a good review come out of this. But most dairy farmers—or, certainly, the industry body—would’ve liked the opportunity to actually talk to the select committee, even for a couple of days, about this piece of legislation.
We also saw it from this Government about foreign investment. There was originally a time frame for submissions closing on foreign investment in the middle of January, when everybody was away. So, actually, it is sort of inconsistent with this Government in how it deals with public input, and that’s my biggest concern. Because I think there will be a lot of input from the 105 people that submitted to this bill when it was considered previously.
We have no terms of reference, and I actually think the industry body and significant players in this industry would’ve benefited from some time before the select committee. It still could’ve got back here in time—by 28 May. And, in my short time in this House, I’ve seen no real reason why this bill was considered under urgency and then filibustered by the same party that asked for that permission. I actually think it’s an abuse of our time and this power. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.
KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’d just like to start, on behalf of the Labour Party, by offering our sincere condolences to Mark Patterson, the New Zealand First MP who would’ve spoken on this bill as a member of the Primary Production Committee, whose father passed away last evening. We’d just like to offer those condolences in the House.
Unlike some speakers on this bill, I’d like to actually give this bill and this issue the respect that it deserves. We’ve heard from the previous speakers today criticising urgency, criticising the fact that the Labour Party actually wanted to talk about this bill last night. We took this issue seriously, unlike those on the other side of the House, who had the opportunity last night in the committee stage to discuss factors of this bill that they may have been concerned about, discuss the issues that they have talked about today—albeit briefly—directly with the Minister, and actually look at getting those specific questions answered. Did they? Did they a jot. They all sat down and did absolutely nothing, and now they sit there today and criticise us for filibustering. Nonsense. This is a Government that takes this issue seriously and wants to actually have a say. We want to discuss this bill. We want to make sure that the New Zealand public understands that this Government has this nation’s interest at heart, and actually has the primary industries’ interest at heart, and we’re not ashamed to stand up and talk about it.
So let’s actually look at why this bill is in place. This bill is in place for a very simple reason. It is to ensure the competition within the dairy industry—competition that is vital. It is a very short bill that will ensure this, but it is important none the less. Now, a point was made yesterday that the National Party, if you looked at its founding principles, believes in competitive markets, yet here they are today and yesterday making somewhat of a mockery of the process, refusing to talk about the key aspect of this bill, which is to preserve competition within the dairy industry. It is about the integrity, the structural stability, of the dairy industry beyond May 2018.
The threat to the industry, if we were to allow the expiration provisions to come into place in May, would’ve undermined the competition of the industry. This is a view that was put forward by the commission in regard to this in a very big report. They said that it would undermine the structural stability of the dairy industry. Now, we did have an opportunity—or almost had the opportunity, anyway—in this House to discuss this bill in March last year, when something very similar was put up for debate but then left to one side. So I do find it difficult to take the argument from the previous Government, which actually had the chance to put forward the bill, had the chance to put it forward to select committee, had the chance to actually give this issue the respect that it deserved—
Hon Ruth Dyson: But what happened? What happened?
KIERAN McANULTY: —but it didn’t happen. They left it to one side either because they wanted to avoid the discussion or because they fluffed about. What a bunch of fluffers.
The fact is that by doing so, we are now in a position where we had no choice but to actually get this done. And I was at an event last night, an event here in Parliament, attended by two groups from the Wairarapa and Hawke’s Bay regions—farm leaders, leaders in agribusiness—who wanted an opportunity with the Minister to discuss the future of primary industries in this country, and they were grateful to be able to have that opportunity. What a sad state, when they were—what—only 20 metres away from this debating Chamber, and in this House the National Party did not want to talk about it. And yet here we are with the chair of the Primary Production Committee, the Hon David Bennett, having the opportunity to put forward the Opposition’s argument—the very first speaker from the National Party today—and all he talked about was nonsense around a threat to democracy and the taking away, he accused this Government, of an opportunity for MPs to put forward their views. I come back to the point that last night they didn’t want to do that, and here they are not wanting to take their full calls today.
But this Government is proud to do it, particularly for an industry that is so important for this country, with 50,000 people employed in New Zealand in the dairy industry, and with regions like my own, Wairarapa—a considerable contribution to the local GDP and the communities that support the industry. Take Pahīatua, for example. With the dairy industry making, through Fonterra, a considerable investment in Pahīatua, it has ensured that that town and the surrounding areas will have a sustainable future in terms of employment for our young people, and that should be acknowledged. That in itself—even though this bill is relevant to the South Island—demonstrates why it’s so important that we do not take this lightly.
By bringing this bill into play and extending out the expiry provisions, what we are doing is giving the industry a bit of time so that it can work with us in the Labour-led Government and actually look at the industry as a whole. Now, reviewing things on a regular basis is a healthy process, and that is what this Government, through the Primary Production Committee, through the leadership of the Hon Damien O’Connor, has committed to the industry to do. It does face some challenges, be it through artificial milk or growth in competition overseas. The dairy industry, through the leadership of this Government, will be in good stead in only a year or two’s time, and so I am proud to stand here on behalf of the Labour Government and put forward our case for why this bill should be supported. We commend this bill to the House.
Bill read a third time.
Bills
Education Amendment Bill
First Reading
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move, That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.
This Government is committed to championing a high-quality public education system that provides all New Zealanders with learning opportunities so that they can discover and develop their full potential throughout their lives, engage fully in society, and lead rewarding and fulfilling lives. We believe in an education system that brings out the best in everybody, and that means we need an education system that is as diverse as the learners that it has to cater for. Our goal is to ensure that children and young people and students are resilient, creative, adaptable, have great communication and interpersonal skills, and are prepared to work collaboratively as well as independently. The Education Amendment Bill makes a number of key amendments to the Education Act 1989 in support of this vision.
In particular, the bill proposes to improve the governance of tertiary education institutions by restoring guaranteed places for staff and student representatives on their councils. It will allow the Minister of Education, when establishing new State schools, to approve an alternative constitution for the first board of trustees. It includes a new offence provision in the Education Act that will deter students from making false declarations about their eligibility for fees-free tertiary education, and it will strengthen the quality of schooling and education by removing the provisions relating to national standards and partnership schools from the legislation. This bill also makes improvements to the new strategic planning and reporting framework to ensure that it is workable for schools and kura. The bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Act, including some corrections to the Education (Update) Amendment Act, which was passed by the last Government.
I turn first to the restoring of staff and student representation on tertiary education institutions. This bill restores the requirement for guaranteed staff and student places on the councils of tertiary education providers, meaning that all universities, polytechnics, and wānanga will be required to have staff and student representatives as full members of their council. This delivers on our pre-election commitments made across the governing parties to ensure that staff and student representatives have a meaningful voice in the way their institutions are governed, and it rolls back one of the more Draconian measures implemented by the previous Government to remove that right. Because polytechnics have a smaller total council size, the bill increases the maximum number of their council members from eight to 10 to allow for the additional staff and student places. I’m aware that the polytechnics themselves would prefer to have their governance arrangements aligned with those of the universities, and that is something that we are willing to consider during the select committee process, and I’m sure that they will be making submissions.
In terms of the alternative constitutions for school boards of trustees, the bill includes a provision allowing the Minister, when establishing a new State school, to approve an alternative constitution for the first board of trustees. In the case of existing partnership schools, which I’ll be talking about in a moment, this will mean that the sponsors could see greater flexibility in the governance model should they apply to establish a State school. For example, a sponsor of an existing partnership school, or charter school, could have a strong presence on the board and an influence over the school’s character and values.
The bill introduces a new offence provision to support fees-free tertiary education. The Government’s taken major steps to break down financial barriers to post-school education and training by implementing our “first year free” fees-free tertiary education policy just prior to Christmas, meaning that around 80,000 people are now eligible for fees-free post-school education and training. To support the success of this policy, the Government requires those who are not easily verifiable—i.e., they don’t have a National Student Number, for example—to make a declaration that they’re eligible to access the fees-free system. The bill proposes a new offence for students who make false representation about their eligibility for fees-free education, including a criminal conviction and a fine of up to $5,000. This brings it broadly into line with other similar offences in the Act. I note that those who supply false information when applying for a student loan or allowance, for example, are currently subject to a potential fine of $2,000. This is actually a much larger fine, although the financial rewards of the potential misdemeanour are roughly the same. It’s also important to know that this does not prevent the police investigating fraud and prosecuting for fraud, where the penalties could be significantly higher.
What this, effectively, does is it provides a more instant remedy, and it also means that students who are applying no longer need to get a JP to witness their declaration. It brings it into line with other recent changes the Parliament has made, including removing the requirement for passport applications to be signed by a justice of the peace. So it’s about making the process run more efficiently, it’s about ensuring that there is a more instant penalty regime for those who violate the trust that’s being placed in them, and it does not close down more serious options should there be intent to rip off the system.
The bill removes national standards. This Government has made it very clear that we are committed to ensuring that parents have better information about how their children are progressing in schools. National standards were neither national nor standard. They involved an enormous amount of work for no educational gain. Nine years after the previous Government introduced them, there was no discernible improvement in student achievement as a result of them, despite the enormous amount of time and energy that had to go into filling in forms to comply with national standards. This Government is firmly committed to more teaching, less testing, and that is what this does—this bill delivers it. It also frees schools up from the red tape they were wrapped in by the previous Government and allows them to focus on the whole curriculum to ensure that they are giving every young person the opportunities they deserve.
The bill provides for the removal of charter schools from the New Zealand education system. This fulfils a clear commitment made by Labour, by New Zealand First, and by the Green Party from the moment the charter school model was first mooted. The bill does include transitional provisions, which means that the repeal of this legislation will not affect existing charter schools that are currently in operation. This bill has no impact on them at all. In parallel with this legislative process, we are having conversations with those existing charter schools about how they might come into the public education system, and there are a range of options for that on the table.
I think it’s unfortunate that some members of this House have been encouraging schools not to take part in that negotiation process. They would prefer that those schools closed rather than continued to educate young people. They would rather turn those young people into—well, make them into—footballs for their political purposes rather than acting in the best interests of those young New Zealanders. I am aware, from the feedback that I’ve had so far, that the operators of the existing charter schools have largely ignored those urgings from the members opposite and are engaging in good faith about how they can continue to deliver education for young New Zealanders, and I encourage them to keep doing that. When we said that we were going to negotiate with them in good faith, that is exactly what we meant, and we are going to live up to that commitment.
Finally, a couple of quick points: the bill makes improvements to the strategic planning and reporting framework for schools. Last year’s Education (Update) Amendment Bill introduced new planning and reporting frameworks for State and State-integrated schools that were due to commence on 1 January next year. This bill sets that back for a further year to allow more time for the implementation of the new system. It also aligns the school’s strategic planning process with the election process for boards of trustees. It seems to me that if we’re going to have a three-yearly cycle for school boards of trustees, then we should also have a three-yearly cycle for their strategic plans so that the democratic process can take its proper course, and this bill allows for that.
This bill supports a number of the Government’s priorities for education. It signals a move towards a new system of reporting that provides a richer and more comprehensive picture of student progress and achievement. It emphasises the Government’s focus on investing and backing our State and public education system. It reaffirms the important role of staff and students in the institutional decision-making processes of our tertiary institutions. It supports the successful implementation of our fees-free policy for post-secondary education. Alongside delivering on the key priorities for education throughout the education system, it also makes improvements to the strategic and planning reporting framework for schools and corrects a number of other minor and technical errors. I commend the bill to the House.
Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Firstly, can I acknowledge you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I was on the side line of the Coast to Coast after I had completed the mountain run, and I saw this person running through, so can I acknowledge your achievements in the Coast to Coast. Well done.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): And to you, Nikki.
Hon NIKKI KAYE: Look, the National Party is opposing this bill, and we’re opposing it for a range of reasons. I think my message to the Government is they may be quite surprised at how many people end up submitting on this bill. The number of parents that are writing to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education regarding the removal of national standards is phenomenal. I’m getting messages. I’ve had messages via ministerial advisers saying they’re dealing with this correspondence. So we will be fighting, on this side of the House, to oppose the Government’s move—although they’ve already done it through the National Administration Guidelines; this is, effectively, tidying it up—to get rid of national standards. There are a whole lot of schools out there, and we heard it at the Education and Workforce Committee, that are also opposing the Government’s efforts. In fact, the Ministry of Education said in the select committee that out of all of the communities of learning that have national standards in their achievement challenges, none of them have got rid of national standards at the moment. None of them, out of about 70 or 80—that is significant.
The reason that we supported national standards, but also the reason that we support a shift to progression, is we fundamentally believe that parents have a right to know how their children are doing, but, more than that, they deserve to have confidence in the quality of information. In order to have confidence in the quality of information, we don’t think you can have a laissez-faire system. You have to have the ability to report to the ministry so that they can get a nationwide picture of achievement. Now, what the Government has done is they have scrapped, effectively, national standards without enabling us to have that quality picture of achievement across the country.
What does that mean for some of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged kids? Well, here’s what it means, and here’s what the ministry, I know, is saying to Ministers: the ability to target numeracy and literacy programmes, as a result of that, is severely diminished. So what does this mean for the people in Kelvin Davis’ electorate? What it means is less ability to lift young Māori achievement.
Look, we know that under the last Government we saw significant shifts in achievement for young Māori and Pasifika students. We went, for year 12 NCEA level 2 achievement by Māori students, up from 51 percent to nearly 75 percent. We went, in terms of year 12 NCEA level 2 achievement for Pasifika students, up from 50 percent to 79 percent. On this side of the House we are not going to take lectures about achievement from members opposite. So we will be opposing this bill on the ground that all New Zealand parents deserve to know how their children are doing, not only in reading, writing, and maths but across the curriculum, and they deserve, as well, to have quality information.
But also New Zealand schools and New Zealand principals deserve to have confidence in that system of reporting, and the message that I’m getting from many principals is that they do support a shift to progression; however, they think that the way that the Government, and this Minister, has done it has been absolutely shambolic. He put through the National Administration Guidelines. He didn’t even talk to a whole lot of principals and parents, and we’ve seen this in the polls around parents. Something like 85 percent of parents were not on board with that decision, and we see it in the correspondence going to Ministers. So that is a major reason that we will be opposing this bill.
The second area of the bill that, again, we’re really opposed to is around partnership schools. I’ve given speeches in this House and, as I said before, I protested on the weekend. I know that there are members opposite, including Kelvin Davis, who threatened to resign if these partnership schools were closed. The reality is—here are the facts.
Hon Kelvin Davis: So when they’re all open next year, what are you going to do?
Hon NIKKI KAYE: The facts are that what this legislation and what the ministry is doing—and they confirmed this at select committee so members can yell all they want, but they actually can’t deny these facts—is that the partnership schools are being given these options: mutually terminate, terminate, or see out your contract. The model is gone. That means that those partnership schools close. Now I completely accept—I completely accept—there is a parallel discussion going on as to whether they can open in some shape or form. But the point is this—
Hon Kelvin Davis: Oh, so you did read the memo.
Hon NIKKI KAYE: No, the point is this: it’s severalfold. Firstly, they’re not broken. That’s why we don’t support this legislation. In fact, many of them are doing an extraordinary job. We have seen recently Vanguard Military School’s achievement results: huge shifts for young people who’ve had pretty difficult lives. These partnership schools have been doing really well, and if members opposite don’t believe us, then just listen to some of Willie Jackson’s previous interviews on this matter or listen to Kelvin Davis’ previous comments on this matter. They’re total lions in Opposition and mice in Government.
The next point that I would make is that, separate to them not being broken, the reality is, when you talk to many of these schools, what they want is a certainty about the future. They can’t get certainty from this Government, because they’ve got a Minister that goes out there and makes premature statements, which have caused legal consequences for the Crown, that his preference is for them to all close. Now, this kind of behaviour not only has legal consequences; there are Treaty of Waitangi issues. It is a complete and utter shambles. This legislation should not be coming through the House without resolving a number of these issues.
Finally, I come back to the irony of this. The absolute irony of this is that these schools are making the most fundamental difference to young people, some of which have had severe mental health issues, some of which have had really difficult backgrounds. The model is working; we oppose this legislation around scrapping partnership schools. We’ll be fighting hard to enable the schools to transition into some other shape or form but also to get basic certainty about their future—they deserve that. But also, in an education budget where every single dollar counts, we heard from the Ministry of Education this week that the taxpayer may be up for up to $15 million for pure ideology—pure ideology. Imagine how many young people could have assistance in areas like special education—but the reality is that this Government is purely ideological, and that’s why we’ve got this up to $15,000 bill.
The other aspect of this bill that we do oppose, again, is the provisions around fees-free. Again, this is another example whereby the Government’s priorities are very mucked up. We know that they have committed $2.8 billion to the fees free policy. I’ve got principals and I’ve got early child care providers saying that is an extraordinary amount of money to target to, potentially, some people who don’t need that, and that’s another irony in terms of this Government.
So, on this side of the House, there are some very common themes around the Government’s education agenda: ideological, a lot of waste, not helping some of our most vulnerable children, a reduction in quality in standards. We have a very good track record in terms of achievement. It’s not perfect, but we will be opposing this bill on the grounds that not only are parents not behind the move to get rid of national standards but also it’s going to lead to a reduction in education quality and also we’re going to see some of our most disadvantaged New Zealanders not doing as well as a result of the scrapping of partnership schools and getting rid of national standards. This is a bad bill and we will be opposing it.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education)): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, that was a waste of breath. The member Nikki Kaye may as well have not even started speaking. Let me tell you now that in 2008 I was first elected to Parliament, and in 2009 the first thing that the National Government of the time did was implement national standards, on the premise that this was going to be groundbreaking stuff that was going to lift achievement across the country. It was going to be the best thing since sliced bread. This made me laugh when they then implemented charter schools, and did charter schools have to implement national standards? No way. Charter schools don’t have to implement national standards, and it makes you wonder why, if national standards were so good, were so successful, their blue riband project, charter schools didn’t have to actually implement national standards.
National standards—I remember standing in the House at the time saying this: when you set a bar and you say that every child has to reach that bar, that national standard, what happens to those children that don’t actually meet that bar? They actually get demoralised. Then, if you’ve got a whole classroom full of kids, say 30 students in the class, and their achievement levels are very, very low, but the teacher actually lifts them, but still just can’t quite get them over the bar, is that teacher a successful teacher or not? They haven’t met the national standards, but they’ve lifted them significantly. Is that teacher successful or not?
Hon Member: Not under national standards.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Not under national standards. Under national standards that teacher and that school are failing. However, if the teacher is lucky enough to get a class where the children happen to be doing very well, and it takes only a little adjustment to get over the national standard, then that teacher is seen to be a successful teacher. That school’s seen to be a successful school.
The reality is, I say, that the teacher who has listed the low-level children and moved them a long way is a much better, much more successful teacher than the teacher who, just by dint of standing in front of—being lucky enough to have—a group of children in their class who just happen to be below the national standard—and they fall over the national standard not as a result of the teacher but in spite of the teacher. I say, actually, that the first teacher is the better teacher, and that school is the better school. But that’s not how this group over here sees it. I remember saying at the time that we would be much better off—if you’ve got to set a standard at all, then you make sure you set a standard that measures the success of every individual child over the course of the school year. That would be a better standard. But, unfortunately, we had national standards as they are now.
I forget how many tens of millions of dollars it cost to implement national standards, but it was tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars. We actually had a system that we could have used that would have cost us nothing to implement, and that is the curriculum levels. You could already measure where a child was performing against the curriculum levels, and you could measure their progress against those curriculum levels. Now, each curriculum level had three sub-levels, and I was told by an adviser at the time that it’s reasonable to expect a child to move two curriculum sub-levels over the course of a year, and that that would be acceptable achievement. We could have had something decent, but we didn’t need to spend the tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars.
Then we get to charter schools themselves—and the model is going. I remember in the election campaign, and it’s well documented, that I said that I would resign if any of those schools—the two schools up in the Far North—were closed. Now, I could say that as the member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau, safe in the knowledge, with my educational background, that there were alternatives that would be able to be implemented, because we can close the model but the schools don’t have to close.
Now, here’s the test. All those people over there who are saying I need to resign—
David Seymour: You do.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —and I’ll take David Seymour there—if those schools’ doors are open on day one of next year, if those same teachers are teaching in that school, if those same children are there wearing the same uniforms, will that member resign? Will any of these members resign if the school is still operating, albeit under a different model?
Erica Stanford: What about the other charter schools in your electorate?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No, it won’t be a charter school. Will that member over there who’s spouting off—will she resign? Yes or no? Put up or shut up. Put up or shut up. You don’t have any moral mandate—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! Do not bring the Speaker into the debate.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: My apologies, Madam Assistant Speaker. But those people over there do not have any moral mandate to call for my resignation if they’re not prepared to resign themselves if those schools—the doors are open, the same teachers are there, and the same children are sitting in front of them. They—silence now, isn’t there? Silence now.
Erica Stanford: Go to Vanguard.
David Seymour: Point of order, Madam Speaker.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: So—oh, “Go to Vanguard.”
Erica Stanford: Why won’t you? You’ve never been.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No, I haven’t been, and why would I go to a school where I don’t support the model? There you go.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise—point of order, David Seymour.
David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the member’s speech, but I just wanted him to know that if he’s happy to yield some time, I’ll happily answer the question.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That’s not a valid point of order.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: OK, so there’s been—
Hon David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to confirm that I heard the Minister say he would not go to a school that he did not like the model of. Is that true?
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That’s not a valid point of order. Please sit down.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Look, there are hundreds of schools across the Tai Tokerau, and what the members over there forget is that when you are a Māori member of Parliament in an electorate seat, not only do I have my electorate but in the Tai Tokerau there’s 10 other electorates. If they think it’s a hard job getting around the schools in their electorate, well then, they need to realise that it’s actually 10 times harder for a member of Parliament in a Māori electorate.
But they’re asking, why don’t I go and visit Vanguard Military School? Look, I’ve had my Associate Minister delegation since 5 December. Since 5 December, there were about 10 school days towards the end of the year. Now, anybody who has any knowledge of the education system knows it’s not a good idea for some boffin from Wellington to go to a school at the end of the year, because that’s when you’re having teacher-parent interviews, that’s when the teachers are doing reports, and that’s when the school production’s on. Those people over there don’t understand those pressures because they have never ever been in the education system. Now they’re saying, “Oh, why haven’t I gone to the three”, or whatever number of fingers they’re holding up. They forget that there are hundreds of schools in my electorate, because it’s 10 times the size of their electorate.
Then there’s been all the misinformation. There’s the scaremongering, there’s the misinformation, and there’s members going around and ringing up saying, “The sky’s going to fall in if these schools close.” Look, there’s nothing to stop those same schools delivering what they are delivering now. It’s just a different model, and that’s really what they’re scared about. They’re scared that these schools are going to be successful despite the fact that they won’t be called charter schools. That’s what they’re scared of. They’re scared of our success.
Now we need to look at what the difference is. Oh no—actually, no, sorry. I’m just going to go through some of the propaganda that’s been promulgated in the media and supported by these guys. I see in today’s paper that the Villa Education Trust school was complaining about “Davis’ visits to another charter school.” Sorry; since I’ve been the Associate Minister, I haven’t visited any other charter schools. So that’s fallacy number one. Then it says that “Davis had been in negotiations with”—I haven’t been in negotiations. All I did was, when they rang me up, talk them through the information that the excellent Minister of Education has proactively released. I talked them through it, and as soon as you talk them through that information, then all their concerns sort of dim down and die away, because they’re actually getting the facts.
But, of course, they want to make out like there’s some big conspiracy—that there’s favouritism amongst the charter schools. Well, actually, I’ve reached out to the Villa Education Trust and I got in touch with their academic manager last night, and I said, “Look, give your boss”—whatever his name is—“my phone number. He can ring my office.”, but, no, there’s been no contact. Although I asked him to give my office a ring, there’s been no contact. Now, I think that that person is, again, scared that they can be successful without the charter school model. That’s what their real fear is. That’s what their real fear is. They’re buying into the misinformation and the scaremongering of the members opposite, and then they are coming up themselves—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. His time has expired.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill that, I’m sad to say, we will be opposing.
David Seymour: What do you mean “sad”? You should be proud that you’re opposing it.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, I am proud to oppose it—you’re quite right. It does include various nefarious elements to it. I must say, I’ve been out and about talking to a lot of New Zealanders, like we all do in the course of this job, and I’m bound to say I have never come across anybody who thought the most important thing that the nation needs is to do away with charter schools. This dreadful idea that there could be people doing things differently in our education system, innovating, and trying different ways of dealing with longstanding problems about trying to deal with getting a better education for the most marginal kids in our country. I’ve never had anybody come up to me and say, “We must stop this dreadful experiment.” But, anyway, that seems to be the great priority of this Government. I’ve also never had anybody come up to me and say, “We must get rid of these dreadful national standards also.”
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Well, you definitely don’t get out.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, funnily enough—
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: They’re appalling. Have you got kids at school at the moment?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I’ve got four kids, at four different schools in the electorate, and I speak to parents all the time, and the one thing—the one thing—that the parents want to know, and I as a parent want to know, is how my child is progressing.
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Talk to your teachers.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: We talk to the teachers. That’s a good place to start—talking to the teachers, and it’s always useful just to have a simple, easy-to-understand nationwide measure of progress, and that’s what we’ve done. But anyway, so there we are.
But I’d like to just concentrate a little bit on the tertiary education changes here, because we’ve had a very interesting few months of this Government. It was, of course, terrified of the prospect of wealthier families having a $1,000 tax cut, so they did away with that, and instead gave those same wealthy families $6,000 worth of free education. So, I couldn’t understand the coherency of that thinking, but here we have the free-fees policy. I was at the opening of a university building yesterday and the Prime Minister was rather sheepish in the way that she referred to the free fees, and then quickly apologised to everybody else who had paid their fees recently and didn’t have access to this. But that’s just the way things go, if you’re chopping and changing your fundamental policies in a nature like this. Anyway, we have $2.8 billion invested in the tertiary changes over the next four years, a lot of it in free fees. It was supposed to remove barriers to tertiary education and training. Well, let’s see if it has removed any barriers. All the indications so far are that there are no extra students at all coming as a result of the free fees. So we’re paying $2.8 billion to get what we’re already getting, which is a number of people going to tertiary education—not very good value for money.
But then, of course, the question is who is eligible for these free fees. The idea is that it should be your first year of tertiary education—well, that’s easy to understand if you come straight from school. But much more than half of the total number of—they think—80,000 students who will be eligible for this will have to somehow prove that this is indeed their first year of tertiary education. Now, anybody living in Auckland knows that, you know, many, many thousands of people have come to this country fresh and may have done training overseas. We have no way of knowing whether they have or have not. The records don’t go back far in New Zealand, so we don’t have any way of knowing whether people have studied earlier or not. If they are of my age and in the 1980s they studied for a couple years we’ve got no way of knowing. So it relies on an honesty box system. With $2.8 billion worth of spending you would think the Government would think very carefully about how they organise this, and they haven’t. They’ve rushed it through in this madcap way that they go about the Government.
So we have this expensive new system in place and there is a real concern that there could be a number of people rorting the system. The current rule in place is that you have to sign a statutory declaration that you are indeed studying for the first time, and this has pretty robust penalties. Earlier, when this matter was raised, the Minister assured us that there are tough provisions in place. If you go against your statutory declaration you’re in big trouble—up to three years’ imprisonment—but this bill waters that down substantially. It says, actually, if you make a declaration saying that this is indeed your first year of tertiary training but it turns out that it isn’t, well, you’re up for a fine of up to $5,000. Now, it’s interesting, some of those students may be studying maths and you wouldn’t have to be too smart to work out that if you’re getting a tertiary education with the fees of $6,000 or $7,000 or $8,000 for free, if you possibly got caught, the thought of having a fine of $5,000 might not necessarily be all that strong a deterrent. But that’s the way it is.
We heard from the Minister saying, “Oh, well.” His main defence seemed to be that if people cheat on their student allowances they face a fine of only $2,000. Well, that doesn’t seem a very strong argument to me at all. I actually just checked the legislation and it’s absolute nonsense. If you receive an allowance on the base of a false declaration, you’re up for 12 months’ imprisonment if you get caught for doing that and a fine of $5,000. So I’m not quite sure where he’s coming from on that—only to say, this is just more evidence of one of the most colossal areas of spending announced by this Government, which has soaked up a very large amount of the extra money available for Governments to spend on a whole range of things, from mental health through to every other topic under the sun. They’ve decided to spend it on this area. So far, we haven’t seen any increase in students. Time will tell—but we do know that there is plenty of opportunity for rorting of the system and this bill actually makes it easier. So, on that basis, we’re opposed to it.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the Education Amendment Bill, and for the first time in the years that I’ve been in this Parliament it’s a pleasure to rise to speak on an Education Amendment Bill. I want to be very clear. Yes, you can hear out there on the radio. Those listening on the radio and those watching the live stream—what you can hear is the National Party freaking out. What’s very interesting about this piece of legislation—I want to make this 100 percent clear—is this legislation does not close a single charter school. [Interruption] No, no. You see, there’s the problem. Mr Seymour’s just gone apoplectic because he doesn’t seem to understand this, either. This piece of legislation does not close a single charter school. What it does do is it removes the capacity for any more to be opened. So this doesn’t shut anything, but it means no more can be opened. First fact, right?
Second fact: the levers that are currently able to be used by the current Minister of Education around charter schools and their futures were put into place by the National Government and Hekia Parata. We have changed no legislation. We have not introduced any other tool by which these schools can be managed. I go to talk about Whangaruru school. The very instrument that is at the disposal of the current Minister of Education, which was used by the previous Minister of Education Hekia Parata to close that school, was put into place and voted on by the ACT Party and the National Party. So I just want to be 100 percent clear, when we’re in this conversation, who put in place the tools to close charter schools, and it was David Seymour of the ACT Party and Hekia Parata of the National Party.
Now let’s have a conversation about wasting money, shall we—
David Seymour: Good on you.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —listen up, matey, because it was your party—$4.8 million of taxpayers’ money given by the National Government to the Whangaruru trust, Ngā Parirau Mātauranga Charitable Trust, who now owns a farm. They now own a farm. How many times did the National Government Minister of Education Hekia Parata stand up and say, “We are working through opportunities to bring back that taxpayer-purchased asset underneath the State umbrella.”—how many times? And I challenge any member over there to provide me with any evidence that that was ever done. I challenge any member over there to provide me with any evidence that the previous Government sought to repatriate that farm and that four-point-something million dollars, Mr Seymour.
I want to talk also about the fact that somehow people think that when this bill passes, there’s no opportunity for Vanguard Military School, for example, or no opportunity for Villa Education Trust schools. I’d just like to mention that I’ve visited Vanguard.
Erica Stanford: It’s just a gun to their head.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Are you suggesting that I shoot myself? Is that what you’re suggesting, madam?
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! Don’t bring me into the debate.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Sorry, madam. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There was a hand signal of a gun to the head by one of the new members of the National Party.
Erica Stanford: I clearly said, “It’s a gun to their head. It’s not a negotiation.” I would never say such a thing.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Can you confirm that there was a gesture made?
Erica Stanford: I withdraw and apologise, if that’s what she believed that it was, but it wasn’t.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Does the member feel she warrants an apology? [Interruption] Yes, please. I recommend the member withdraw and apologise.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I’ll take the member at her word.
Erica Stanford: I withdraw and apologise.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. I appreciate that.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. So let’s just be clear. It’s been suggested that none of the things provided by charter schools, for example—and the two schools that are constantly talked about are Villa Education Trust schools—those I have visited; I have visited Alwyn Poole at his school—and Vanguard Military School. Vanguard I have visited. I’ve visited Nick and the other students at Vanguard Military School. I’ve visited the kura up in Whangarei, because, unlike the suggestion from the members of the Opposition, it’s not ideology. It’s about students. It’s about students. It’s about models.
I just want to point out that what I have here are pictures. This is to educate not only the public but the members of the Opposition. These are all the trades academies. These are all the serviced academies—military serviced academies—available in State schools across New Zealand. This is the mapping. That model is available in the State system, and has been since the Education Act 1989 was first introduced. There are 23 trades academies, where students can actually go and be funded from year 11 to year 13 to not only get NCEA credits but also get level 1, level 2, and level 3 inside trade qualifications. There are 28 services academies—28 services academies—that have a military ethos. And so there is no need to panic for those parents who believe that a military-style, services-style model will not be available for their students. We hope, we wish—we are in conversations with Vanguard, because we want Vanguard to work with us to transition these students with that model, grow that model, and learn from that model, as they are there.
I have delegations around alternative schools. That model is already available and has been available for some time. Unfortunately, this legislation, the ability to open charter schools, was put in place by an ignorant Government—an ignorant Government that did not know what was available already inside the State system; an ignorant Government that had marketed themselves on bulk funding back in the 1990s, and finally found a partnership with the ACT Party to, by stealth, bring bulk funding back into the education system of New Zealand.
I will just start to close on national standards. I have recently been in conversations with a particular political party that were rather in-depth. What I found very interesting was that during some of those conversations, and since then publicly, a member of that political party has talked about how there was recognition that they needed to move to progressions. They recognised that national standards and a line in the sand were not working and were not appropriate, and that they needed to move to progressions. The Hon Nikki Kaye mentioned it in this House during her speech just earlier today.
In 2009 the New Zealand curriculum—I believe it was Lockwood Smith. I understand it was Lockwood Smith who did all the work on the New Zealand curriculum—a proud National Party member and a man who understood education and worked with the sector to create The New Zealand Curriculum and the progressions that are inside that document. They are progressions that parents understand because they mirror in some ways the growth progressions that they already know with regard to their children’s growth at Plunket. We were talking academic growth of children in a similar way that we were talking about physical growth of children. Nobody expects every child to be at the same height, on the same day, at the same time. That’s why even the Hon Nikki Kaye talked earlier today in her contribution about knowing that they needed to shift to progressions. So it’s very difficult for the members of the Opposition to stand, knowing that they were about to change their policy anyway.
National standards have been removed. They’ve been removed. The administration burden that has been on schools has been taken away. And we have had nothing but comment after comment after comment from parents, from teachers, from students about the removal of national standards.
Simeon Brown: I’m yet to receive one.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: What I find really interesting is when the Opposition says they are “yet to”. The unfortunate thing is people can see those that there’s no point having that conversation with, so they don’t bother to actually reach out and have that conversation with certain members of the National Party, but Minister Kaye already acknowledged that there was a need to move to progressions. So we will be working with the sector. We will be having the nationwide conversation to actually talk with the New Zealand parents, the sector—anybody, even the members of the Opposition, can participate, if they like—about setting the criteria of what is success in this country, and we will take education forward. But we will not continue to burden either the sector or our children with an arbitrary line in the sand that everybody needs to try to jump over.
Some have been teachers that are sitting over that side, and some know exactly what I’m talking about. Some know about those students. Some know about those students that require more, that require the confidence of knowing that they are good at something, that they moved from there to there. Some on that side of the House who have been teachers also know that progression takes place at different speeds for some children, or you might get great progression in one year, it flat-lines for a period while you entrench that learning, and then you go on. Those are real education conversations that should have been had in this House—not about an arbitrary line set in the sand, not about a packed tool that was to try to get teachers to fit inside a box, to tick box off, and to dumb down the profession. Nor should it have been a conversation where we took away the status of our teaching professionals and decided that we would bulk fund others and leave that profession out to dry. Kia ora.
Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am one of those people on this side of the House who used to be a secondary teacher, for quite a long time, but I have to tell Mrs Martin I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about then. In fact, you’d have to say that there was so much that was muddle-headed in the thinking of the Associate Minister of Education that I really wouldn’t know where to start. But I’ll pick up on one point, because it’s a serious point: she suggested in her speech that the existence of trades academies is in some way an acceptable alternative for those who are going to lose their entitlement to attend a partnership school.
So let me tell Mrs Martin: I am incredibly proud of the Wintec trades academy, which caters for a large number of schools in my Waikato region, but that is not a system that in any way, at this point, would cater for those who are in the partnership school system. They leave an established State or State integrated school for a period of time a couple of times a week in order to go and do the courses that are so valuable to them at the trades academies, and they pick up incredible skills, so that they then go back to the trades academies understanding the whole value of their education. That is poles apart from what actually happens in the partnership school model. Mrs Martin, as an Associate Minister of Education, should know that, and is incredibly muddle-headed in the thinking.
This is a cruel bill, it’s an ideologically blinkered bill, it’s an indefensible bill, and it should be strongly opposed by all decent-minded members of this Parliament. The Minister of Education’s attempt to defend it in his opening speech was pure union dogma. It was most notable by its total lack of focus on children. The needs of children didn’t get a look-in in the Minister’s speech; it was all about systems and unions and what his close confidants have been telling him and urging him to do. It didn’t mention the needs of children at all, whether it was those who are in the partnership schools, who at the moment are getting a fantastic opportunity to turn their lives around, having previously fallen through the cracks and been on a path to a pretty grim future, or the younger ones, who are in the schools at the moment currently being taught under the national standards regime. Yet surely a bill entitled the Education Amendment Bill should be all about children—our children, the young people who need and deserve the best opportunities in life, the best teaching that can possibly be provided to them, and the best outcomes from those vital years that will stand them in good stead for a lifetime to come.
Government Ministers this week in question time have been dancing on the head of a pin when pressed on their attitudes to partnership schools and their determination to close them down. Whether it was the Hon Kelvin Davis, the Hon Peeni Henare, or the Hon Willie Jackson, all of them know that those schools work, that those schools have been the only thing that have worked for children, for the tamariki in the electorates and the rohe they represent here in this Parliament. I find it extraordinary that they do not have the courage of their convictions to come into this House and to defend the statements that they have made publicly over many, many months, knowing that partnership schools work.
They’re not just another option that could be there alongside attending a State school or a special character school; they are for children from backgrounds where there is, in most cases, no commitment to education, and there have been all sorts of things that have been going wrong. Those children have, in many cases, been brought up in the most deprived of circumstances, and as a result there is no culture of educational achievement. The partnership schools are the ones that are focusing on their needs. So that is why I say to Kelvin Davis it is utterly disingenuous of him to suggest that either they should be teaching according to national standards, as are the children in the other schools, or we have to close them down.
Partnership schools are about picking up young people, many of them in their secondary school years, who have no foundation whatsoever, and giving them skills, self-belief, self-esteem, an awareness of culture, and the ability to start to grasp how an education can turn them around. The members on both sides of the House can perhaps throw back and forth comments about ideological dogma and all the rest of it, but I say as passionately as I can to the Government—and I look at people like Mr O’Connor, who, with his background in the Police Association and a lifetime in the service, I deeply respect. He must know what I’m talking about. He must understand that for those young people, this is an opportunity for them not to fall foul of the law and to end up in our criminal justice system, and I plead with him to go back to his colleagues and say, “Think again.”
I’m aware of the fact that there are others who want to take a call. Can I just close by saying that national standards are not a cure-all, they’re not the whole picture, but they do provide parents with vital information. So when Mrs Martin challenged us to tell us about those constituents who are saying, “Oh, we shouldn’t stop it”, I can tell her that I remember talking to many constituents who said if only they had known 10 years ago, before the introduction of national standards, how their children were getting on in the classrooms around the country, particularly in literacy and numeracy, which are the absolute foundation for any successful education, they would have taken action. But they didn’t have the tools, they didn’t feel they had the wherewithal to go to the schools and say, “Well, your reporting tells me things are going quite well, but, actually, it’s not telling me how my child is achieving in literacy and numeracy,” and now it’s too late.
Again, I say to the members opposite, don’t take away from our young people the opportunity for their parents and caregivers to show that basic concern for the welfare and the achievement of their children by taking away something that helps to measure it, something that gives them the chance to find out either that it’s going well and this is great, they can move on to the next level, or that it’s not going well enough and remedial attention is required.
So I return to the point I started with. This is a cruel, ideological bill. It is indefensible. I plead with the Government members to turn back. It is going to have a very negative impact on the children they should be representing in this Parliament.
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise after the fearmongering of one Tim Macindoe. The Education Act was originally assented to in 1989. That means that it’s been alive for five years longer than I have. A year after the Education Act came into force, in 1990, the World Wide Web was invented. Access to the internet has changed the world and, indeed, education in ways that were once almost unimaginable. My point is that the context of our lives and the context of education are ever changing.
However, I believe that the values and principles behind why the State provides our country’s children with a supposedly free, accessible, compulsory education—a high-quality, free universal education is one of the foundations of Aotearoa New Zealand, yet, for some reason, I can’t see even National’s David Bennett standing up and shouting “Socialism!” at that. It’s in our DNA. It is what we, as a country, believe in.
It is a vision best summarised, I believe, by Mary Richmond, the founder of New Zealand’s kindergartens, who, speaking on the right to access public education said, over 100 years ago, in 1906, and I quote, “All I ask is to give every child as fair a chance as possible. As we are a formal democracy, let us be truly democratic.” That vision lives on, and it is at the heart of the legislation that we are debating today. This bill is about cutting the white noise and getting back to delivering on that vision.
This bill, as has been noted by many who have spoken before me, removes the ability of the Minister of Education to set national standards. At the Education and Workforce Committee yesterday, as was brought into this House’s kōrero by the Hon Nikki Kaye, members from this House on both the Government and Opposition benches heard explicitly from Ministry of Education officials that the regular testing required by national standards relies, still, on elements of subjectivity. To that extent, as has frequently been said in this debate, they are neither national nor standard.
To echo the sentiments of Minister Chris Hipkins, after nine years of these national standards we’ve not seen discernible increases in achievements among students.
It was found in a 2016 survey by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research that 69 percent of primary and intermediate teachers had narrowed their curriculum as a result of national standards. This morning, I met with the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI)—a union!—who represents 50,000 teachers, staff, and principals from the early childhood sector through primary, intermediate, and secondary schools. As a powerful collective voice for teachers who have been required to implement our national standards for the past several years, they noted their absolute joy at this legislation on today’s Order Paper.
Removing these national standards does not look like removing testing, nor does it look like removing reporting to parents. Those things existed long before national standards—which I note were only implemented in 2008—and will continue with the removal of national standards.
As mentioned to me this morning by the NZEI—that union—removing national standards looks like removing the shackles of consistent testing that soaks up time teachers would rather use for teaching. On the point of the preferences of teachers, with regard to how they teach, the Opposition has spent quite a bit of time this afternoon trying to drive a wedge between the profession and parents by stoking unnecessary fear about how we’ll spiral out of control with the removal of national standards. I understand the cynical politics of it, but I find it deeply disappointing.
Hon David Bennett: You’re in the Green Party; that’s all you do.
CHLÖE SWARBRICK: It should be pretty obvious that teachers are not teachers because of the pay packet, Mr Bennett. It is an important thing for the Greens—and the Labour Party—to ensure that teachers are paid fairly for their work, but as it stands there is no massive financial incentive to become a teacher. Nor is teaching glamorous, Mr Bennett. Unfortunately, it does not hold the social standing or mana that we believe it should. So I ask the House the question: why is it that teachers teach? It’s not the money, nor the glamour, nor the power, but ask any teacher and I guarantee you that they will tell you it’s because they believe in our kids and they want to do their best to help them succeed.
So forgive me, when I am, frankly, quite perplexed at the allegations from the Opposition that the Government is bowing to the wishes of the “unions” of the teachers—those evil teachers who want our kids to succeed! We’re listening to the people who work at the coalface with the impacts of the legislation that we here in this ivory tower waffle on about and deeply politicise.
I also want to touch on the points raised by the Hon Nikki Kaye, previously the Minister of Education. Nikki spoke about vulnerable kids, and how we will be deeply damaging these vulnerable kids by removing national standards. But I note that OECD measurements of the poorest kids achieving OECD averages in reading, maths, and science found in 2006—I note, before the introduction of national standards—that 36.6 percent of those kids were beating those odds. But in 2012, four years after the implementation of those national standards, it had dropped by more than 10 percent to 23.6 percent. So that correlation simply is not there, and I would contest the “facts” that have so far, supposedly, been bandied about.
This bill, of course, obviously also removes the provision for the creation of charter schools. Charter schools are another recent invention of the previous Government. They came into effect around 2014. I believe, and the Green Party believes, and this Government believes that every child should have a high-quality education at their local school. I do not believe that charter schools provide the best mechanism to make that happen. Charter schools do not guarantee quality. Nor do they guarantee that access so fundamental to the value of our public education system.
I want to acknowledge that there is an important conversation that we need to have about how mainstream education is currently not serving all of our kids, but the best mechanism to make that happen is a nationwide conversation about the purpose of our education system and what success looks like, which this Government has committed to—yes, a conversation involving teachers and parents and children, and genuinely getting a grasp and an understanding of what they would like to see from this system, not simply politicised waffling, much of which we’ve heard from the Opposition. As was heard at the Education and Workforce Committee as well, the Ministry of Education is working with all charter schools currently on a plan for their future. They are not simply to be dropped into the abyss.
With the short period of time that I have left, I note that this legislation also restores staff and student representation on tertiary councils, and that is, for us, simply a matter of democracy. That is appropriate decision-making, which is a core Green Party charter principle. It’s about ensuring that the people who are affected by the decisions that are made will have a seat at that decision-making table. So too it makes practical and common-sense comprehensive enactments around the framework for fee-free tertiary education, and straightforward changes to school boards’ strategic planning time lines.
In summation, I really look forward to hearing from New Zealanders about this legislation at the select committee. I look forward to progressing the values and vision for a free, accessible, universal education for all, that which Aotearoa was founded on, and which I implore David Bennett to yell “Socialism!” at. I commend this bill to the House.
LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): I wish to rise to speak on the Education Amendment Bill. This is probably the first part of the Government’s plan post 100 days, but it is actually a significant piece of legislation because what it does is abolish national standards and abolish charter schools. Members on the other side of the Parliament, of which at least three, maybe four are Ministers—one’s asleep, but that’s OK. There’s three Ministers on the other side listening to what I’m about to say, because what I really want to comment on first of all, before I get on to national standards and charter schools, is the inconsistency that I’ve observed in the last two days in this House around charter schools.
Today, the Minister of Education stated in this House—less than an hour ago—there will be no impact on existing charter schools. His words, not mine. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister to guarantee those students and boards of trustees and teachers at charter schools that their schools would remain open. As the new leader, would she do that? No. The Minister and the Prime Minister are at completely different positions on the guarantees they’re prepared to pay to these students, who in our society are some of our most vulnerable. And then, even worse, was that today, the Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis said he wouldn’t visit a school because he was philosophically opposed to the way in which that school operated—philosophically opposed.
Denise Lee: No, he couldn’t have said that.
LAWRENCE YULE: He did say it.
Erica Stanford: He did?
LAWRENCE YULE: I know! So I think that if Vanguard Military School invited the Associate Minister of Education to their school, the challenge would be: would he accept?
Denise Lee: He won’t.
LAWRENCE YULE: No, I’ve heard the line. The line is that he won’t accept because under some ministerial conflict process, he can’t do that. But he then said—worse than that—“Last night I reached out to a school. I phoned them.”
So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, “I’m not going to talk to one school because I’m philosophically opposed to it.”, and then, on the other hand, reach out to the principal—last night—and ask to give somebody a call. I think that exposes the inconsistency of this Government’s approach to this bill.
Denise Lee: A shambles.
LAWRENCE YULE: It’s a shambles, and what I want to do is actually expose that because I think those people and those students—particularly at these charter schools—are being sold a pup. Either the Minister is guaranteeing that there is no change or he’s not, and if he’s guaranteeing that, why won’t the Prime Minister back up that guarantee, which is what she refused to do in this House yesterday?
I now want to talk about national standards, not as a great educator, but as a father of four children and as somebody that has had significant time in my life around schools and education. What national standards seek to do—and they’re not perfect. I accept that. I heard the Hon Nikki Kaye refer to that. What they seek to do is to give good, fair-minded, hard-working New Zealand parents an objective view about how their child is doing before it’s too late—before it’s too late. I remember when I was a child, really early on, getting school reports—getting school reports—and, actually, while it was of great interest to me, it was of more interest to my parents. Then, at secondary school, every term I was getting school reports. That was of huge interest to my parents—huge interest.
Hon Andrew Little: Don’t tell me you were educated under national standards, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE YULE: No, no. I get that. I get that. What I’m saying is my parents were really interested in how I was doing, but what it didn’t give—what it didn’t give in any way, shape, or form—was how I was doing in a national context. I actually found out when I got to university that some people were way further ahead than I thought I actually was, based on—there was no consistent measurement regime.
The worst thing—and I’ve heard the Prime Minister talk about this, as well—is we’re developing our own standards. We’re chucking these national standards out, which a whole lot of people like and applaud. I remind this House that in a recent Stuff survey of 50,000 people, 85 percent—85 percent of those people—said they liked national standards. So we’re going to chuck all that out, and this Government has no new approach. It says, “We’ll develop something.” Well, you go and tell that to the hundreds of thousands of parents all around New Zealand who are waiting to find something. They want to know what their children are going to do.
I now want to talk about charter schools, because I have had personal experience of a charter school. I don’t actually mind that they’re not all registered teachers and I don’t actually mind that all the students are not reaching national standards, because charter schools, in many cases, deal with a group of children that have failed in the existing system. So if you go, in my patch, to Te Kura o Mangateretere, there are 30 young children there—30 children. They come from all over the North Island. They are at that school because they’ve either been away from leave, out of—what do they call that?—absent. They’ve been absent, or they haven’t fitted in. All over the North Island—that’s where they come from.
The Hon Anne Tolley and I visited them just before the election. It’s a small existing school that has been converted. Those students, for the first time in their life, told us they had some hope, aspiration, and somebody was looking after them. They’re fed. They are never going to go to a trades academy in their current form. These are young kids that have failed in every other form. What you’re doing today is writing that opportunity off, because you want to put everybody in the same box. And I congratulate David Seymour, now he’s re-entered the House, because his concept was that, actually, for some people, it’s not working and there needs to be a different approach, and let’s throw some of the rules out about the regimented regime—which were largely union- organised—to try and help these young people, and that’s what’s been done.
These vulnerable people in my electorate actually are not interested in political ideology. They’re not interested in Kelvin Davis telling people that everybody needs to follow a national standard. They’re not actually too worried about whether the teachers are qualified or not. For those 30 young people, for the first time in their life, they’re seeing success.
Equally, we have another group—and I know this, and this is being shut down by this legislation, as well—of young people who have completely failed in the education system. The State education system completely failed. They have turned themselves into performing arts—really, the opera. They are called Project Prima Volta. They are, effectively, the Sol3 Mio of Hastings—that’s what they are. Now, because that thing has been so successful in transforming those young men’s lives, they wanted to set up a type of charter school that was around performance and the arts, and, actually, what’s happening today? What’s happening today is that opportunity for them is being taken away, once and for all.
So let me conclude. When we talk about national standards and charter schools and the abolishment of them, for many people in New Zealand the abolishment of national standards is misunderstood. I accept the teachers don’t like them. I accept that—I heard that in the campaign. But, actually, parents want to know, and for a number of young students in New Zealand, charter schools actually offer them a hope of a reasonable and decent life. What this Government’s doing, because they’re trying to straitjacket everything—[Interruption] Well, you’re either doing it, or you’re not. You’re saying you’re abolishing charter schools today. The Minister is saying there will be no change. The Prime Minister won’t guarantee it.
What I’m speaking about is those 30 kids in my community, in Mangateretere, that have come from all over the North Island, who have no hope and who have been kicked out of every other school—they are being shut down today, and I want members of this House on the other side to reflect on that. The very people that you’ve run your campaign on—lifting them out of poverty; making them part of a successful New Zealand—for those very same people, you are talking away all their hopes and aspirations in one fell swoop. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Willie Jackson—a five-minute call.
Debate interrupted.
Amended Answers to Oral Questions
Question No. 12 to Minister
Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): I’m seeking leave to make a personal explanation in regard to an earlier answer I gave in response to oral question No. 12 today.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I just apologise. I thought you were seeking the call in the first reading of the bill. You didn’t say it was a point of order at the beginning. So we’ll take that as being a point of order, and I’ll put the leave the House. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none.
Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I referred earlier today to the roll-out of the employment strategy. I would like to clarify for the record that what I was referring to is the He Poutama Rangatahi initiative to address youth employment. Kia ora.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Thank you.
Bills
Education Amendment Bill
First Reading
Debate resumed.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Jamie Strange—a five-minute call.
JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I’d like to acknowledge our Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for the excellent work he’s been doing. This Government will listen to our teaching professionals. The education sector breathed a collective sigh of relief when this Government was elected. How do I know that? Because I was involved in the education sector for many years. I’ve got a number of friends in the sector, and they’re very excited that they have a Government who will actually listen.
There’s two aspects that I want to talk about in this bill—and they have been covered already, so I’m going to just add my thoughts to it—and that’s charter schools and national standards. So, firstly, on the aspect of charter schools, I’ve personally spoken with two principals of charter schools, one in Auckland and one in Hamilton, and both of them are looking forward to the opportunity to apply to become schools of designated character. In fact, they feel that the funding for the charter schools has not been administrated in a fair manner. They are in the third tranche, and hence they missed out on extra money, so they’re actually very excited to become designated character schools.
I’d just like pick up on a couple of points here, the first one for the Hon Tim Macindoe: sir, I appreciate your passion for the education system, and I say that genuinely. I’d like to assure you that alternative education can and will still take place within the context of a designated special character school. I think there’s a little bit of fear around this that with charter schools transitioning into designated character schools, the alternative aspects that many of them do provide will be lost, but that’s not the case.
In my personal opinion, I believe that charter schools are part of a wider agenda I’d like to call a privatisation agenda, and it’s around privatising the education system so it becomes more like an American model. However, this Government are defenders of a strong public education system focused on equal opportunity, and that’s where the key difference lies. A question for the member David Seymour—he may address it in his speech when he speaks—I’d like to know: what can a child learn in a charter school that cannot be learnt in a designated character school, within the context of our public education system? I look forward to hearing that answer when the member speaks.
In my last couple of minutes, I’d like to speak about national standards. Now, I believe national standards were never about performance; it was never about assessing to parents; it was about performance pay. I believe the previous Government wanted to rank teachers and they wanted to pay teachers different levels. The teachers didn’t want that, because the teachers knew that a system like that would not work in an education system—it would not benefit our young learners. So in order to hang performance pay on something, the previous Government brought in national standards. However, because of the strength of the teacher voice, they weren’t able to progress to performance pay. Who knows—if they had another term, they may have rammed it through. So, fortunately for us, we didn’t get to that stage.
My wife and I also have four children, like the member opposite, and we regularly meet with the children’s teachers. We meet twice a year. We sit down with the teacher, the teacher pulls out a piece of paper and shows us quite clearly what level of the curriculum our children are at in each of the subjects, and that satisfies us in terms of where they are on the level. We know that we might be able to provide some more support as parents in certain areas, but we don’t need the extra judgment, which is not accurate in many cases, of a national standard. There are a number of reasons why national standards will not work: they narrow the curriculum, they promote dishonesty, they’re not holistic, they foster low self-esteem, and they limit creativity. So I’m very excited, particularly around those two aspects of the bill—the transition of charter schools and the removal of national standards. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.
DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I wish to rise to take a call to highlight two purposes of the bill today. They’re not highlights, but here I go anyway: one is the removal of provisions relating to national standards so that national standards cannot be reinstated in the future, and the other is the repeal of the charter school provisions.
On the removal of national standards, the bill states that it “paves the way for work with experts and stakeholders to develop a new system.” Well, nothing in the legislation actually starts this process or even creates a framework for that process. The Secretary for Education—and those who are on the select committee with me across the way will know she said this—confirmed it this week: they have not designed a system. Once again, this is an ideologically driven reversal of a past National Government policy with nothing to replace it. Every time I debate in this House, it seems to be the common theme from the new Government: scrap it and leave it blank. They’ve scrapped the $50 million East-West Link process—where’s the big idea to solve congestion? They’ve scrapped pay equity legislation—no easy process to negotiate now for women. Where’s the big idea there? They’ve scrapped targets to keep the Public Service accountable—nothing to replace that, either.
In this House, we get technical, we get legal, and we get detailed, but today we’re getting personal. My daughters were in primary school when national standards came in. I went on the school board that year. My reports from my daughters were arbitrary and they were casual, and then, with national standards, they went to uniform, consistent, and comparative. As parents, we know that we wanted—and we still do today—both overall teacher judgment but also cohesive, nationwide content direction. That’s what parents want.
And what of deleting the charter school model? The State school system works, but it is inevitable that some kids will slip through. They’re struggling. What of them? Who will catch them, nurture them? Who will give a damn and show them a different way of being successful and achieving? So what’s the real reason that Labour are closing them? Have Labour not seen the results from these schools? Pass rates, turn-around school attendance, new-found respect—the list goes on, but listen to actual parents, and I quote: “My son was changed from academically directionless to successful.”; “an absolute lifesaver for my daughter. She thought she wasn’t smart and that she wouldn’t have a future and that she wasn’t good enough. It was a miracle.”
The bill also provides “transitional” arrangements to allow time for negotiations about the future of these schools that are already operating. Well, you only have to do a small amount of research, really skim the surface, to see that this is more of a stick than a carrot approach. The Minister of Education released a press release when he introduced the bill that said, “My preferred option is to explore early termination of contracts by mutual agreement.” There’s no ambiguity in that statement. It is clear what the Minister’s intentions are, and we shouldn’t fall for the charade that the Government will give these schools, the same ones that are helping give so much value to students failed by the State, any alternative option other than shutting down. It all ends the same way. The press release also said, “I am reserving my right to issue a notice of ‘termination for convenience’ ”. What interesting and appalling language to use. Convenient for who—students or the Minister?
When it comes to charter schools, it’s really quite simple: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. These schools work; they just don’t work for the unions. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): A five-minute call—I call Marja Lubeck.
MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Education Amendment Bill 2018. This bill amends the Education Act 1989, and, unlike the member of the Green Party who spoke previously, I remember that year vividly, as it was the year I came to New Zealand and was lucky enough to make a new home—but back to the bill. These changes regarding national standards and charter schools have been well traversed, and the members on this side of the House have eloquently pointed out that this Government’s focus is actually on students’ progress across the curriculum, rather than that very narrow focus on literacy and numeracy that doesn’t give us an accurate understanding of how our kids are doing. In fact, as a mother of a young boy at college, I’ve never needed national standards to be briefed on how my boy was doing. I completely agree with the Minister of Education’s statements with regard to less testing, more teaching, which is in the best interests of our kids and our teachers.
I’d just like to mention one point that is also in this bill that is really important and hasn’t been mentioned a lot as yet. It is restoring guaranteed places for staff and students on the councils of their tertiary education providers. By doing so, it restores trust in democracy. It is very much like the changes we’re making through the other bill, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa) Amendment Bill. That gives teachers the right to choose their own representatives from amongst their peers, and this bill does exactly the same. It guarantees one elected member of permanent staff and one elected student on the council. So once again this Government is righting the wrongs of the previous Government, because the previous changes were made when all universities were completely against those changes.
This is a Government that actually respects people’s democratic rights, sets our children up for success in school and in life, and is not afraid to make changes to reflect that. I support this bill and commend it to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call David Seymour—a five-minute call.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well, thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. The question that people should be asking themselves at home is: why is this Government closing charter schools? And there is no question that they are being closed by this legislation. You see, I used to be the under-secretary responsible for this policy. Let me tell you just how it works. These schools have six-year contracts that are all due to be renewed sometime between 2019 and 2023. If you are enrolling your kid at one of these schools now, you’re enrolling them for a minimum of three years, and you want to know that the school’s going to be there in three years’ time. You might be enrolling them for six or even eight years, in some cases. So this legislation, by removing the legitimacy of renewing the contracts, ensures that there will be no schools at the end of this contract term, and therefore no real possibility of confident enrolment by students in the schools now. That’s why this legislation is a gun to the head of partnership schools kura hourua; I hope that the members opposite can at least understand that.
But coming back to the question of why—why? Is there a problem to be solved? Well, the regulatory impact statement is very interesting. It has a page on problem definition and objectives. Now, we might hope that this Government was trying to solve problems out in the community, problems real people have that perhaps legislation could improve for them. But, no, there’s no such problem described in the regulatory impact statement. It simply says, “This intervention proposes to implement the Government’s commitments”. That’s all it is. It is ideological utu and union payback, because there are no problems in the schools. Most of them are oversubscribed. Most of the partnership schools are turning people away and have waiting lists, because the kids going there like them, the parents who send their children to the schools like them, and the people who teach at them are not forced at gunpoint, in the way this Government treats the schools, to teach at the schools; they like them because they’re there voluntarily. Nobody has been forced to be part of a partnership school and no taxpayer has been forced to fund a partnership school a dollar more or a dollar less than they would be forced to fund a State school. They do not get a dollar more or a dollar less than a State school. Nobody has been forced to do anything.
There is no problem. There are no complaints from anyone who’s directly affected by a partnership school. But wait: there is a problem. This Labour Party and, in particular, this Minister of Education are donkey deep in union culture. They are agents of the teacher unions and they are there to try to eliminate the competition for the union thugs. That’s what this bill is about. It is union thuggery, but it has wider implications for this country. You wonder why there are so many people out marching, protesting, calling talkback, complaining about this Government’s actions? Well, this has some wider implications, and the more thoughtful members on the Government benches might want to just think about them.
First of all, what does it say about this Government’s approach to constructive policy-making when it simply says, “For no other reason than the fact we can, we are going to insist one size fits all and take away these children’s opportunity.”? Because I can tell you fellas, people in middle New Zealand react to that. There’s one more thing that they might like to think about, and it’s this: how can people seeking to do business in New Zealand be confident of the rule of law being upheld by this Government when they find themselves witnessing one Minister going and talking to that school, making some backroom assurances—this is all going to be very interesting when it comes out in court, fellas. This is going to be about this Government’s commitment to the rule of law, and that’s a bigger, deeper issue than perhaps anyone in this Government has thought about so far.
The ACT Party opposes this bill on the partnership school clause alone. There is no problem to be solved, there is no problem with partnership schools, but the first serious mistake that this Government’s made, which will fill the political backpack that eventually weighs down all politicians, is this reckless, immature, stupid legislation that takes away the opportunities of 1,200-plus kids who are getting the best educational opportunity they’ve ever had and undermines the rule of law in this country.
ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the Education Amendment Bill—in opposition, of course. Mr Hipkins has spent nine long years in the cold winter of Opposition—plenty of time to think about policy, about education policy. And one of the first bits of education policy that we get is this—a bill that takes away things, a bill that repeals things, a bill that takes away national standards and gets rid of charter schools.
Let’s have a think about why charter schools were introduced in the first place. Why were they introduced? They were there to offer something different. They were there to be flexible, to offer parents choice—something different for their children who are failing in mainstream schools. I have been to charter schools. I have one very successful charter school in my electorate and that is Vanguard Military School, and I have spent many, many days there talking with their students, unlike Mr Davis.
And can I tell you that when I talked to those students they told me things that broke my heart. They told me about the fact that they failed in mainstream schools—not only that they failed but that they were miserable, that they were involved with drugs and gangs. They did not go to school, they were self-harming, but the worst thing that they told me was that they didn’t believe in their own abilities. They didn’t have any confidence in their ability to succeed. They didn’t think they had a future. They didn’t think that they were smart. They told me themselves in their own words that they thought they were dumb. That is what charter schools were introduced to address.
Vanguard Military School has those students’ lives around. One of the students that I met there has lost 56 kilos and believes in himself because he is now passing NCEA level 1, NCEA level 2, and NCEA level 3. I went to their graduation last year and I watched those students and their families. I watched the students cross the stage, and every single one of them, as they went across the stage to get their certificates, hugged their teachers. They were crying, they were emotional, and so were their parents, because they never believed in themselves until they got to this school. This school offered them something different, and what this bill does is take that away. It doesn’t offer any solutions. In fact, do you know what it does, Mr Assistant Speaker? It pushes them right back from whence they came—from those schools that were failing them.
To say it’s all going to be roses and honey and rainbows sending them back to special character schools, which have existed since 1989—those students have tried those schools. Those students have tried the mainstream, they’ve tried alternative, and they didn’t work. But what is working for those students is Vanguard Military School. I have sat down and spoken to those kids who now believe that they have a future. These are kids from troubled backgrounds who have a multitude of issues and challenges in their lives. These are the kids that our Prime Minister keeps talking about wanting to help, with all her speeches of “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” Well, this bill is the opposite of that. There’s no action in this bill to address those kids’ needs. That’s what charter schools do and, as Mr Seymour just said, there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re working for these children.
Have Labour not seen the results from these schools? Vanguard’s result last year for NCEA level 2 was 89 percent, compared to the national average of 77 percent. For their Māori students, who make up 50 percent of the school, it was 90 percent, compared to the national average of 72 percent. At level 3 for those same Māori students, it was 95 percent, compared to the national average of 55 percent. How can you argue with that? Those kids, who were failing in the mainstream, go to this charter school and achieve beyond their wildest dreams and now have futures, and this bill takes that away.
Vanguard, this year, took 25 students who had previously been excluded from other schools—students who had nowhere else to go, who were failing in the mainstream, and who have now found somewhere where they can achieve. I met some of those students on a march. It, admittedly, was like some weird alternative reality because David Seymour was leading it and I was on it, but I was there, along with—
David Seymour: I was halfway between Chlöe Swarbrick and Penny Bright!
ERICA STANFORD: Ha, ha! My first march, with David Seymour. Who would’ve thought it?
I was on that march with students from Vanguard Military School. Some of them had been at the school for only 2½ weeks, and they were there on a Sunday, in the rain, in their immaculate uniforms, so proud of their charter school because they knew that it offered them a future. They did a haka, which they’d practised only four times, and they were so proud of their haka, their school, and their future, which this bill takes away.
What we are doing with this bill is forcing those students that were on that march to go back to a system that failed them. Or, as this Government says, “We’ll transition them into this model that we’ve had since 1989.”, which has been failing them. I think they miss the point. That model has been failing them. This model is working for them, and yet here we are repealing it.
What I’d like to also talk about is truancy. Tracey Martin got up in this House a number of weeks ago and, in answer to a verbal question at question time, said that she was so concerned about truancy rates because they had fallen from nearly 70 percent in 2015 to 67 percent last year. Well, can I tell you that last year, the truancy rate for Vanguard Military School, in my electorate, was 1.8 percent. Now, these kids come from as far away as Waiuku. They get up at 5.30 in the morning, they get a train, and they get two buses to get to a school that is so far from where they live, because they believe in their futures, and their truancy rate is 1.8 percent. What does that tell you about the success of the charter schools that this bill is getting rid of? If Tracey Martin was so concerned about truancy rates, she wouldn’t be backing this bill to get rid of charter schools.
So if the results from these schools are so good, what are the real reasons that Labour are closing these charter schools? The cold, hard truth, as Denise Lee pointed out, is that these schools work, but they don’t work for the unions. These schools are bulk funded, they can pay the teachers whatever they like, and that is the cold, hard reality. The unions don’t like them, and that is why Mr Hipkins is trying to get rid of them. The evidence is clear: they work for the students and they work for the parents, but they just don’t work for the unions.
The other problem is that, you know, this Government thinks they know best when it comes to education. All they know is that students must be in their system. How could a student possibly achieve in any other system? Well, they are achieving, and they’re achieving at charter schools.
Let me take my final minute just to talk about Mr Davis. Mr Kelvin Davis, who has stood up for the charter schools in his electorate, those Māori charter schools—the two of them in Whangarei that he said that he would resign over if they closed. Well, I find it really interesting that he mentions only those two, and he only ever has—the two schools that he has an interest in in Whangarei—because there are two other schools in his electorate that have been in his electorate for the last three years, which he’s never bothered to visit. Vanguard is one of them, and there are no excuses, because Mr Davis has been invited to Vanguard. The only piece of correspondence that Mr Davis has ever sent that school was a decline letter saying, “No, I’m sorry. I can’t make your graduation.” He never contacted them at all, even though 50 percent of those students are Māori students, even though that school is in his electorate. But let’s not forget, he is standing up for those two other schools in his electorate.
Can I just finish by saying that charter schools offer young, vulnerable students a future, and all this bill does is take that away.
JAN TINETTI (Labour): This is a great day for public education. For quality public education in this country, this is the best day, because today we are righting an attack that was made on our public education system, which started with a false crisis in education that was constructed by the previous Government to bring in their ideological policies back in 2008.
Why, when we were one of the most high-performing systems in the world, were we then landed with problems—and they were problems to those of us that worked in the sector—such as national standards? But then, when we got charter schools—you know what? I think it was about the distraction, the politics of distraction. One of the previous Government’s greatest educationalists, who they quoted a lot, Professor John Hattie, talks about the politics of distraction. “Distraction #1: appease the parents”, and that’s what we’ve heard here a lot in the House today—appeasing the parents. But they weren’t my parents. My parents in my school hated national standards. They couldn’t stand them. They didn’t understand them. Even when we would have sessions on them, they didn’t cope with them. The previous Government listened to their parents, who are their voting base. John Hattie says parents have the power for the Government that’s in charge at the time, because they, not the students, are the voters. They were being reactionary to their voters.
To charter schools, that was his “Distraction #4: fix the schools”. “It is ironic that a popular solution to claims about ‘failing schools’ is to invent new forms of schools”—to privatise. This was a way to break down the public education system. This wasn’t about a good education decision; this was about breaking down that education system, and that simply isn’t good enough. That is why this is such a great day in education, because we are restoring public education once again in this country, and it is very exciting. So on that note, I commend this bill to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education Amendment Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 63
New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 8.
Noes 57
New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.
Bill read a first time.
Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.
Bills
State Sector and Crown Entities Reform Bill
First Reading
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of State Services: I move, That the State Sector and Crown Entities Reform Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.
This is an omnibus bill that has two parts. Part 1 amends the Crown Entities Act 2004—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but this debate is interrupted and set down for next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m on Tuesday, 20 February 2018. Tēnā tātou katoa.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.