Viewpoint – Happy New Year

By Tracey Martin

Happy New Year. I hope you had a safe and restful start to 2016. I am expecting big things from 2016 and have no doubt that I will need to work very hard in my specific portfolio areas. One thing I know for sure is that the Government is intending to make large and sweeping changes to the Education Act 1989 which will affect all New Zealand children, teachers and state schools. Should the general community be concerned? Yes they should? In the last two sitting days of 2015 this Government pushed through a piece of legislation that could see not only schools no longer have their own independent principal but could also see more money stripped out of mainstream state schools and directed into taxpayer funded, profit making Charter Schools. Every dollar taken in profit by the sponsors of these schools is a taxpayer dollar less spent on our children in our local schools.

I have spent much of the Christmas and New Year break working on several other areas of concern. Staying with the nationwide issues I am currently writing a new members bill that would protect the professional title of teachers. With recent moves by the Government to allow untrained and unregistered teachers into classrooms it is our view that parents deserve the right to know if the person standing in front of their child in the classroom is a fully trained professional – it amazes my colleagues and I that neither teachers nor social workers have their professional titles protected under current law so we intend to change this for the protection of all.

Closer to home, my Warkworth based staff and I will continue to work on local cases for local people. We are getting quite a reputation for hard work and so New Zealanders are contacting us from further a field than just the Rodney Electorate. This is one of the pluses of being a list MP; I am not defined to a particular regional area. I can help any New Zealander, anywhere with difficulties they may be having with a government department. We are pleased with the level of success we have had to date.

This is also the year of the Youth Parliament. I am looking forward to not only supporting my Youth MP, Mahurangi College student Tebarae Amuera, work on her community project but in supporting the Year 10 faculty at the college deliver the full Youth Parliament on site through the social studies curriculum. We will be supported in this by the Ministry of Youth. I will also be working with the Board of Trustees, Friends of Mahurangi and senior management to use my contacts to bring in speakers for a lunchtime lecture programme and parent information evenings over the coming year. Oh and Winston will be paying us a visit … stay tuned!