Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill

Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) Link to this

I move, That the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I am very proud to be the sponsor of this bill. Since I became a member of Parliament in 2002, compulsory membership of students associations has been an issue. In fact, the issue goes back much further than that. When I did a quick search on the Internet I found media releases as far back as 2000 calling for voluntary student membership. I hope those who campaigned so hard then are listening today, because their efforts, their lobbying, and their campaigning have not been in vain.

This is the fourth bill on voluntary student membership to come before the House. It is not an issue that will go away, and only full voluntary membership of students associations will solve the principled human rights issues and practical accountability and responsibility issues that compulsory membership violate. These issues were all traversed in detail at the select committee hearings. I thank the Education and Science Committee for its hard work, and especially the leadership of chair Allan Peachey. I thank the officials to the committee, and especially those who took the time to make submissions both written and oral, and from both sides of the debate. Prebble’s Rebels, ACT on Campus, and Young Nats past and present deserve a huge thank you for keeping this issue alive over a large number of years. Their efforts and dedication to the cause are rewarded in this bill.

I also thank Sir Roger Douglas for his Midas touch in the drawing of members’ bills. Although this bill was originally drafted by me and put into the ballot in 2006, it was drawn out of the ballot in his name last year. He shepherded the bill through its first reading and the select committee hearings, and handed it back to me when I was no longer a Minister. An issue this important should not be left to the luck of the draw, but, fortunately, we got there in the end.

By the beginning of 2012 it will be illegal to compel students to join a students association in order for them to be allowed to study at a tertiary institution. That is called freedom of association, and is the principle my bill is based on. As a society, we prize freedom. Freedom means choice, and choice is the most fundamental principle of a free and democratic society. That is why the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 protects the rights of individuals to determine whom they associate with and which political ideas they associate with, and to do so without compulsion or undue influence.

Section 17 of the Act guarantees the right to freedom of association. Compulsory membership of students associations is simply not commensurate with that section. Over time, attempts to soften compulsory membership by introducing conscientious objection and referenda provisions have failed to resolve the major conflicts of compulsory membership with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the financial interests of students. It is extraordinary too that many years after trade union membership was made voluntary for workers, without the sky falling in, universities and polytechnics, seemingly bastions of freedom of thought, speech, and inquiry, have maintained compulsory membership of students associations. Now this relic of a bygone era is finally to be bid farewell.

A high level of accountability is essential with any form of public funds. However, students associations have consistently shown that they lack the accountability necessary to manage the sort and scale of funds that compulsory membership gives them. Lack of democratic accountability, in the form of low election turn-outs, means that democratic processes have failed to ensure that mainstream interests are represented. Likewise, poor financial accountability has been the norm rather than the exception. Often the only tangible checks and balances on an association’s expenditure is a treasurer’s report at executive meetings and a yearly audit. Too many of these audits show deeply worrying trends of financial mismanagement and fraud, and we do not have to look very far for the evidence. In 2003 the office manager of the Massey University Students Association was jailed for stealing $203,000 of students’ money. In 2005 the Victoria University of Wellington Māori Students’ Association treasurer was jailed for stealing $161,000. In 2007 the president of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association spent $22,000 on upgrading the association’s van, without authority. In 2009 the manager of the Christchurch Polytechnic Students’ Association was jailed for the theft of $175,000 of students’ money. Whitireia Polytechnic Students’ Association has allegedly lost $750,000 of students’ funds over several years.

These are just a few examples. Students who provided the funds for all of that did not get value for money, and they certainly did not when a Victoria University of Wellington Students Association official spent $6,000 of their money on calling a psychic hot line in 2007. I suspect that she did not get much value for it, either. For compulsory bodies with large-scale incomes, the current law represents a completely insufficient level of financial accountability. We will hear, no doubt, from Labour and the Greens today that my bill will be the death of student unions. They will cite the conscientious objection provision as a substitute for choice. But they will not say that it is virtually impossible to invoke it, because union officials have the power of yea or nay; mostly they opt for nay. They will tell us that referenda provisions mean that students determine their own destiny, but ignore the fact that a consistently low voter turn out at students association elections further emphasises the lack of representation of students’ views.

The thing that I find quite pathetically sad is the talk by the bill’s opponents of impending doom: the death of students associations. It is sad, because they have such little faith in what they themselves offer. This bill is not about killing off students associations; it is about empowering students and providing the incentives to deliver to students the services and facilities that they—not just a select few—want. One submitter summed it up this way: “A move to genuine voluntary membership (where you have to pay a fee to belong, and the student association is disadvantaged if it does not persuade you to join) will eventually result in student associations that are more accountable and responsive to their members, rather than treat them as ATM machines. They would focus on making sure the association provides benefits to members who join, that the advocacy is focused on issues of importance to their members, and that members are regularly engaged and communicated with.”

I fully support the free rights of students who choose to join a students association, and for that body to campaign and lobby, and to charge a membership fee. The rights of that association, however, should not extend to compelling others to join, charging them a levy, or actively misrepresenting them. The Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill will allow students to decide for themselves whether an association is a club that they want to belong to. It will align the rights of students with all other sectors of our society. Freedom of association means real choice. It means students will also have the freedom to dissociate. I thank those parties—National and United Future—that are supporting my bill tonight, and I commend this bill to the House.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) Link to this

It was a privilege that I enjoyed to chair the Education and Science Committee hearings into the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, and I notice in the gallery this evening a number of people whom I met during that process, arguing both in favour of and against the bill. I say to those people how much I enjoyed the meetings and discussions I had with them, and what a high level of respect I developed for their commitment and their ability to put their arguments in a reasonable and logical way.

Clearly, some of the submitters will be disappointed in the outcome. Of course, this was always going to come down to the view of National. ACT went into the hearings clearly very, very strongly in support of the bill, and obviously its opinion did not move. Labour and the Greens were equally adamantly against the bill, and did not move. But many of us were involved in resolving the balance between the right that students, like any other New Zealanders, have to freedom of association, against the benefits that were being argued to derive from compulsory membership of students associations.

I was quite intrigued by the argument put up that the best way to guarantee freedom of association was actually to maintain compulsory membership. It was a view for which I could not find any substance in political theory or in common sense, though I admired the effort that was being made to advance it. But at the end of the day the decision to support this measure comes down to the fact that those of us on this side of the House believe very, very strongly in freedom of association and individual responsibility. I have every confidence that the good students associations will not only survive but thrive. Some of the associations that I visited were in fact prosperous, successful businesses. They have the potential to remain prosperous, successful businesses. They will just have to operate in a different environment, and I wish them well in that endeavour.

I conclude by thanking all the members of the select committee for their contribution; the advisers, who were very patient and long-suffering; and all the submitters for their reasonableness, their consideration, and their thoughtfulness. I repeat what I have just said: it was a pleasure to get to know many of those young people. Thank you.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

Labour opposes the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, on the grounds that it will destroy students associations. It will destroy the representation, advocacy, and services that tertiary students have received from students associations for many years and, as a result, it will undermine the educational success and campus experience of many students. It is interesting to me that in her opening remarks, Heather Roy decided to congratulate and thank various members of ACT on Campus and the Young Nats. That really indicates where ACT is coming from on this bill. It is ideological. It is a straight-out ideological decision that they are making. It is actually a tribute to the success of students associations over the years, on issues like fees, loans, and allowances, that those on the far right of the political spectrum are so threatened that they will come back to this Parliament time and again to try to ruin those students associations.

But it is to the National members of this House that I will address my remarks now. Although perhaps many of the National members of this House share some of those ideological views, many of them do not, and I know that many of the National members who sat through the submissions were looking at this bill from a practical point of view. They were looking at this bill for what it will actually mean for the experience of students on campus. Anyone who sat through the submission process cannot have failed to realise the impact that this bill will have on the practical experience of students. We can take it from the individual case of the student from Hamilton, who lived in a flat that burnt down. His insurance company was going to do nothing to help him when the insurance company of the person who owned the flat was taking him to the cleaners. It was the intervention of the Waikato Student Union that enabled that student and his flatmate to continue being students at university. The student, who showed up and spoke to us via video conference at the select committee, made it clear that he was not a particularly ideological person. He was just a normal student—I think he was a science student actually—and he said that most of his friends had very little idea about the value of the student union until that day. But after that day they knew the value of the student union, because the student union at Waikato University made sure they could carry on studying. That is the kind of advocacy and representation that this bill will kill off.

But we can take that advice from a much higher level. Of the tertiary institutions that came to the select committee, all bar one, I think, said “Please do not pass this bill.” Those were the vice-chancellors and chief executives of the polytechnics and wānanga, and they said they valued what students associations did on their campuses. They valued the services, the representative function, and the advocacy that students associations provided. If Parliament passes this bill, those tertiary institutions told us, it would fundamentally undermine the campus experience, and the students associations’ role on campus. Those representatives of tertiary institutions were not great ideological radicals. They were people who were thinking about what worked practically on their campus.

If we must talk about dollars and cents to convince National, we heard about that too. The tertiary institutions know there is no way they can provide the services, representation, or advocacy as cost-effectively as students associations do. An excellent submission from the New Zealand University Students Association, drawing from work by PricewaterhouseCoopers, was able to show the dollar value of free student labour via students associations, and the cost-effectiveness of students association work, and what that meant. The tertiary institutions, under a funding squeeze from this Government, are looking at this legislation and saying that they will not be able to provide those services. Those tertiary institutions that know the value of students associations are saying to National “Do not pass this bill.”

But those practical implications seem to sail right over the heads of National members—except that they have not. National members know that people came to the select committee with ideas to improve the current law. Let us remember that we are not standing here tonight to debate a bill that will amend a Labour law. We are debating a bill that will amend a National law. The existing law is one that National passed, and it put in place a very good accountability mechanism, which stated that, if students wanted to they could have a referendum, if they could get 10 percent of students to agree about whether an association would be compulsory or voluntary. That choice for students is already in the law that National passed, yet tonight we have come here and National is supporting taking away that choice, overriding its own law because of the ACT Party’s ideological commitments, not because of the practicalities of what is good for students, or because of what tertiary institutions are saying to this Parliament that they want, but because National will support the ideological views of the ACT Party.

Students associations have been part of some of the main innovations on campuses in recent years, and going back 20, 30, and 40 years, through innovations such as Student Job Search and the New Zealand Uni Games. When we watch the Commonwealth Games we see people cycling around the tracks who owe the fact that they have got there to their involvement in university sport, supported by students associations. Student newspapers, student radio, and student health and counselling services are on campuses only because students associations have been there. Hardship funds, subsidised bus transport, and bookshops—you name it, students associations have been at the core of creating those services on campus, and tertiary institutions know they cannot do it.

At universities it may well be that students associations will survive, and obviously we have seen at Auckland University that they can survive, but what form do they survive in? They survive in the form that the tertiary institution is prepared to put up with. They do not survive in the form where students control student affairs. That is what happens now, but soon it will be up to the tertiary institutions. I remind Heather Roy that in 1994, I think, Michael Laws brought a bill to this Parliament to make student association voluntary. [Interruption] Earlier on, Ms Roy said that it was the year 2000 when she first noticed that legislation. One of the reasons Michael Laws’ bill did not pass was a strong campaign that said things such as “Do you want the vice-chancellor to choose the music for orientation?” That is the choice. It is about whether students want to hand over all of the student services to those tertiary institutions—and that is at the universities where they might survive. It is at the polytechnics that do not have the infrastructure and do not have the funding at an institutional level to keep those services going that students will suffer. Those polytechnic students associations will not be able to keep themselves going.

It is a bizarre belief that with the passing of this bill suddenly students associations will simply be able to carry on as they were, recruiting members, and everything will be fine. Students will be facing high fees at the start of a year—and under this bill we do not even know whether they will be able to use the student loan scheme to pay for their student association fees—and those students will be put off from enrolling, and once they are put off in that first year, it will be very hard to get them in the future. When we look across the Tasman, 72 percent of students associations had near-total or total cuts to services once the equivalent of this bill went through. We know what will happen to students associations, if this bill passes.

What really disturbs me is that there was an opportunity in this process for change to be made. There were good submissions that suggested, for instance, tidying up the questions surrounding conscientious objection, and looking at a better accountability mechanism. They are the issues that Heather Roy raised in her speech. Why did National members not pick up those ideas? They were on the table. We heard at the select committee some excellent submissions from people who said they wanted students associations to survive, not for an ideological reason, but for the practical benefits that they provide, but National members decided not to pick those up. That is a great shame, because it means National has simply bought into the ideologies of the ACT Party.

Labour has already stated in the minority report that if we are returned to Government we will repeal this legislation. We still have a chance in the remaining debates to stop this bill, and even to stop the worst effects of the bill. We have a Committee of the whole House stage, when there will be amendments. The National members who sat through the select committee process, and who heard about the value of students associations to individual students and to tertiary institutions, have the opportunity in the Committee of the whole House process to adopt some of those changes so that students associations can continue to provide the support, the advocacy, the representation, and the services that have made a fundamental difference to the lives of students for well over 100 years, in many cases. This is not just about universities. It is about polytechnics, and people who come into tertiary education without the awareness of everything that will happen to them. Those people become part of a community, and it is that community that students associations hold together.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) Link to this

It is a pleasure to speak during the second reading of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. I will make just one or two simple points. Whole blocks of the tertiary sector, both polytechnics and universities, currently have voluntary student membership, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the outcomes of those voluntary student membership arrangements have lowered academic achievement. I put it on record that I am not against students associations, but I am against compulsion and actions that take away freedom of choice from individuals. I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

I personally find the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill an odious piece of legislation, and I say that for two reasons. One is because I think it risks ripping the life, soul, and vitality out of many of our tertiary institutions. I am talking not about the great big ones such as Auckland University, which has enough funding with which to continue providing services by itself, but about the smaller ones that depend so much on the student services that are provided by student unions.

The other aspect I find odious is that we could have got legislation that worked. We and National could have worked together to develop legislation that protected the student unions but also, in a sense, given a nod to the freedom of choice that members opposite are so absolutely keen to bang on about tonight. That possibility was sunk by the actions of ACT at that time, and I will get to that in a minute.

I benefited from the students union when I was at university, not only because of the fees that I paid but also because of the fees that were paid by those students who had gone before me. So I enjoyed the university gym, I enjoyed the student newspaper, I enjoyed the health services, and I enjoyed the ability to have really good advocacy on campus—all of those things that go into making up a university life. This is about the richness of university life. It is ironic that some of those very people supporting this bill were involved in student politics; Hekia Parata, for example, was involved in senior student politics, and Steven Joyce cut his teeth on student radio before going on to make millions out of radio stations elsewhere. Those members began in the students union.

The argument that making students unions and students associations voluntary will not affect those unions is absolutely false. One needs only to look at Australia’s experience, and I will read from the very good report that the Australian National Union of Students put out. They appeared before us in the Education and Science Committee, as well. I quote: “the idea that voluntary membership legislation will lead to self-funded voluntary student organisations that can maintain a comprehensive range of campus life, student support and representative functions has proven to be fallacious. Even the strongest organisations, such as the Western Australian Guilds, still require university funding and are drawing on historic reserves. The actual outcomes since the passage of the Australian VSU legislation fall into three broad categories: General collapse of student campus life, support structures and representative functions, University takeover of major service providers and subsidised from university revenue …, [and] University funding to maintain comprehensive student service and representative bodies through a service level contract …”. In other words, the legislation took away student ownership of these services and pushed the ownership of the services to the university itself. It did not save any more money, because the university itself now has to subsidise the very services that—

GARETH HUGHES (Green) Link to this

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Green Party can see no justification for the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, and we agree with the majority of the submitters that the likely outcome of this bill will be damaging to our tertiary education sector. This bill takes us backwards. This bill is an ideological problem in search of a solution. Impacts on students, on the sector, and on the economy will be severe.

With very minimal student or institutional demand, this bill will damage students. There has been hardly any demand from any students, whatsoever. We heard from a tiny ideological minority, who could not convince other students—their colleagues and their peers—through the current arrangement, which is a petition or referendum. So that minority has used the ACT Party to use National as a vehicle to achieve its minority ideological interests.

We will be voting against this bill because of what is in this bill, but also because of what is not in its explanatory statement. We believe that the underlying objective of this bill is to weaken students associations and to undermine their membership and financial viability, and in doing so to reduce student democracy, student participation, and a student voice on university and polytechnic boards.

This bill also serves another purpose, which is a smokescreen—a smokescreen to cover the other changes in the sector. This Government has made studying less accessible, less affordable, and in some cases downright impossible, as it has shut the door to students who have the grades and the money to study. Surely, when facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, we want more people to become skilled and we want more people with qualifications. But this Government is cutting tertiary education funds and making tertiary education less accessible, less affordable, and in some cases downright impossible.

This bill is convenient in the short term, because students’ attention—rightly so—has been focused on protecting their existence. The bill is convenient to the Government in the long term, because it will reduce students’ organisation and ability to critique Government policy. The irony of this bill is that it will take away the right of students to choose the membership system that is best for them. It will take away the compromise agreement reached in 2001, which let students choose whether they wanted to have voluntary or universal union membership, via a petition and a referendum.

The bill aims to uphold a very debatable, very controversial interpretation of the right to freedom of association. The majority of students associations operate under a compulsory membership model, whereby students can—but we heard that only a tiny, tiny fraction actually do—choose to opt out of their student association membership. If there has been a problem to be fixed, then surely it could have been fixed by simply making that opt-out provision clearer, more accessible, and easier to understand. If there has been a problem with corruption and misspending, then we could have dealt with that. If there has been a problem with bad decision-making, then we could have dealt with that. This has been a massive missed opportunity, which is something that, frankly, occurs all too much in this House, as well. The tragedy is that we could have tweaked the system, but instead we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

It was a privilege to sit with the other members on the Education and Science Committee, and I acknowledge the other members, because they went into the process with a real sense of what I thought was critical engagement. There were some good questions. We heard from some 180 oral submitters and received more than 4,800 written submissions. About 98 percent of the submissions were opposed to the bill.

We heard from a tiny and ideological minority who supported the bill. The presented a grim economic view of the university as being simply a place where students go to maximise their employment outcomes—where students go to sit, to listen, and to go home again. They presented us with a university without the people, without the culture, and without an atmosphere.

We heard also from students associations, institutions, and city officials. We heard from cultural clubs, sporting clubs, and support networks. We heard from a broad range of people. We did not hear from student radicals or students alone; we heard from real people with real concerns about this bill, which have unfortunately been ignored. The overwhelming majority of the submissions opposed the bill and cited the considerable expected negative impact on students associations’ ability to effectively deliver services, advocacy, and representation. Tertiary education providers will not be able to provide those services with the same level of skills and of cost, and, in light of current budgetary constraints, they will not do as good a job in providing them.

We heard from students that they do not have $100 or $200 burning a hole in the pocket at the beginning of the year to join a voluntary association. Students, especially in their first year, do not know what to expect. They do not know what they will need down the line, and they already have to outlay thousands of dollars on books, bonds, and rent.

I ask the National members on the select committee what they told their caucus. I ask them why they could not convince their caucus to oppose this bill for the practical reasons we have discussed tonight. Or did the Minister for Tertiary Education decide? I ask whether the Minister said that they had to support, as a smokescreen, this bill to reduce representation. The options that students associations have now are to slash services, sell assets, or sign service agreements with the institutions.

We heard from university associations like the one at Waikato, which went down the path of having a voluntary model. It told us that it has been spending the last 10 years recovering from the lean years under a voluntary student membership. We heard about the assets that were flogged off after being built up over decades by the student body.

This bill will mean that across the country we will see the slashing of services. We will see the slashing of university sport, which will lead to fewer Olympians. We will see cuts made to magazines, radio, legal advice, and welfare, and to minority groups like UniQ, Pasifika groups, cultural clubs, and groups supporting sexual abuse survivors. This bill will impact on students. It will impact on their pass rates at the same time the Government is making tertiary success one of its priorities. The bill will affect students’ advocacy and representation.

Tonight National members have said that we are fearmongering and spreading doom and gloom, but we are not talking just about predictions. Across the ditch, there was an experiment. When Australians introduced this legislation in 2005, it was found that it was a catastrophe, and that is why they are undoing it now. That is why they are undoing it now, and the Australian Government has had to stump up with $120 million. Across the ditch we saw them sell off assets, and that is what will happen here as this bill proceeds. Those assets have been built up by students, who have slowly squirreled away a tiny amount of money every year to build up their asset base. But those assets will be flogged off.

We will see service agreements being signed by tertiary education institutions with students associations. We heard from institutions from across the country—from polytechs and universities—that they appreciate the work and the support of students associations, and often they will sign a contract with them. In Auckland, which is the only university at the moment with a voluntary student membership model, we heard from the president, who said that the association survives despite—not because of—voluntary student membership. But we heard that the association’s independence has been irredeemably compromised. The university has already used the threat of pulling the funding to the association to keep it under the university’s thumb, and to make sure that the association does what it wants.

A key question for the Minister for Tertiary Education now is whether he will cap student levy funding, and whether he will further weaken students associations. I ask the Minister how much money has been put aside for the transition, and whether that discussion has even been had. The irony of this bill is that the services still have to go on. Someone has to provide them, but they will happen without students having a say—without their representation.

We agree with the submitters’ concerns that the impact on student association membership and funding levels will be catastrophic. It will have long-term impacts for our universities, our economy, and our democracy. We are sowing massive uncertainty in student bodies for next year and the year after. How will people join their students associations? Will they do it at the beginning of the year? Will they need ID? Can they put the fee on their student loans, and pay only once at enrolment time? None of these questions have been dealt with.

Probably one of the biggest costs of the process over the last few months has been the opportunity cost. We could have done good work. We could have made the great work that the associations do, better. We could have worked out the opt-out provision clause. We could have made provisions on the better use, better accountability, and transparency of student money in decision making. We have heard about a whole bunch of new tools that we could be using to encourage democratic participation. But instead, why are we doing this? We are doing this not to save money, and not to make a university a nicer place, a better place, or to get more pass rates for our students. What we have is a thinly veiled effort to establish a way to shut down youth voices, youth representation, student voices, and student services, and to make being a student in New Zealand just a little bit harder.

I thank all the submitters, who did great work throughout the long but very interesting submission process. I thank them for the hours of work that went into it, but I lament all the other things the Government has been doing that students could have been campaigning on this year. In summary, I support the right of students to choose the system that works best for them, and not what the ACT Party says is best for them.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this

Every once in a while a debate occurs in this House in which key concepts emerge that are crucial to the expression of the democratic process. The Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is one of those opportunities. It is a chance to revisit the theories around the very nature of democracy, the enactment of universal freedoms, and the notion of political participation. The title of the bill prompts us to consider the notion of freedom and where it fits, in this case in tertiary education institutions. It asks us to consider the place of freedom within a democracy, such as freedom of speech, press, religion, or association, and how government properly respects such freedoms. It seeks public response to this issue.

I come to this bill mindful of a political sideshow that has been capturing the interests of the media over the last week. Last Tuesday a rookie MP from the ACT Party used her maiden speech to call for a reduced emphasis on government and a call for simpler legislation. She then proceeded to contradict those two core principles by demanding from Government an immediate assurance that it would insert the word “free” into the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. Notwithstanding the obvious oxymoron of juxtaposing the word “free” alongside the word “public”, the maiden-day initiative was an appalling attack on the parliamentary process. In demanding an amendment to a bill that has only just entered the select committee phase, the new MP chose to override the vital role that the public play in commenting on legislation. It is exactly this same attack that continues unabated in the debate on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill.

I want to make it absolutely clear that the parliamentary process is intricately tied to the notion of the people’s voice. It is the opportunity for the citizenship to have their say and express their views about any legislation before the House, and we must protect that right as a basic axiom of democracy. For example, the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill is at the very starting point of the select committee process. It is an opportunity for the select committee to call for public submissions, to hear evidence on those submissions, and subsequently to recommend amendments to the House. It should not be overridden by any politician or any political party. For the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, the select committee process was absolutely fundamental to how we should perceive the significance of the proposals debated tonight. I ask why we should set ourselves a lesser target for the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. We must resist at every opportunity political parties that seek to override the democratic process and interfere with the parliamentary process.

People have spoken with a clear voice of opposition to the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. There were 4,837 submissions, and 98 percent of them opposed the bill. Let me share some of the voices of the people with the House. Towards the southern end of my electorate of Te Tai Tonga, Te Roopu Whai Pūtake, the Otago University Māori Law Students Association, opposed the bill on the basis that it “attacks the Māori student voice and their ability to have democratically elected collective organisations on campus by removing the existing right of students to determine how to organise themselves.”

In the centre region of Te Tai Tonga, the Ngai Tahu Maori Law Centre opposed the bill, promoting support for students associations and noting particularly that Māori student rōpū had an understanding of and facilitate te ao and tikanga Māori.

For the sake of completeness, at the northern end of my electorate, Ngāi Tauira, the Victoria University of Wellington Māori Students’ Association, also opposed the bill, stating: “It is our belief that until Māori become a normal feature of the tertiary environment, then Māori students associations will be necessary to ensure equity and support of our students in the tertiary environment.”

As the member for Te Tai Tonga, I have to say that those three organisations alone provide a compelling case for opposing the bill. But the Māori Party extends past the boundaries of Te Tai Tonga of course, so, just for the record, I have reviewed the evidence from across other electorates as well. Te Mana Mātauranga o Te Waiariki opposed this bill, declaring: “We believe that this bill is unnecessary, as the status quo works.”

In the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate, views were just as strongly held. Ngā Tauira Māori, the Auckland University Māori Students Association, opposed this bill, noting that “The bill adversely affects the ability of Ngā Tauira Māori to exercise tino rangatiratanga, kaitiakitanga, and manaakitanga, which are guaranteed in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

The advice of Te Mana Ākonga, the National Māori Tertiary Students Association, was: “In our extensive consultation with Māori over this particular issue, it has become abundantly clear that iwi support Māori student rōpū on campus.”

A worrying comment has appeared in some of the contributions of members that might imply that a considerable number of the 4,837 submissions received were of a pro forma template nature. I want to share the words of the people as they appeared before the Education and Science Committee, because it provides such a clear picture that the majority of an overwhelming number of submissions opposed the bill. The reality is that there is a need for students associations—a fact emphasised to the committee by John Kīngi, a welfare officer for the Auckland University Students Association. He opposed the bill, saying: “Often times we are forced to turn away students who may require some assistance as we simply do not have the capacity that universal associations do to meet the demands of students.”

Finally, I return to the notions of democracy and freedom that I spoke of earlier. Benjamin Franklin once said: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.” We must not allow the democratic process to be manipulated so that the lamb does not even get to have a say and the wolves determine what is on the menu, with no regard for the voice of the people.

The people have spoken with one voice on this bill. The Māori Party will stand with Te Mana Ākonga, the National Māori Tertiary Students Association; Te Mana Mātauranga; Te Tapuwae o Rēhua research centre; Ngai Tahu Maori Law Centre; Te Hunga Roia Māori o Aotearoa; Te Toi Tauira mo te Matariki, the national forum for supporting Māori students and staff in tertiary education; Te Rōpū Takawaenga Māori o Ngā Kura Mātauranga o Aotearoa, the Māori Liaison Tertiary Association of New Zealand; Te Toi Ahurangi, komiti Māori within the Tertiary Education Union; and Te Kāhui Amokura, the Māori committee of the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors Committee, amongst a cast of thousands who petitioned Parliament to throw out this bill.

We support the position of students that the legislative framework allows students themselves to be the collective decision-makers on whether their associations should be voluntary or compulsory, as well as enabling choice regarding their individual membership of an association. We value students associations and their representatives, including Māori student rōpū and their representatives, in playing a strong advocacy role within tertiary institutions and the wider sector for high-quality academic standards, adequate Government investment, and course fee maintenance or reductions.

Students associations also provide a range of important services to students, like welfare and academic advocacy, faculty and class representatives, financial assistance, legal help, counselling services, student social events, student clubs, student societies, and student sports and recreation facilities. In effect, if this bill goes through tonight, it will kill student associations. That will be the practical effect of this bill.

I was interested to hear the ACT member cite one reason for destroying student unions being the fact that some people and some student unions have misused student money. If that reasoning was carried across into other areas, then the ACT Party should be destroyed because its leader misused taxpayer money repeatedly. Companies should be destroyed because some company directors have committed fraud. We have to be consistent, so that is the effect, and that is what we should be doing

As a student I benefited from student unions; so has my husband and our children. Students associations have improved the lives of students—no argument. For all of the reasons I have outlined, we stand with the associations to oppose this bill.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) Link to this

I am dismayed that I have to take a call on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. This bill should not be before Parliament; we should not be dealing with it. I am very interested to know what John Key would have to say about this bill if he had the time to come to the House and take a call on it. The reason why I wonder that is that John Key is a pragmatist. He has built his reputation on being a pragmatic chap who does what is necessary and what is right, and he is open to anything that works. If ever there was a time or a need for pragmatism, this is it.

This is not a pragmatic bill; it is ideology, pure and simple. It was introduced to the House by one ideologue, who I do not think was particularly interested in it, and then it went back to the original drafter of the bill, another ideologue, who is not representing the voice of students. We have not had a great outpouring from university and polytechnic students crying for this bill to be put through the House. This is a sop from the Government to its minority support partner and to the tiny number of students who belong to ACT on Campus—I think the entire number of them are in the Speaker’s gallery this evening.

How will a new student respond to the environment of a voluntary students association? That is the question we really need to think about. What will this mean in practical terms for students? New students arrive at university, and they are hit with a bill before they even arrive there. Part of that bill may be an option that they may or may not want to take up: their students association levy. They have no idea what the students association is. They have course fees, they have living costs, and they will probably have to borrow against their loan for living costs. They are facing years and years of debt. They will try to find any possible way to keep down that debt. They have no idea what the students association does, because the students association does not have the resources to market to potential students use, and should not be wasting its resources on that.

We will see students who have no idea about what choice they are making. They will have no idea. They will not be making an informed choice. They will turn down that option, and students associations will find it very, very hard to recruit new members before they have even had the chance to go to them and tell them what services they provide. This is the death of students associations. It is the death of organisations that provide a vital service in universities.

Even the tertiary institutes, the universities and the polytechnics, hate this bill. They do not want this bill. They are opposed to this bill. They value what students associations bring to the tertiary environment. They do not just value it; they see the services that the students associations provide as absolutely necessary—so necessary that the universities will step in and replace some of those services if the students association folds. That is very noble of the universities, but it presents a number of problems.

First, in most practical terms, are the costs for students. Students—who are already facing massive costs, who have a lower potential to earn, and who have low incomes—will be hit by a higher cost. They might be able to turn down the students association fee, but they will get a much, much higher student services fee because the university will have to step in. It will have to step in to make sure that students have representation and advocacy. Many students associations support the health care services on campus; a university will have to step in and do that. A students association can do it for a lot less than a university can, because it relies on a volunteer base and on people who are paid a lower income because they appreciate the experience that they get from working at a students association. The university will not be able to do that. It will have to pay a proper wage, and that will drive up those costs.

Second, students will have no say on the setting of that levy and on how that levy is spent. I know that not too many students bother to make it to their annual general meetings, but they have that option available to them now. They can have a say on how that money is spent. That say will be taken away from them when the university has to take over running those student services. So students will not only have to spend more, they will have their rights and their say on how their money is spent taken away from them. All of that is for choice and freedom of association! What ideological claptrap we are hearing from the ACT Party.

The other problem with the university taking over is that it presents it with a massive conflict of interest. The advocacy services and the representation that students associations provide are absolutely vital. If students find themselves in a disciplinary process up against the academic council, or any of those sorts of processes, they will need representation. Who does that work at the moment? The students association does it. It is a free service that is provided to its members. The university or the polytechnic will have to step in. That presents a massive conflict of interest, because not only will they be providing the advocacy for those students but they will be the other party in the disciplinary process. Students associations are completely independent and that independence brings a robustness to those processes that will be completely lost if this bill goes ahead.

It is ideological claptrap—nothing more, nothing less. The National Party has bent over backwards to let the ACT Party have its say. Let us be honest: it is to restore a little bit of mana for Heather Roy within the ACT Party. That is what this bill is all about.

Where are the pragmatic amendments? The National Party says it is a party of pragmatism under the “Lone Ranger”, John Key. Maybe that is the problem. John Key is the pragmatist but everybody else is not, and they actually favour this ideological approach. Where are the amendments? Submitters who came to the Education and Science Committee and spoke against the bill offered up a number of amendments that would have lightened the touch of the bill a little bit and made it a little more sensible. They would have made it a little bit more usable and it would not have had that same kill-off aspect that it does for certain associations at the moment. They offered up ways of introducing more accountability and transparency. They offered up options for clarifying objection to membership. Where are the amendments that could have been offered up by the select committee? Where is the pragmatism? What happened to those very sensible ideas that were promoted by people who submitted on the bill?

The committee received 4,837 submissions and 98 percent were opposed. I would have thought that John Key would come down to the Chamber, stick his finger in the wind, and say: “Do you know what? The political winds are blowing against us here, chaps. I think we’d probably better get onside with the students.” But no, the pragmatic National Party is bending over for the ideological ACT Party.

What is the sum total of this bill? It will increase costs for students. That is about it. It will take away their voice. It will take away their ability to group together collectively and to have a voice in Government decisions that affect them. It will take away their advocacy services. It will take away some of the fundamentals that students hold dear, such as their ability to go to events at a reasonable price, the ability to use the gym at a reasonable price, and the ability to use student clubs and societies, sports, drama, and debating clubs. Those will all be gone. So too will counselling services, legal help, and financial assistance. It is true. I am a former students association president and I really appreciated the ability to support students in hardship. That service is under threat, thanks to this bill, promoted by the ACT Party and the National Party.

Labour has a very clear position on this bill, and I will spell it out. The only sensible part of this bill is that it will not be enacted until the beginning of 2012, which is after the next general election. If Labour is in Government then, we will repeal this legislation. We will be on the side of students. We will be the people of pragmatism and common sense, which is sorely lacking from the Government with this absolutely ridiculous bill. This bill is a fundamental attack on students’ rights.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

I seek leave of the House to table the constitution and rules of the Otago University Students’ Association, including section 5 on the question of membership and the ability to object to membership.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this

It has been disappointing that the National Government, which is breaking one of its election promises by supporting this legislation, does not feel that it should be making speeches longer than 20 seconds.