Parliamentary Committees

Legislative Review Committee: Teachers Registration Board Petition

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:14): I move:

That the report of the committee on the House of Assembly petition No. 13 of 2020, entitled 'Maintenance of the current composition of the Teachers Registration Board', be noted.

The Australian Education Union and the Independent Education Union commenced this petition to maintain the current composition of the Teachers Registration Board and to retain their ability to nominate members to the board. On 22 July 2020, the member for Port Adelaide, then shadow minister for education, tabled the petition in the House of Assembly. The petition was signed by 11,606 residents of South Australia and requested that the House of Assembly:

…urge the Government to ensure political independence of the Teachers Registration Board and maintain its current composition and nomination process.

On presentation to a house of parliament, the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991 refers eligible petitions to the Legislative Review Committee. Once referred, the committee is required to inquire into, consider and report to parliament on eligible petitions. The petition was commenced in response to the Teachers Registration and Standards (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2020, which was presented in the House of Assembly on 4 March 2020 by the Minister for Education.

The bill proposed amendments to the Teachers Registration and Standards Act 2004, including alterations to the composition of the Teachers Registration Board. The minister advised the Legislative Review Committee that these amendments were intended to improve the flexibility of the board's size, and I quote:

…and ensure that members would be appointed based on the knowledge, skills and experience the Board needs to carry out its functions effectively…

The bill sought to alter the composition of the Teachers Registration Board in three ways. The first was to reduce the number of members on the board from 16 to between 10 and 14 members. The chair of the board, Ms Jane Lomax-Smith, had raised concerns that the size of the board made it difficult to manage. Both houses of parliament supported the government's desire to make the board more modern, flexible and agile by reducing the number of members.

The second proposed amendment required that three practising teachers be nominated to the board, one from each of the areas of early childhood, primary and secondary education. The petitioners objected to this proposal, as it would reduce the minimum number of teachers on the board from seven to three. The petitioners argued:

The current composition of the Board has ensured that high standards for professional practice and development are required for teachers to maintain registration. It has also ensured that decisions regarding competence are made by those who have an understanding of current teaching practice and the professional context in which teachers work.

The Minister for Education emphasised in this house that teacher representation on the board is 'critically important'. He explained that he expected that, in practice, there would be more than three teachers on the board.

The third proposed amendment to the composition of the board was to remove the power of teacher and education organisations to nominate board members. That power would instead be vested in the Minister for Education. The minister explained that this amendment aimed to ensure that members were appointed based on knowledge, skills and experience, rather than on the basis of nominations from particular stakeholders. The petitioners argued:

It is essential that the majority of Board members are nominated by teacher and education organisations, not hand-picked by the Minister of the day.

The committee heard evidence from the member for Wright, shadow minister for education, and received written evidence from the Minister for Education. The committee determined, based on this evidence, not to proceed with a call for public submissions in relation to the petition.

Both the Minister for Education and the member for Wright advised the committee that, through genuine collaboration and negotiation, they agreed on a number of amendments to the bill that achieve the outcomes sought by all participants in the parliamentary debate. The bill, as amended, passed both houses of parliament on 15 October 2020. The resulting Teachers Registration and Standards (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2020 will commence on 1 July 2021.

Consistent with the petitioners' requests, the amendment act provides that at least six members of the board will be practising teachers and at least half of the members will be registered teachers. The Australian Education Union will nominate four practising teachers and the Independent Education Union will nominate two. Although the number of members nominated by the unions will be reduced from seven to six, this number is proportionate with the reduction in the overall number of board members.

Contrary to the petitioners' request, the amendments to the act will remove the power of teacher employers and universities to directly nominate members to the board. However, the amendments will require the Minister for Education to call for expressions of interest for nominations. Representative bodies for employers of teachers and teacher educators will have an opportunity to put forward nominations for members and to make submissions in respect of nominations. The minister will also be required to ensure that the members of the board collectively have the knowledge, skills and experience in areas of teacher education and matters affecting employers of practising teachers.

Both the member for Wright and the Minister for Education advised the committee that, in their opinion, the amendment act adequately addressed the petitioners' concerns about the composition of the Teachers Registration Board. In his evidence before the committee, the member for Wright advised:

The chair's and registrar's main reasons for wanting to make change was that they felt the board was too big and unwieldy. I think what we have found here in the end is the capacity for the chair and the registrar to have smaller meetings but still maintain the representation from registered teachers on that board.

The minister, in his correspondence to the committee, commented:

The provisions in the Amendment Act that will modify the composition of the Board represent a sound compromise between the Government's position set out in the Bill introduced into Parliament and the petitioners' request that the current composition and nomination process for the Board is maintained.

In the committee's view, the petitioners' concerns were satisfactorily resolved by the amendments made to the bill and the subsequent enactment of the Teachers Registration and Standards (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2020. While the amendment act does alter the composition and nomination process of the Teachers Registration Board, the committee is satisfied that the political independence of the board remains intact. The committee made the following findings:

1. The Teachers Registration and Standards Act 2004, as amended by the Teachers Registration and Standards (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2020, will ensure that at least half of the members on the Teachers Registration Board will be practising teachers.

2. The amendments to the act will maintain the political independence of the Teachers Registration Board. The Australian Education Union and the Independent Education Union will continue to have power to nominate members to the board.

3. Under the amendments to the act, teacher and education organisations will be entitled to provide submissions to the Minister for Education, who must consider those submissions when nominating members to the Teachers Registration Board.

On 20 March 2019, in support of her successful efforts to have the Legislative Review Committee inquire into, consider and report on eligible petitions, the member for Florey said:

A petition…is the oldest and most direct way citizens can draw attention to a problem and ask parliament to act.

The petition has enabled the voices of concerned citizens to be heard by both the parliament and the government. As a result, the parties came together to negotiate a compromise position and amend the bill. In their evidence before the committee, both the member for Wright and the Minister for Education expressed their gratitude at the genuine and effective discussions and cooperation in coming to this agreement.

As a representative of the Legislative Review Committee in this place, I would like to thank the other members of the committee: the member for MacKillop and the member for Ramsay in this place and the Hon. Connie Bonaros and the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos in the other place. I would particularly like to acknowledge the presidency and leadership of our presiding officer, the Hon. Nicola Centofanti, in the other place. I would also like to thank former members of the committee who were involved in the work on this petition, they being the member for Heysen, your good self, sir, and also the members for Kavel and Narungga.

In addition, I would like to thank the committee secretary, Mr Matt Balfour, and research officer, Ms Maureen Affleck, for their assistance. I would also like to express the committee's gratitude to both the member for Wright and the Minister for Education for their contributions to the committee's inquiry into this petition.

Mr BOYER (Wright) (11:25): Can I begin by thanking the member for Flinders for his very gracious words; it is appreciated by those on this side. I also acknowledge the collaborative way in which the minister chose to work with me, as the shadow minister, at that stage a very new shadow minister for education. That was also appreciated. I think that that collaborative spirit helped us to arrive at a good outcome for all parties involved, which is a rare commodity in this place.

On that note, what started out as a potentially quite provocative amendment bill ultimately made its way through this place and the Legislative Review Committee to finish in a place where the majority of parties involved were satisfied with the outcome. Although I have not been a member of this place for particularly long, I have been a member long enough to know that is not something that happens too frequently. All the parties, many of whom the member for Flinders just thanked, should be commended for their role in making that happen.

That brings me to briefly add my own thanks to some of those parties, including the unions that were at the centre of some of the proposed changes here—the Australian Education Union and the Independent Education Union—who went to enormous efforts to rally their members and members of the teaching profession more generally to support the petition they put together calling on their representation on the Teachers Registration Board and the representation of practising teachers to be maintained.

I note that the final number of signatures on that petition was 11,606, I think, which is certainly an incredible effort at any given time. Taking into account the fact that these were collected largely during the peak of the COVID pandemic, the quite sensible restrictions in place prevented the collection of those signatures in the traditional way, which would maybe be out at a rally, sub-branch meeting or something of that nature, and a petition would be physically handed over for someone to sign. That was not able to happen, so the fact that those unions still managed to mobilise close to 12,000 signatories I think is a great reflection on their work and an indication of the level of support for maintaining that representation of both industrial representative bodies and practising teachers on the Teachers Registration Board.

In closing, I would just add that this was one of the first, if not the first, petitions to go to the Legislative Review Committee on the basis that it passed the threshold of 10,000 signatures, which I know is something that the member for Florey has pushed for a long time and has now been adopted. I got to see that up close for the first time and provided evidence to the committee, and I found that a very valuable process.

It has proved to be a very valuable addition to our parliamentary processes. Not only does it potentially have the ability to help the parties involved in whatever the proposed amendment is come to some kind of agreement but it also serves to empower and include members of the public in our parliamentary processes on another level, and that can only be a good thing. I thank all for their involvement and kind words. Let's hope that we can continue with this collaborative spirit on matters like this.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (11:29): I thank the member for Flinders for his presentation, which was erudite and comprehensive and I think covers the material of the inquiry very well, and I thank the member for Wright and join with him in commending the Legislative Review Committee for their work. I will speak briefly about the subject matter at hand and briefly about the process identified in relation to petitions.

The Teachers Registration Board reforms that the government sought were to significantly improve the operations of the Teachers Registration Board. Many of the reforms came about as a result of a significant level of community consultation, led by the Hon. Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, a former education minister from the Labor Party who was reappointed at least once under the Liberal government since our election as chair of the Teachers Registration Board. Many of those amendments came from that consultation, and, indeed, prior to that from suggestions made by the current Teachers Registration Board.

Of the matters where amendment was sought, one of the key matters was in relation to the composition of the board itself. The government had a view that we should move to a smaller, skills-focused board without any nominees directly from representative bodies but with those bodies having the opportunity to suggest nominations. The opposition's view, if I can characterise it, was to have a higher proportion of the board still retained as nominees of representative groups, and there were a number of other suggestions for how that board might be comprised.

Across the scope of the broad bill, the bill did significantly improve the operations of the board, and I think most people accept that. In relation to the composition of the board, the petition was certainly a demonstration of the membership of the two unions and the support they had for retaining the previous arrangements, and the numbers of their members who were signing up to that are perhaps not surprising from that point of view.

The opposition of the Labor Party was expected. They put their position clearly and eloquently, indeed, in the House of Assembly. Ultimately, in the upper house the Greens and SA-Best supported the Labor Party in those amendments and in some amendments went further. So the government was faced with a choice at that point of whether or not we proceeded with insisting on our proposition or accepted that the Legislative Council numbers suggested the majority of those members shared at least a strong part of the Labor Party's views.

As the member for Wright alluded to, I took the view that improvements to the bill which we could all agree on were too important to stand firm over the issues on which we disagreed. The member for Wright and the member for Port Adelaide, who for the first part of the discussion had been the shadow minister, were collaborative in discussing compromises, and I thank them for that. They, too, were willing to give some ground in what they had sought to come closer to the government's position, as, indeed, the government gave some ground to the Labor Party.

If I am completely candid I might say that I think the government potentially gave a little bit more ground than we asked in return because I was very eager to reach a speedy resolution so that the matters could be dealt with quickly. So I congratulate the member for Wright on achieving potentially a 55-45 outcome, arguably.

I am really pleased, however, that the compromise does indeed leave one key, core deliverable from my point of view. This was that in the identification of a skills-based board, which a majority of the board is at this point, we are not just refining the skills of the early childhood, primary and secondary teachers, which our amendments and this bill ensure—with those three cohorts all recognised for their own skills uniquely for the first time in the composition of the board—but we also have the capacity to appoint teachers who are not necessarily nominees of the representative groups.

When the bill comes into effect on 1 July, I look forward to seeing, hopefully with the Governor's consideration, potentially even a teacher who is not a union delegate who is able to join their colleagues who are union delegates alongside those other people who bring a range of skills and experiences that will serve the teachers of South Australia.

It is a reasonable compromise. It is a compromise that, as the member for Wright said, I think most people were able to be happy with. My key here is that we have improved the operations of the bill. We have served an outcome that serves the people of South Australia and, in this body, particularly because they are paying for this organisation, the teachers of South Australia whom the organisation serves.

I thank Jane Lomax-Smith and I thank Leonie Paulson—Jane is the chair of the board and Leonie Paulson is the Registrar of the Teachers Registration Board—for their support and assistance to me and, indeed, I am sure to the opposition and other minor parties who were interested in their views. They continue in that service.

As the member for Flinders and the member for Wright said, I think this is the first time that the new mechanism, enabled under the petitions legislation moved by the member for Florey, has come back to this place. I was the Manager of Government Business, the leader of the house, at the time the debate was happening. In discussions with the member for Florey and the Clerk about how this measure might be enacted, we were eager to ensure that, while giving voice and agency to petitioners, particularly those who had reached a threshold of 10,000 written signatures, which we felt was a reasonable demonstration of the interests of a wide range of constituents, that it nevertheless not be unduly disruptive to the house's considerations.

I recall the member for Florey being eager for the house to hear an explanation from the minister in relation to whatever matter was being raised. It was suggested that, if the review itself was done by the Legislative Review Committee, the committee's business time in the chamber would obviously be the orthodox and useful place for such consideration of that petition and the ensuing report to be considered.

While that standing order does not require the minister to provide a response, as the minister in this case I felt it important—even though the member for Flinders and the member for Wright were very comprehensive and accurate in everything they said—to set an example for future ministers who are being petitioned in this way to respond to the petition and respond to the reports. I thank the house for the eight minutes they have given me to do so.

For the member for Florey, I do not know if she is planning on continuing as the member for Florey after the next election, or if she alternatively proposes to retire from this place, but either way I think that this is a moment of reform she has been responsible for in the way we deal with petitions and I commend her for that.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:38): I would like to thank both the member for Wright and the Minister for Education for their contributions and the glowing way in which they both spoke about the committee and this entire process. I think it has been a great example of how parliament can work well and how our standing committees can add to the value of parliamentary debate, discussion and outcomes.

What we have managed to achieve here is a timely, effective and efficient outcome through the committee process and cooperation from all to a point. As negotiations should be, there is always a bit of give and take, and that is how negotiations are undertaken, but ultimately what was achieved was a position that was satisfactory to all parties. With that, I once again move that this report be noted.

Motion carried.