Sitting date: 15 October 2025

EDUCATION AND TRAINING AMENDMENT BILL (NO 2)

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party is not supporting the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). I do want to run us through some of the underlying issues that we have with what the bill is trying to do, and how the Government is not addressing some of the underlying critical issues that allows students to thrive.

I want to start with the attendance management plans. A lot has been said, in this bill, on the need for schools to have an attendance management plan. Even today, when debating my co-leader Marama Davidson, the Associate Minister of Education, David Seymour, in a New Zealand Herald interview, acknowledged that child poverty plays a huge role in attendance. And yet the provisions in this bill put in place requirements for, for example, not just an attendance management plan but for the schools to respond to the underlying causes of student absence. Imagine if schools had the ability to address poverty and to ensure that kids are able to actually have a warm, healthy, safe home to live in that allows them to actually participate in education. I think this is such a telling issue that the Government is unable to grapple with. Because, on the one hand, they're creating all these additional layers of bureaucracy around attendance management plans and then, on the other hand, quite happily allow material hardship for children to go up on their watch. That, to me, is contradictory. How are the Government expecting for schools to succeed in these so-called attendance management plans if they are not addressing child poverty?

You don't need to believe me; you can just look at the Government's own statistics of child poverty to see that more children are projected to not have their basic needs being met as a result of Government decisions. So it's just mind-boggling that we're asking schools to then show how they will respond to these underlying causes, and not actually take any responsibility for the fact that, actually, it is Government who has the ability to tackle these. This is due to the changes in clause 9 and clause 23, which subsequently were recommended to be changed to be a bit more workable. But, none the less, what we've got right now is a bill that fails to address some of these underlying issues, and a Government that, elsewhere, is unwilling to tackle it, and, all at the same time, quite happy to punch down on some of our poorest.

If you think about parents who may be grappling with kids who don't feel safe at school, but, on top of that, those kids are unable to have their basic needs met, they're faced with a Government that (a) is providing lower-quality school lunches, a Government that is not tackling the underlying courses of school attendance, and a bill that is claiming that by putting in place a management plan, suddenly all those things will miraculously disappear.

There are other components of the bill that we have concerns with, including changes to the school board objectives. Others have talked about how the deprioritisation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a deliberate inappropriate weakening of Te Tiriti rights and will make it even more difficult to achieve equitable outcomes for Māori students. Once again, in the context of everything we have seen, even just today in the House with the marine and coastal area legislation being pushed through, it's really telling that the Government takes a very, very narrow approach to education, and treats education as simply a pathway into the labour market as opposed to a place where we can develop critical thinking skills, where we can actually allow people to develop themselves and their full potential, and not just simply learn very specific, narrow skills that have a very specific and narrow outcome in mind. So when these school board objectives are narrowed and issues like Te Tiriti are deprioritised, what we are seeing is a Government that does not seem to value or understand learners' experiences, nor, in the context of other Government decisions, the conditions of teachers.

So, again, it's really concerning that this Government just wants to punch down. We are seeing more and more evidence of this, particularly with the removal of kupu Māori from children's books. Again, what is that supposed to do, if not to narrow the actual scope of learning that that children can be exposed to? In my view, once again, that diminishes the quality of our education and undermines, actually, the Government's attempts—if they even believe that they want to attempt this—of narrowing the gap between students who have been left out of the education system and those who are currently thriving within the current settings.

The bill also contains other concerning provisions, including the removal of the national education and learning priorities. As others have noted, many of these provisions were not supported by submitters at the select committee stage. This isn't the first bill that we've seen that the public overwhelmingly rejects. The way that the Government has often responded to the overwhelming rejection of provisions in bills like this one and others is to—and they've said it in the Chamber—then diminish submitters by saying that, you know, they're people who just had a lot of spare time, who had no jobs. I even heard heckles from my left side talking about the use of AI. Instead, what I think the Government should be paying attention to is the fact that on this bill, as well as with others, members of our communities are telling members of the Government that their bills do not achieve what they set out to do. So, again, whether it is issues, for example, that parents may have had with how some of these boards are run—like, removing this isn't the answer; it's just simply improve accountability.

We've also seen how the ACT Party has had a free ride in their importing of culture wars in the provisions around freedom of expression. Others have noted that the issues of freedom of expression in universities are not real issues that universities are genuinely having to grapple with. I actually think it's huge overreach to decide how universities, as paragons of freedom of expression, should be able to conduct debates within their institutions—like, allow universities to make decisions on how these debates are going to be carried out. For a so-called libertarian party, I find it really contradictory that, at the same time, they want to dictate how freedom of expression occurs at universities. Again, this does not address many of the serious issues that our universities are grappling with. At a time where so many of our universities are seeing courses being closed and people being laid off, staffers feeling the brunt, in the tertiary sector, of poor wages and poor conditions—

Francisco Hernandez: And cuts.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —and cuts indeed—the Government instead chooses to focus on this nonsense of an issue that is not what is being fed back to us from staffers and learners in the tertiary space.

Instead of actually committing to adequately funding our universities so that, actually, people can thrive and that we can have people entering the labour market—which the Government does care about—with a diverse range of skill sets, and to recognise that, actually, when we create the conditions where Governments are so focused on culture war issues as opposed to addressing learners' material realities, all that we see is oxygen being taken away from the real issues that matter to our communities.

This bill is just such a great example where the material conditions that lead to poor attendance are not being addressed. Instead, we just have a bunch of extra bureaucracy being thrown into schools, where issues around, for example, critical thinking skills not being adequately supported and developed at universities. Instead, we just want to bring this Americanised debate on the freedom of expression.

Again, all that we will see is our universities continuing to drop in some of those international rankings when it comes to how they're perceived internationally. That is a direct result of Government underfunding and undervaluing of our universities and vocational education institutes. If the Government was serious about educational achievement, they would be putting their energy into addressing poverty, into addressing house prices, into addressing violence, into addressing the lack of inclusion that disabled students have told us time and time again they face in schools, and they would not be importing this cultural wars into the legislative chamber.

It's really clear to me that the ACT Party, at no point in their negotiation agreement, thought of issues like the underlying causes of school attendance, like hardship, inequality, and the housing crisis, and instead are quite happy to use time in this Chamber to debate issues that actually will not lead to better educational achievements.

This is an absolute joke of a bill. Again, I go back to the earlier example, requiring schools to show how they're addressing the underlying causes of lack of attendance, without actually taking responsibility for Government policies that have made it worse, is a passing on of those issues to our educational institutions. So we call on the Government to take serious issues with the evidence that they deserve to be evaluated by, and not go through this bill, and instead address the stuff that students have told us for many, many years, which is fix poverty, fix the housing crisis, address violence within our communities, and take absentees seriously.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm taking this call on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill is really important, a very, very fundamental bill, because this bill is about our education system. This bill is about setting some guidelines for our education system; this is from school to university to ensure that schools and universities are delivering what they should be delivering—that is education.

In the select committee process a number of amendments have been made to this bill. I won't go through all the amendments, but I would like to highlight some amendments. I would like to talk about three areas in this bill which are so important to us, the ACT Party. I must acknowledge the Hon David Seymour for his work, for his advocacy to bring these changes which are happening through this legislation.

The first one is about the school board's objective. Now, one would imagine that the school board's objective is to ensure that schools are able to provide for everything that students are able to achieve in education. But at the moment, school boards are so distracted because their objectives are not about that. And that's why this bill is going to ensure that the school board's paramount objective is to ensure that schools are able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement. Other objectives are going to become supportive objectives. Yes, other things can be done, but the main objective should be educational achievement—educational achievement. Because we want to see that students are able to attain skills so that they are not able to just compete here in New Zealand, but all around the world. So the skills we are talking about is real science, maths, reading, writing, or any other subjects that they choose to study, they should be able to choose to study.

The school boards are not a place for ideological activism, and we don't want to see that every subject is filtered through that lens of culture and ideology. We want students to read and study and take up subjects that are real subjects so that they are not just relevant to one community or the second community or third community, but they are relevant to the entire world.

It's really important to note that the ACT Party has been advocating for one of the subclauses to be removed. This is in section 127, inserted by clause 8, subclause (2)(e) and this is "to ensure that the school gives effective Te Tiriti o Waitangi," and there are other subclauses to that. Now, this is something that we know that ultimately is going to be looked at and is going to be removed. This could be part of the wider review that is going to happen to all Treaty clauses, but it could be sooner than that. We'll have to wait and see. We don't want distractions for school boards. As I said, school board's role is to ensure that students are able to achieve in education.

The second point I want to talk about is about management plans. The Hon David Seymour has been working really hard to improve attendance of students at schools and we have seen some really good results because of that hard work. And we know that if students are not attending school, then how are they going to achieve. Attendance is a must. The member, the Green Party member who spoke before me, instead of supporting that, he was actually providing excuses for students to not attend school. We don't want that kind of attitude coming from parliamentarians here because that is sending a very wrong message to the community that "Yes, you can give a number of excuses for not sending your children to school". We want to change that attitude, and, yes, schools will have to play their role, community will have to play their role, and for that, what this bill does is it requires schools to come up with attendance management plans.

When we talk about the attendance management plan, one of the points that the Green Party member made was about the plan should include how the school will respond to underlying causes of student absences. Yes, that is important because we do want to know why students are not attending school. That should be part of their plan, and we are really happy with this clarification that was done in the select committee process—that that should be part of the plan that schools will prepare for managing attendance of students.

Then the third point that I want to talk about is the freedom of expression at our universities. It's a very important part of this bill and again ACT Party has advocated for this for a long time. Again, I would like to acknowledge the Hon David Seymour for his work to ensure that this happens. Section 281A, "Requirement for university council to adopt statement on freedom of expression" is not just about adopting the statement but it comes with accountability because it also requires establishment of a complaints procedure for academic freedom and freedom of expression. And yes, there might be just one example, two examples, but that's not the role of the university. Universities' role is not to block people from coming at campuses—to some extent—and speaking because we want students to go to university to be challenged. They should be able to challenge other views as well. They should be able to learn what different views exist in this world.

We want to see that students, when they come out of universities, are mature citizens, they are able to deal with issues that exist in this real world, and if they are able to deal with the real issues in this world, then they are going to go ahead in their life and build communities, lead communities, and think for themselves. So it's important that we let students think for themselves what is good for them, agree to views or disagree to views. At the moment, what is happening because of those members sitting on the other side, our universities have been hijacked by the ideology, and we want to rescue universities from that, and that is why I am really pleased with this provision in this legislation.

One thing that I want to highlight about the change that we made in the select committee process is there is one point in the legislation which says that universities "should not take … positions on matters that do not directly concern their role or functions:" Some submitters expressed concerns that this may apply to students or staff members. So that has been clarified, that this will apply to universities as institutions and not to individual staff and student members.

So some improvements have been done—great improvements have been done—to this bill in the select committee process and I'm really looking forward to the committee of the whole House, and we are really, really looking forward to seeing what comes out after the committee of the whole House. So the ACT Party supports this bill.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I want to start, on behalf of New Zealand First, by thanking the Minister for not only for introducing this bill but also for the excellent work that she is doing in turning around our education system, and I think that is widely recognised. I also want to thank the Education and Workforce Committee for the hard work and the thoughtful work that's gone into some changes to the bill.

I think I've heard from the Opposition some criticism that this bill is a bit of a grab bag, but I disagree. But also, I would say that sometimes it makes a lot of sense to actually bring a number of things which are related together rather than say, "Well, look, we've got to have multiple different bills and take up even more of the House's time."

Our education is an investment in the future of our young people. It's also an investment in our own future, because without education we are going to go nowhere as a country. What this bill does is to clearly establish educational achievement as the paramount objective for school boards, rather than just being the first mentioned of a multitude of different objectives, all of broadly similar way. What a radical thought that is, that educational achievement will be the most important thing at schools. What a radical thought. I think that's a really good thing to put in there because at the moment, all it is is the first one mentioned of several different, potentially competing—and sometimes they are competing—objectives.

Now, I read the Opposition parties' differing view. We don't have a member on the select committee but I read the Opposition parties' differing view, and they say that the focus here is "narrow" and "antiquated" and they say that, "together with educational achievement, boards must ensure schools are emotionally and physically safe"—yeah, all good—"give effect to rights-based legislation"—all good—"protect children from all forms of discrimination at school, and give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi." All of those things are good, but all of those things are still in the bill. All this bill does in this context is say that educational achievement is the number one—it's not equal with all the others, it's the number one objective that we've got. That is a simple concept. It's a radical concept, that seems, to the Opposition, but I think it is the right concept.

Now, I've been to quite a number of prize-givings over many, many years and often I'm deeply impressed by the quality of the students who are graduating—from some schools, in particular. What they've learnt, their capabilities, their aspirations, and that they are fitted so clearly to be citizens of the world. Because that's what we want, we want our young people to be coming out of schools fitted to be citizens of the world, whether they're going on to tertiary education or whatever they might be going on to, they need to be fitted to be citizens of the world. Unfortunately, so often that is not the case.

Education in the school context is the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another. There are many key skills, and obviously as a Government we've been very focused on some of those, like core skills, the ability to read, to write, to command numbers, to be numerate. Those things are very, very important. I would also add, an understanding of the world that we live in and the ability to think for themselves—not to be told what to think, but the ability to be able to think for themselves. Education should not be indoctrination, and I think there are times when we stray into that space, and that can't be the case.

However, what is very, very clear is that far too many of our young people are nowhere near where they need to be in terms of their core skills: the ability to read, write, and be numerate. And it has got markedly worse in recent years. Again, I want to pay tribute to the Minister who's doing a great job in systematically starting to turn that around and focusing on what matters.

So what needs to be turned around? Well, I want to start by looking at earlier-this-year's year 8 achievement data for maths. For all students, only 23 percent were at the level that they were supposed to be—23 percent; 62 percent were at least a year behind where they should be. Now, that is not success. What I heard, effectively, from the Opposition was "Everything's fine." No, it's not fine. That's for maths. For writing, pretty much the same for all students: 24 percent at level, 61 percent more than a year behind. That is utterly unacceptable.

Then there's our PISA scores—this is the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment. It tests 15-year-olds, the performance is measured every three years, and we've been involved in this since 2000. Every year, pretty much every time we've been assessed, we have gone backwards. So it's not just recent; this has been happening over an extended period of time. In the last assessment—in 2022-2023, before this Government took office—reading has dropped in that time, from 2000 to 2023, by a full year. So where a 15-year-old is now was where a 14-year-old was in 2000. If you look at science it's the same, where a 15-year-old was now, when science came into the PISA programme in 2006, that's where a 14-year-old was. In maths, it's even worse. Where a 15-year-old is now, a 13½ year old was in 2003, when maths came to that programme.

So things are not in the place that we need them to be, and turning this around is important. That means a focus on education and educational achievement has got to be at the top of the list, because at the moment our education system has clearly lost its way and needs to be turned around and got, if I might say, "Back on track".

This bill is a legislative backing for a huge amount of work that is being done to fix a broken system. I want to, again, think about the things which the Minister is doing at the moment, the introduction of structured literacy, the extra investment that's been made: $30 million in maths and maths material, the teaching. [Suze Redmayne enters the Chamber] It's nice to see you, Suze. I'll wave back at you as well.

Teaching support, so actually helping teachers with their registration costs, etc., it's something that the teaching profession has been asking for, for years; delivering more classrooms for less, so instead of bespoke designs, we get more classrooms. That's what we want, more warm, dry classrooms for our kids to learn in. The replacement of the NCEA system and the work that's being done to improve the terrible attendance rates that there are.

Just looking at those attendance rates—again, from the Opposition, we heard as though everything was fine. The term 2 attendance levels, where young people are at school for more than 90 percent of the time, in 2022, that was 40 percent—40 percent. So 60 percent of our kids did not attend school in that year for more than 90 percent of the time. In 2023, it was 47 percent who did, 53 percent who didn't; in 2024, 53 percent did, 47 percent didn't; and 2025 it's up to 58 percent plays 42. So it is getting better, but it is nowhere near where it needs to be.

I'm just going to finish off by saying that New Zealand First strongly supports this bill and the things that are in it. I just want to reflect on some of the things that New Zealand First campaigned on in the last election. One of them, to enforce compulsory education and address truancy—exactly what is being done. Secondly, to focus on doing the basics better through emphasising the historic "3Rs": reading, writing, and arithmetic. Again, what is being done: an hour a day for each of those three things. Third, to provide better pathways and funding for STEM subjects. We know we need to invest in science and those sort of subjects. Fourth, to remove gender ideology—I talked about ideology earlier—from the curriculum. Fifth, to review the New Zealand curriculum, to remove critical race theory and decolonisation and finally to conduct a select committee inquiry into the future NCEA to see if it is delivering for students, parents, and employers. And I think the conclusion is that it isn't, and that is why it is going.

This bill clearly establishes educational achievement as the paramount objective to school boards. This should never be in doubt. But I know—and many parents and communities have told me that that is in doubt in some school board's minds. This is about clarifying that to put education at the top and starting to fix our education system for our kids, for their future, and for the future of this country. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): A five-minute split call.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This legislation is emblematic of three things that have become symbolic of what this Government stands for. It's a distracted and out-of-touch Government that is obsessed with imported culture wars. It is an unpopular Government that is pushing through these reforms despite overwhelming opposition at the selection committee stage. It's not an evidence-based bill, either. These are the three things that are characteristic of Government bills—we've seen it time and time again in the House, and this is the latest manifestation of it. At a time when New Zealanders want the Government to get focused on the cost of greed crisis, at a time when people in New Zealand want their Government to be focused on prioritising cheaper bills, more and more jobs, and clamping down on the corporate greed that has led to runaway "greedflation" that has afflicted and crushed our economy, this is anything but doing that.

Let me address how it's not evidence based: one of the things that has been central to the argument of the members opposite is that this bill is actually about protecting free speech. In the select committee stage, I asked questions of the Minister about how many universities in 2024 had actually restricted speakers from their campuses. The Minister's answer was zero. This bill is trying to fix a problem that's not even a problem in the first place, and, in doing so, it's a serious case of Government overreach into the freedom of expression of universities and a serious overreach on the ability of universities to be self-managing institutes. It is a serious overreach on the ability of staff and students to actually self-organise and direct their universities to be the institutions that they want them to be.

This is most clearly seen in the requirement of this bill for universities to produce statements of freedom of expression. Now, what an irrelevant term, because who's going to be judging what the freedom of expression actually is? It's going to be the Government; it's going to be a bunch of political people that will be judging universities, which should be independent of Government control, on how free they're going to actually be in terms of freedom of expression. This is a very dangerous pathway that actually sets universities on a path to being Government-controlled institutions and to Government dictating what universities can and can't teach, and what universities can and can't proscribe.

This is most evident in new section 281A(2)(d), inserted by clause 12, where it says, "universities, as institutions, should not take public positions on matters that do not directly concern their role or functions:". This is where the Government's actual agenda around universities is most clear, because we know that a lot of the policies they are pursuing—whether it's increasing the amount of fossil fuel gas in the atmosphere, whether it's increasing the amount of drilling and mining, which is going to release these fossil—

Simon Court: What's that got to do with the bill?

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: —mining gases in the atmosphere—this is about the bill. This is actually about how the Government is restricting universities from taking public positions on a lot of things that the Government has actually submitted. If you look at the submissions of a lot of the universities, they have taken quite strong positions against things that this Government has advocated for—for example, on Te Tiriti legislation—

Simon Court: Tell them to get elected.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: —I saw submissions on the Regulatory Standards Bill from institutions. It's really clear what this Government's agenda is. It's not actually about protecting free speech, it's about crushing dissent from universities and setting them up to be Government-controlled commissariats, controlled by David Seymour, who will be prescribing his vision of ideology on what free speech actually should be. It's really unacceptable that the Government has overreached to this extent, and it really speaks to the fundamental nature of how this Government has been wagged by the two dogs that are driving this coalition—ACT and New Zealand First.

It's really ironic that, in the general debate speech, they were talking about how this Opposition was controlled by the Greens and Te Pāti Māori when they're actually just projecting how they in Government are acting, and how this, as a bill—and it literally says so—is about advancing an agreement in the policy clause in the coalition negotiations between ACT and the National Party. We do not agree with this bill.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): My beautiful electorate of Mt Roskill is home to hard-working families who value education and who see it as a key to a better future. They want stronger schools, clearer pathways, and real opportunity for their children. That's what the schools should be focusing on to ensure that every child learns, progresses, and succeeds, and this bill is about lifting student achievement, improving attendance, and making sure that every young New Zealander gets the best possible start in life. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): As Shanan Halbert said earlier in this debate, this bill is a mishmash of small things brought to this Parliament at the behest of the minor parties in this coalition Government. The question of free speech and academic freedom in our universities is probably the most obnoxious aspect of this bill, and it's the matter that I want to focus my remarks on.

The context for this bill is the increasing attention that conservative and libertarian political groups here and internationally have been giving to the issue of free speech in recent years. They have targeted independent institutions like universities, who they feel don't share their libertarian values. Initiatives like the provisions in this bill are an attempt to break down the gates of academia and use the power of the State to force independent academic institutions to give platforms to the pedlars of hate speech—white supremacists, Islamophobes, racists, anti-trans activists, and Holocaust deniers—in order to give their views respectability by giving them access to independent academic institutions.

This is an imported culture war, as previous speakers have remarked, and there is no evidence. The proponents of this bill—either at select committee, the submitters who came along, or the Minister—have been completely unable to explain the problem statement that justifies this intervention, and, in fact, in the regulatory impact statement, the officials said as much before the bill went to select committee.

The Government's own assessment of the proposed amendments here to mandate free speech on campus show the manufactured nature of this crisis. Officials acknowledge having—and I quote—"limited evidence on the actual extent and impact of freedom of speech concerns in New Zealand." As colleagues have already pointed out, the only example—the only example—that the Minister could come up with, when asked at select committee, was of the notorious incident of Don Brash, I think, being denied the opportunity to give a Hobson's Pledge speech at Massey University. That is not a crisis that justifies this kind of heavy-handed intervention in the cherished, autonomous academic institutions that we should be taking care to look after.

One of the problems with this debate is the confusion of free speech with academic freedom. I want to quote Professor Joan Scott, who put it this way: "Free speech makes no distinction about quality; academic freedom does.", and the difference between those two concepts is foundational to why universities exist in the first place. Academic freedom protects rigorous inquiry conducted according to scholarly standards. It shields researchers pursuing evidence-based knowledge from political interference, no matter where that interference comes from, and, by contrast, free speech makes no quality judgments at all. It protects all expression equally, regardless of whether it meets any scholarly criteria or contributes to a greater public purpose.

The other problem with this debate is that the notion of free speech espoused by the advocates of this bill is that it is divorced from the idea that with freedom comes responsibility. It fails to balance the right of an individual to say whatever they like with the consequences of their speech. I believe that in New Zealand—unlike this imported culture war; unlike the chaos of the United States right now—we have a history of taking care of our society and of thinking about the consequences of what we say and do in the knowledge that in this small collection of islands at the bottom of the South Pacific, we have to learn to live with each other, we have to get on, and we have to balance these things, albeit imperfectly, but always with an eye to taking care of our society and our ability to get on together, and taking care of the vulnerable.

The other thing that I think is bad about this bill—and this is ironic, given that the impetus for these provisions has come from the libertarian part of this Parliament. The irony is that it is the long arm of the State protruding into somewhere where it should not go.

Universities are autonomous, self-governing institutions, with an academic freedom tradition that is hundreds of years old, and I want to quote Peter Davis, who wrote a very good piece about this. He said that universities "have used their independence judiciously to protect the freedom of their staff to push the boundaries of research, to encourage and manage debate on key issues on campus, and to inform public debate through civil, constructive, and evidence-based contributions." Using the law, as this bill will, to force our universities to bend the knee to the State through these provisions sets, I think, a very unfortunate precedent. It undermines the autonomy that is central to the status and credibility of our universities.

This bill is a distraction from the very valid and urgent concerns of ordinary New Zealanders, who right now want a Government focused on jobs, the public health system, and housing. They want a Government that focuses its energy on easing the cost of living crisis, and I urge the National Party not to buy in to the imported culture wars that its minor party coalition partners are so fond of and, instead, focus on the things that matter.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It must be difficult being on the Opposition benches today, as we put this piece of legislation through the House this afternoon. I have 72 schools across the mighty Whanganui electorate, and to teachers and principals and parents and students it's pretty simple: they go to school to learn. A board's paramount objective in governing a school is to ensure that every student at the school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement. Pretty simple. Look at the results this Government is achieving by focusing on the simple things in education and getting them done. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): A five-minute split call.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Who's correct: the National Party leader's office's speaking notes, which have been read to us so dutifully, that this bill is about educational achievement; or the ACT Party members in this debate, and in their heckles, who are gleefully celebrating the demise of academic freedom and welcoming in an era where institutions will have sign up to a free speech statement that is, in fact, in line with the Government's priorities for their free speech?

This bill guarantees that academics and students within universities will have free speech, but that academic freedoms will be limited, and that universities themselves will not, in fact, be able to have any free speech on issues that the ACT Party doesn't want them to be talking about—political issues, social issues, cultural issues. Those issues that are preserved in our law and are hundreds of years old—that come from a tradition of the 1500s, when universities were thought of as respected and trusted institutions, and there was a civil contract. Remember that sort of deal between Governments and citizens—remember that one? It's a really important part of our law, but whatever we're getting over there isn't quite that.

That is part of a contract that people sort of sign up to when they engage in a society and that they think will be honoured by Governments, and part of that is that institutions—independent institutions like universities—will be able to take positions, will be able to advance freely informed, thoughtful inquiry and test ideas; that they might be a forum for debating issues and thoughts. That is something that the ACT Party is meant to stand for, but, instead, this bill is an imported culture war straight from the US—lucky us in New Zealand—and we will have to deal with the consequences of this for many, many years. The idea that universities will not be able to take a stand that the Government doesn't agree with is simply not part of what New Zealanders would expect and what most New Zealanders think they are getting from this Government. They want the Government to be focused on the real issues, like rising cost of living, like the economy that is shrinking, and like the 73,000 New Zealanders who have left under their watch.

This is a bill that makes a number of pernicious changes mixed in with all the little, sort of smaller amendments. One—just to give you a flavour of what they're focusing on—is an amendment to make it harder for unions to give notice of school strikes and require longer days. I mean, what has this Government got? One trick: bust the unions; bust the teachers' unions; bust the universities. What is the point? Other than to make a sort of political stab at the traditional supporters of the ACT Party, who does this help? It just makes it harder for people to have a say, in a bill that is meant to be about free speech.

There's another one that just seems to allow the Minister to cross-subsidise international students with the fees of domestic students. Why is it helpful to the training and learning of New Zealanders that a previous rule that required universities to fully cost-recover from international students—fair enough; international students are good. That's an important export for New Zealand—good. Why is it useful for the Minister to say, "We're going to cross-subsidise these international students now with the fees that are paid by domestic students."? Who was asking for that?

The point is that this sort of grab-bag of things that are from the deep, dark right-wing playbook are also mixed in with some things that will really hurt the independence of our institutions and the ability of academics to make their point. In the case of Don Brash, when he was denied the ability to speak at a university, that was a call that the university made because they thought it would harm the overall ability of that university to be able to be that kind of forum that New Zealanders expect—where we interrogate ideas fairly, where we give everyone a fair go. It's OK for a university to take a stand like that and say, actually, our role here isn't to promote this kind of speech, it's actually to be able to interrogate the ideas in a different way.

Simon Court: Speech is not harm. This is where you're flawed.

ARENA WILLIAMS: That should be fine. The thing that should be fine, Simon Court, is for academics to take a stand. When, earlier in the debate, you said "The academics should just get elected then if they want to take public positions", that betrays any of the arguments that you have made around promoting fair speech and free speech. It means that no one other than you should be able to decide what New Zealanders think, believe, and talk about—and isn't that straight from the quiet part out loud?

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): This is another piece of legislation that proves and shows why National is more trusted in education compared to that lot these days, and so I commend this bill. I also want to pay tribute to the deputy chair, Carl Bates, and the Education and Workforce Committee for all the work that they've done. The bill commentary here says that "We recommend all amendments [are passed] unanimously". I commend the bill.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just to acknowledge, at the top of my contribution, that the member Cameron Brewer took only 25 seconds to claim to be more trusted in education but was unable to make an argument longer than 30 seconds to convince, which would suggest to me it's not an argument he's confident in and neither is it an argument he's prepared to make on the record in the House. Just a spurious claim. It is good to be able to take the full 10 minutes to be able to make my contribution on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), and to confirm that Labour does oppose this bill because, as you've heard from a number of my colleagues on this side of the House, this is Government overreach and it's a grab bag of a bill that is bungled and messy.

I want to focus on two aspects of the bill, in my contribution. We know that the purpose of this bill is to make a series of amendments, but what I'm wanting to focus on specifically is the impacts that this will have on school boards—those boards that work within our schools in the governance role—and also on the freedom of expression within our universities and tertiary institutions.

I had the privilege, when I was at high school—and that is some time ago—of being on the board of trustees for my school. Through my personal experience on that school board, I could see a number of roles with which the board members had skills, experience, and the ability to make a contribution to their school community, but I could also see the distinction and the line of where the staff and teachers should have the freedom and the responsibility for a number of tasks and responsibilities within that school environment. I think one of the issues that is confused in this grab-bag bill is the distinction around the role of a school board. Now, the Act as it is currently written requires school boards to ensure that schools are places where children and young people can achieve educationally, where they are safe, with their rights upheld, where they feel included, and that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is given effect to. These four objectives are equally weighted and interconnected to create the optimal environment for children to learn and develop.

Now, making the three objectives of safety and rights, inclusion, and giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi subsidiary to one primary objective is contrary to the purpose of the Education and Training Act, which is to establish and regulate an education system that does four things. It provides an educational experience that gives people the skills, the knowledge, and the capabilities they need to fully participate in society, at work, and in their communities. When we're talking about schools, we are talking about the hearts of our communities, and we need to ensure that Acts like this don't overreach into the boards that govern those schools and those communities, and have unintended or intended consequences that cause harm. The second thing is to support the health, safety, and wellbeing of those people in the school community, The third is to assure quality education. The fourth is to honour Te Tiriti and support Māori-Crown relations.

Now, making these supporting objectives implies that they are not as important and necessary in and of themselves. Further, these objectives are in place to require school boards to create an environment that is supportive of every learner. Demoting these undermines the efforts to increase attendance. There are a number of reasons students don't attend, and often it's because the school environment is not a welcoming environment.

Now I want to give a shout-out to a specific school in the electorate I'm lucky enough to represent, the mighty Christchurch East. It has Te Hiwa Shirley Primary School, where a special welcome party is held every Monday, or has been previously held every Monday, at the school gate, to encourage attendance and to welcome children into that school environment and into that school community. That's the kind of thing that I think schools should be encouraged and empowered to do within their school communities. When we become as didactic and as dictatorial as some of the steps in this Act are, we risk taking away the autonomy that schools should have to create the right kind of environment, to provide the curated education and community experience for every student in their community to flourish and for every student to learn, and to recognise that not every student is the same and the needs of every student differ. This cookie-cutter approach in this bungled bill loses sight of that—significantly loses sight of that.

The other point that I wanted to speak to was around the supposed free speech issue. There were a number of submissions that came through to the Education and Workforce Committee about the free speech components and that suggested or included requirements on universities. Now, one of these was from the misleadingly named Free Speech Union—partly because it doesn't really stand for free speech and also because it's not really a union. But the submission from the Free Speech Union says that " 'Academic freedom is essential for universities to uphold if academics and students are to speak freely. We welcome the Education and Training Amendment Bill, which the Free Speech Union contributed to extensively,' "—well, there's a clue—" 'to protect and enable academics and students to speak without fear of retribution.' "

Simon Court: Hear, hear. Tell us why that's wrong.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: So that was the opinion of the Free Speech Union, who claim authorship for large parts of the bill and who received a resounding "Hear, hear" from ACT Party member Simon Court in the House, so you can give that submission the kudos that those clues might deserve.

The Law Society, on the other hand, "told the committee the bill created 'needless complexity' because freedom of expression was already protected by law." So the very party that talks about wanting less Government is in fact, from the very respected Law Society, being told that they are adding needless complexity. And whilst "needless" might be a word that we use to describe the ACT Party from time to time, "needless complexity" is not a term that we should see in our bills.

Hon Phil Twyford: Send that to the Ministry for Regulation.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Exactly—a member on this side of the House, the member Phil Twyford, calls for us to send this to the Ministry for Regulation. I think that is a good idea, although, judging from the costs at the Ministry for Regulation, it would be an expensive exercise.

"Paul Rishworth KC said freedom of expression was of the utmost importance, but the bill was not necessary … academic freedom was already protected in the Education Act and the Bill of Rights protected free speech." Further to that, the Tertiary Education Union—now, that's a real union—co-president Julie Douglas told the committee "there was a lack of evidence that universities were limiting free speech." She goes on to say that " 'What we have now is a functioning model which does not need this level of monitoring.' " So, on the one hand, you have an organisation who claim to have authored large parts of the bill, saying that they think it's a great idea—surprise, surprise—and then you have the Law Society and the Tertiary Education Union spelling out exactly the issues with this bungled bill.

It's a grab bag of a bill. It addresses issues that do not need a new Act; they are already covered in existing regulation or law. But instead, today, at a time when New Zealanders are facing a cost of living crisis, when we are seeing, day after day, people leaving New Zealand, people losing their jobs, this Government is choosing to waste their time with overreach into this area, where the experts are telling us it is not required.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a great honour to rise and speak in support of the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) in this second reading. I have sat here and listened to about seven speeches from the other sides, and do you know what? I have not heard—I have not heard—about lifting the educational achievements of our children, and that is absolutely shameful. We, as a Government, are relentlessly focused on lifting the achievement and closing the equity gap so parents can have the confidence that their children can have the foundations to succeed. We want our children to be competitive on the international stage. We need a good education system. The other side should have spent their 10 minutes thanking the Minister for the great achievements that our children are now achieving due to the changes that this Government has made. This bill is about lifting school and student achievement, improving attendance, and ensuring every young New Zealander gets the best possible start at life. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We haven't arranged for—

Cameron Luxton: Well, there's a spare call.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it's just written here, and I just wanted to double-check, but you called, so Simon Court has the call.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to commend the work of the Minister and the select committee, particularly for attendance management plans. New Zealand's children cannot learn if they are not in school, and this bill delivers a much-improved approach to attendance management. I also want to rebut some of the claims made by Labour and Green MPs about this bill when it comes to statements on freedom of expression.

The committee reported back that, actually, diverse opinions should be expressed in a respectful manner, consistent with any statutes made by a university. What we heard from Labour and the Greens is their contention that hearing different opinions is akin to some kind of violence. It might be dangerous for students. It was quite a remarkable proposal from Arena Williams. She quoted the very dangerous former Governor of the Reserve Bank and former member of this Parliament Don Brash. The most frightening thing I've ever seen Don Brash try and do is get into a speedway car or try to walk down a gangplank and get on a boat. Now, anyone who's ever seen that will know that that is the limit of how dangerous Don Brash is. Apparently, according to Arena Williams, he's too scary to be allowed to speak at a university.

I'm proud that this Government, with ACT in Government, has promoted free speech in the universities and that our member on the committee that considered this legislation, Dr Parmjeet Parmar, has been instrumental in making sure that the language and the wording in the legislation meet the expectations of New Zealanders and young people at universities. I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

Ayes 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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