However, the decision to remove the amendment has caused tension within the coalition as Act and NZ First claim their party was behind the change. <\/p>\n
Shortly after Education Minister Erica Stanford confirmed the decision, Act released a statement heralding a \u201cmajor victory\u201d after Act MP Laura McClure had written to Stanford to warn of unforeseen consequences. <\/p>\n
\u201cDraconian new restrictions on homeschooling were a mistake, rushed into law at the last minute,\u201d Act leader David Seymour said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a victory for democracy, showing that people can be heard by politicians and change can result.\u201d <\/p>\n
NZ First leader Winston Peters meets with people concerned about an amendment relating to homeschooling laws. Photo \/ Adam Pearse<\/p>\n
NZ First met with Stanford late last night and through this morning to discuss the issue. <\/p>\n
Leader Winston Peters today claimed his party was the reason the Government had changed its position, describing Act\u2019s comments as \u201cpretentious mimicry\u201d. <\/p>\n
He argued it breached the coalition agreement, adding he felt National had made a similar breach regarding funding for the St John ambulance service.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the coalition agreement, it says that parties will respect those who\u2019ve made the contribution, so this is a breach of the coalition agreement in that context.\u201d <\/p>\n
The item Peters is referring to says: \u201cAlthough many policies may overlap, New Zealand First\u2019s policies outlined in this agreement will be promoted and acknowledged as New Zealand First\u2019s policy and contribution to the coalition Government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Policies relating to homeschooling are not explictly outlined in the National\/NZ First coalition agreement. <\/p>\n
When asked about potential tension between Act and NZ First over the matter, Seymour said: \u201cSuccess has many fathers, failure is an orphan.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he was surprised Peters had accused Act of breaching the coalition agreement. <\/p>\n
\u201cClearly this is a coalition government where all of us are responsible for all of the policies, and that\u2019s for good or for ill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should all be working together as a team, not trying to poke holes in each other\u2019s policies or jealously guard them either.\u201d<\/p>\n
National deputy leader Nicola Willis argued the St John funding proved the two parties worked well together. <\/p>\n
Stanford claimed the Government had \u201cheld hands\u201d on the change, acknowledging the consequences of the regulation hadn\u2019t been clear. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were additional complexities that we had not anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanford maintained an issue did exist within the homeschooling sector, which she described as having a \u201cvery high trust model\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we approve an application for someone to do homeschooling, we may well never see them again unless a concern is raised, which means that essentially there is extraordinarily limited oversight of the sector that is in contradiction to all of the countries we compare ourselves to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, the decision to remove the amendment has caused tension within the coalition as Act and NZ First…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4619,74,19064,29944,184458,11421,6120,2741,2562,7230,1888,96407,305,218465,3556,111,43,139,69,2954,29056,51721,30637,1529,8982,80],"class_list":["post-447132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-act","tag-after","tag-agreement","tag-alleging","tag-backdown","tag-breached","tag-breaching","tag-claim","tag-claims","tag-coalition","tag-first","tag-governing","tag-have","tag-homeschool","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parties","tag-proposed","tag-regarding","tag-regulations","tag-three","tag-victory","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}