School board eligibility unlikely to change

Press, 5 April 1989, Page 8

School board eligibility unlikely to change

PA Wellington Legislation preventing some non-New Zealand citizens from standing on the new school boards of trustees will not be changed before the board elections, the office of the Minister of Education, Mr Lange, said yesterday. The office and the Education Department have been deluged with inquiries after the “loophole” in the school board of trustees legislation was made public. .

Parents who are not New Zealand or Commonwealth citizens are ineligible to stand in board of trustee elections. This is because the Schools Trustees Act which establishes the boards makes ineligible people disqualified under a section of the Local Elections and Polls Act,

1976. On Monday the department said the clause meant people eligible to stand for election had to be citizens of New Zealand, the Commonwealth, or Commonwealth protectorates, provided they were enrolled on a local body electoral roll in October 1982 when the 1976 act was amended.

People who were not in those categories could vote but could not stand for election. Nor could they be co-opted on to the boards.

This was not explained in information that went to school returning officers for the school elections, or in the extensive advertising the department had done. A spokesman for Mr Lange said the legislation was drawn up to put board elections in line

with local body elections. It had been intentional to leave out non-New Zealand and non-Com-monwealth citizens, but Mr Lange had admitted the regulation had caused some unexpected problems, the spokesman said. There was no chance of changing the legislation in time for these elections, with nominations closing on Friday. The regulation cuts out Americans, Europeans, refugee groups and others from outside the Commonwealth, as well as people in the eligible group who arrived after’ 1982. Pacific Island countries such as Western Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu are in the Commonwealth and so these parents are entitled to stand, but those from Fiji and Nuie are not.