Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

I am happy to take a brief call on clause 9 of this bill. It is the last clause to be debated in the Committee stage before the bill is up for its third reading, presumably on the next sitting day. Clause 9 is a transitional provision. In the view of the Opposition, it raises questions around the date that this legislation will come into force.

When we first debated the commencement clause of this bill some months ago, it was quite conceivable, had it been passed at that time, that the bill could be implemented without causing any difficulty to the institutions involved. We are now into September. Many of the institutions will have set their tuition fees for the coming year and will have begun to enrol students. Many more students will be covered by this transition clause than would have been had this bill passed earlier in the year. Many, many more students will be in programmes that will be ongoing past the commencement date of this bill than would have been had it been passed when we debated the commencement clause. Therefore, it is actually quite legitimate, I think, to ask whether the commencement of this bill should be delayed.

As I said, many of the institutions will already have set their tuition fees and begun enrolling students for next year, and we think it would therefore be reasonable to delay commencement of this bill overall until the beginning of January 2013. It is a logistical nightmare for some of the institutions to try to change their procedures at this late stage in the proceedings. I accept, of course, that the bill has taken as long as this to get to this stage because we, the Opposition, have over the last few months been fully arguing this bill and other bills that have come before it on the Order Paper.

It looks like this bill will pass before the election. Therefore, I think it is legitimate to ask whether this transition clause should be expanded, or whether the Committee could potentially go back and reconsider the commencement date for the bill. This transition clause will probably be insufficient to meet the challenges that are posed by the passage of this bill at this late stage in the year, when students have already begun enrolling for their studies.

Also, of course, there is the question of how long it will take the institutions to put alternative systems in place. They will have to put systems in place for student representation on their governing bodies, for example, which is currently covered under the law by the students associations. Universities, polytechnics, and institutes of technology will need to put alternative systems in place for those matters from next year. And, of course, they are coming up to exam time and a time when many students will not be in the institutions. Is it therefore feasible for them to put those things in place in time for a commencement date of 1 January 2012? I argue quite strongly that it is not.

Therefore, the transitional provisions currently provided in the bill are insufficient if this bill is to be passed, and it will be, judging by the number of votes that have gone through so far. Despite National promising before the election not to vote for the bill, National has, in fact, been voting for it all the way through. This makes it more likely that this bill will pass into law before the election, despite National not having sought a mandate for it. National claims that it seeks a mandate when it changes its policies. Well, it changed its policy on this matter, but it does not seem to think it needs to go back to the electorate for a mandate on this particular legislation, unlike some of the other things that it claims to be seeking a mandate for. That is another example of National implementing policies without seeking a mandate, despite claiming that it intends to do so. Therefore, I think it is quite reasonable for us to go back and consider whether this transition clause should be expanded.

It simply will not be feasible to implement this legislation prior to 1 January next year. It will be a nightmare for the institutions to implement. It will be difficult even for the students associations to establish alternative systems for signing up students as members and making sure that many of the valuable services that they currently provide are catered for in a voluntary membership environment.

I ask the Committee to reconsider whether this transitional clause is sufficient and whether we should go back and reconsider the commencement clause and extend the date for the commencement of this bill by a further year. We first considered the commencement clause, as I said, some months ago—some months ago. A lot has changed in that period of time.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

Just to pick up where Mr Hipkins left off, I say that it is quite clear to me that the transitional provision in the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is not adequate. It is not adequate, for two main reasons. One of them is the one Mr Hipkins has raised—that is, that we are now here in this Chamber in September looking at passing this bill. I acknowledge that this side of the Committee has strongly opposed this bill, and we stand by that opposition. But if members on the other side of the Committee are true to their word that their goal here is not to destroy students associations, then they will accept a change to these transitional provisions that would allow for a longer period before this law came into force. The truth is that students associations, and certainly those in the university environment, will now need to negotiate with institutions in relation to which services will be provided.

Institutions themselves are concerned about this. Members should bear in mind that all bar one of the polytechnics, all of the universities, and all bar one of the wānanga came to the Education and Science Committee and said: “Please don’t pass this legislation.” This legislation is actually opposed by the institutions because they know about the value of the work that students associations do. Institutions are now being placed in a position of having to negotiate—or not—with the students associations about the services that will be provided. We know from around the country that institutions are struggling with this. Students associations are not able to engage with them in the way they would like, we are heading towards the exam period, and it is getting towards the end of the year. The transitional provisions need to be updated to take into account where we are in the year and how long it has taken to complete this debate. As I say, members on this side of the Committee fully accept that we have been part of trying to vigorously oppose this legislation. But if the members on the other side of the Committee are true to what they said to submitters in the select committee in the public sessions, and if they are true to what they have previously said about students associations, they will change the date this bill comes into force.

Unfortunately, they are sitting there in silence, having listened to the submissions in the committee. At the end of that process the National members knew that this bill was wrong. It was unworkable, it would undermine the services that students got, it would undermine the advocacy that students got, and it would undermine the educational experience of students. They all knew that—the National members of the committee—and there were possibilities for compromise. It seems it is now too late for some of those compromises to be put back on the table, but one thing members on the other side of the Committee can do is think about when this bill comes into force, and about the students who will be coming in on 1 January 2012 who are not already enrolled and covered under this transition provision. They can think about those students, they can think about the institutions that are trying to organise which services are going to be provided, and they can create a transitional provision that actually acknowledges the reality of where we are.

If members on the other side of the Committee do not do that, then it calls into question everything they have said about their belief that students associations do valuable things and provide important services. It undermines that, and it aligns those members with the ACT Party’s ideological opposition to students associations. That is what has driven this—the views of a small number of students who could not even get the 10 percent of students required to run a referendum. The ideological views of the ACT Party tail are wagging the National dog again. Members on the other side of the Committee have the ability to ensure that this bill does not come into force on 1 January 2012, and that there is a proper transitional provision put in place that will actually facilitate a smoother transition to what we on this side of the Committee continue to believe is wrong. We continue to believe it is the wrong thing to do for students and for tertiary institutions. But if members on the other side of the Committee are so determined to push this bill though, then at the very least they should put in place a transitional provision that actually gives some time to those institutions and to those students to adjust to a new reality. The truth is that if the bill is rammed through in the form it is now, it will cause significant upheaval, services will be lost, 75 percent—

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

I would like to follow on from what Grant Robertson was arguing, and it is about something that students associations have mentioned to me in a number of meetings I have had with them over the last few weeks. They are concerned about the transitional arrangements that are to take place as a result of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill coming into force. Unfortunately, it looks as though it will, even though we have tried the best we can to argue against it and debate that.

We have met with both National and Heather Roy herself to look at a compromise alternative that might have actually been able to get through. That alternative could have enabled this legislation to get through with an opt-out clause—an opt-out clause that would mean that students who were signed up to a students association would, in the first month of signing up, be able to get out of it, pretty much as we currently do with KiwiSaver. We believe—and the students associations do as well, because they announced this in a press release a few weeks ago—that in fact this opt-out clause would enable us to do two things. Those with a pathological dislike of students associations who do not want to be part of one could get out of it, yet the legislation would not undermine and gut students associations, which we know has happened in every other jurisdiction where legislation has done the same thing as is proposed here to students associations. In those places that legislation has meant that the students associations are undermined.

But, unfortunately, that compromise and those discussions collapsed when ACT realised that it could possibly get the bill through the House before the end of the year. I think that is a real shame, because what we would have had was legislation that had some durability. It could have continued on without becoming a legislative ping-pong game between different Governments, as they come and go out of power.

Having said that, I do think there are some real issues around the transitional arrangements mentioned in clause 9. There is one thing I would not mind some elucidation on. Now, as we all know, many students join an organisation or an institution halfway through the year; with the semester system people do not always join at the beginning of the year. If people join halfway through the year under the current regime and suddenly on 1 January they shift to a different regime, according to this legislation—as I understand it, anyway—those people would stay part of the students association, having paid their full entitlement for the course of a year. This is the question: should they be eligible for a pro rata refund should they decide to opt out of that students association because they do not want to be part of it? That is a legitimate question. I am not sure whether that is completely covered in the transitional arrangements, but it is one of the questions that will arise, I think, should this legislation come into force on 1 January 2012. Clause 9 alludes to a number of transitional arrangements, but, perhaps, does not fully cover them as a result of the way that the legislation is written at the moment.

The second point regarding clause 9 that I want to raise is about the implications of the Education Amendment Bill (No 4), which passed into law a few weeks ago. As we know, as part of that legislation our students associations will have to sit down with universities to look at any increase in levies. I submit that if this bill goes through and it goes through on 1 January 2012, a number of students associations will basically fall over, and some of the services that some of them are currently providing will not be able to continue to exist, simply because the finances for those services—be they counselling or medical or sporting or—

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this

The Green Party would strongly support the proposal by Labour to amend the transitional provision. We agree wholeheartedly that it is absurd to have this Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill come into effect on 1 January next year, and that a much longer transitional period will be needed if there is to be a smooth transition once this rather unfortunate bill passes in this Parliament. As previous speakers have said, there is no question that some of the services will fall over. The universities are very worried about trying to negotiate and take over some of the services from the students associations. There is a huge amount of work to be done and it is completely unrealistic to expect it to be done by 1 January next year. Therefore, we need to change the transitional provision.

One of the Labour speakers said that if the intention of this bill was not to destroy students associations, then the Government would readily agree to amend the transitional provision. Unfortunately, I am afraid that that is the ambition not just of the ACT Party but, indeed, of the Government, and that is what this bill is about—destroying students associations in New Zealand. As we said in our Green Party minority review, undermining the membership and financial viability of students associations will reduce student democracy, reduce student participation, and reduce students’ voices on university and polytechnic boards. Let us be absolutely clear that that is what this bill is about. It is about trying to destroy student democracy, student participation, and the student voice.

Like many people in this House, I was on a student executive—the Victoria University student executive—and that was a very radicalising, positive political experience for me. That radicalised me. I participated fresh from a private school for young ladies. I found myself on a student executive, and it radicalised me. I was involved in student protests, student marches on Parliament, and so forth.

That is what the Government does not want to happen. The Government does not want students to be radicalised or to be involved in student politics. It does not want students to have a strong voice. Indeed, once the Government has destroyed the student unions and the student voice, it knows that its next proposals are to undermine universities and university funding. The Government anticipates it will not have opposition if, for example, it were to do things like change the student loan scheme, because by the passage of this bill it will have undermined students associations, it will have undermined the student voice, and it will have undermined student radicalism. That is what this bill is about.

Let us not have any pretence that there is any other purpose to this bill. Let us not pretend it is about freedom of association or some vague ACT principles. That is what the bill is about—trying to destroy student democracy, student participation, and the student voice. But unfortunately, in setting out to destroy those things, it will also destroy some extraordinarily valuable university student services. Many of them will fall over. They will be a further burden on the universities, which will have to pick up these services, particularly if we do not amend this transitional provision clause, and this is all supposed to happen somehow in a couple of months’ time, by 1 January.

I cannot understand—well, I suppose I can, really—why National would be so intent on destroying student democracy, student participation, and the student voice. Perhaps it feels that students might be the ones who oppose the market economy or oppose some of the Government’s policies, such as selling off our State assets.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) Link to this

It is my pleasure to speak on clause 9 of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. As my colleagues have pointed out, we are discussing the transitional provisions. I think a really important point has been made in terms of the suggestions that we have put forward to the member in the chair, Heather Roy, on the transitional provisions—that this is an opportunity to prove that this is not an ideological issue and that if some of the amendments we have put forward were adopted, that might go some way to alleviating that concern. I give that a heavy caveat, because ultimately I would still probably believe this is purely ideological.

There are two quick points that I want to make. Clause 9(2)(a) states: “a student to whom this section applies continues to be a member of the students association until the expiry of his or her current term of enrolment;”. Obviously the impact of that will be that we will have, potentially, a gradual depletion in students association numbers, and that will impact on the ability to keep students association services up to the level that would be provided if we had full membership.

Probably the best example I can give of that is to ask what would happen in New Zealand if only a quarter of the country was contributing to the services that require universal provision—if only a quarter of the country was contributing to roading, to schools, and to health services.

Health services are actually a direct parallel. If we suddenly have the phasing out of students contributing to those services—if economies of scale require that we have no less than one nurse or one doctor available—we can almost guarantee that despite those students still being enrolled in the students associations and requiring those services, and expecting those services, the depletion of resources going into those areas will gradually mean that they will not be able to be provided to the same level.

The transitional provisions, I think, will ultimately lead to the gradual decline of those services, as will this entire bill. This bill is denying only to a certain degree the ultimate inevitability of the depletion of services and advocacy for students on campus. However, as we have already pointed out, that is ultimately the purpose of this bill.

I turn to some of the amendments proposed by my colleague Grant Robertson, because I think they require a response from the member in the chair. I reflect that if we are treating this as a true democracy, then the most important part of a true democracy is the ability to communicate with those who have an interest in the details of student union membership. If it is impossible to communicate with the individuals in question, then that is an erosion of that democratic principle.

I think it is absolutely pertinent that Grant Robertson has put forward an amendment that suggests we add to clause 9 a subclause (3), which states: “The institution”—obviously the tertiary provider, as it were—“is to provide its student association with the following details of students for whom any membership fee of the kind prescribed in section 229CA(1) is currently collected from: (a) The student’s full name; and (b) The student’s contact address; and (c) The student’s contact phone number; and (d) The students email address.”

Just like in elections, whereby we are able to make contact with individual constituents via an electoral roll for the purposes of communicating in a general election, I think it makes absolute sense that students associations are able to communicate with potential members about the services they can provide via membership. If this were truly about giving students choice, then surely a fundamental principle of that is providing the information in order to make said choice. I cannot see how anyone would have a problem with such a common-sense clause. Second, and equally as important, is the ability to provide information about the services themselves. Having the contact details of the person one is communicating with is one thing, but the ability to provide adequate information is another, which is why Grant Robertson, very wisely, has put forward another amendment.

Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) Link to this

I will take a moment to respond to some of the concerns that have been raised this afternoon, and I hope that the member who has just sat down, Jacinda Ardern, is happy with the Roy who is on her feet.

I will start with the comments that have been made about democracy. The Green member Sue Kedgley said that the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is an attack on democracy, and, in fact, some Labour members also made that accusation. This could be an attack on democracy only if students were prevented from joining a students association. If members choose to read the bill carefully they will see that it is about voluntary membership, which is a right that all students should have in a free and fair society. Nobody should be forced or compelled to pay a fee to join an association. Students should not be forced to join an association in order to be able to study, which is the situation we have at the moment. In fact, this bill just goes back to the original intent of students associations when they were first formed, to be voluntary organisations—

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

What a load of puffery and nonsense from Heather Roy, who has demonstrated once again that she has absolutely no idea about what students associations actually do and how they actually operate. In fact, a lot of the assertions she made in her speech are just blatantly untrue. The University of Auckland students voted for voluntary membership, and the seven other universities, when given the choice to vote on whether it should be voluntary or compulsory membership, voted for compulsory membership. Overwhelmingly at the polytechs and institutes of technology, when students were given the choice about whether they wanted a students association that everyone was a member of or a voluntary membership regime, they voted for it to be universal—for every student to be a member. They did not vote just in small numbers. More than half the students at Victoria University voted the last time they were given a referendum, and something like 80 percent of them voted in favour of a universal system of compulsory membership for their students association. So what Heather Roy has just claimed is absolutely untrue.

If the ACT members did believe in democratic process, then they would not be afraid of campaigning for voluntary membership, but they are afraid to campaign for voluntary membership. They are afraid to give students that choice, because they know that they would lose. They know that if the students were given a choice, ACT would lose, because that is what has happened in the past. In fact, in Waikato—where the ACT Party got organised; it campaigned, and it won a referendum to make membership of the association voluntary—it was a disaster. The students voted to put it back the other way because it simply did not work. The ACT Party knows that if democracy were allowed to serve as it should, then ACT would lose. What does it do if it loses democratically? It wants to just legislate over the top of it, which is what it is doing.

I come back to the point I made about Heather Roy having no idea about how students associations operate, and I will talk about that in the light of one of the amendments put forward by Grant Robertson, which would require institutions to provide the associations with names, addresses, and contact information of students enrolled at the institutions. In the instance where an association moves from a universal system of membership in which all students are members—as will happen with all of them if this bill is passed—to one that is voluntary, the association may wish to communicate with those students who have previously been members and invite them to join. I am sure Government members would be in favour of that. They claim that the association should be allowed to sell itself to its current members, but they will deny its getting the contact details for its current membership because the institutions hold that information.

I used to be the president of a university students association. If we wanted to communicate with our members, we would get the contact information for them from the institutions. We did not hold a separate database of that information. There was no need to; they were our members. Actually, the most up-to-date and accurate information about our members was held by the university, because its staff dealt with the enrolment. They collected the membership fee and they passed it on to us. If we wanted to communicate with our members, we would go to the institutions and get that contact information.

If the National-ACT Government votes against this amendment put forward by Grant Robertson, students associations will be prohibited from communicating with their existing members and from trying to recruit and retain them as members. It is loading the dice against the students associations even keeping their existing membership, and against them going to their existing members and giving them the opportunity to stay members. It is a relatively simple amendment that would require the institutions to provide students associations with contact information for their current members, who are the students who study at the institution. The ACT Party, through Heather Roy, is saying that it will not do that. That is absolutely ridiculous.

If Heather Roy actually believed in all of the rhetoric that she has been espousing about choice, she would not be afraid to give associations the membership contact details that they should currently be able to get, because then they could communicate and they could give students that choice. Heather Roy does not want to do that. She wants to load the dice in favour of students not being members.

Of course, that comes back to the wider agenda. National and ACT know that the students associations have campaigned against some of the policies that they are promoting and will promote, and they want to silence them. Those members want to take as much influence away from the students associations as possible. Those members know that after the next election they will break all of the promises that they previously made on things like interest-free student loans, capping student tuition fees, and so on. They will break all of those promises. They want to get rid of those pesky students associations before they do that, so that the major voice that would be arguing against them is taken away.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

I too will respond to some of the comments made by Heather Roy. In particular, I will respond to her suggestion that an attack on democracy comes from the current arrangements that students have. Well, the current arrangements that students have allow students to have control over student affairs. They are allowed to elect their representatives. They are allowed to approve a budget that includes what services will be provided. The situation that we will be left with now, if this bill passes, is that the decisions about those things will go out of the hands of students and will go into the hands of administrators within tertiary institutions. How is that promoting democracy? How is that helping students to have control of student affairs?

The word “choice” has been bandied around a lot by the member in charge of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill and on the rare occasions that National members have got up to speak about why they are supporting this bill. Well, choice means nothing if it is not informed choice. That is what Chris Hipkins was just talking about. Informed choice about whether to join a students association would see the amendment in my name passed, because it would allow students associations to communicate with their members. It would allow students to actually be aware, when they arrive at a tertiary institution, of what services are on offer and what advocacy the students association provides. But, instead, the real agenda of the member in charge of the bill is to destroy students associations for political reasons. The bill is not actually about choice, because if it was about choice—if it was about real choice—then information would be provided to students so that they could make that kind of informed choice.

Only one person is responsible for students associations and institutions being faced with transitional difficulties and only one person is responsible for an attack on democracy, and that is the member in the chair, because she is the one who has promoted this bill. It is all very well to attack Labour for having delayed the passing of this bill, but there would be no danger to students associations if the bill had not been put forward in the first place. It is righting a wrong that is not there. It is an ideological attack on the rights of students to organise themselves and to decide what services they will get. Instead, institutions will be in the situation where they will be making up their minds about that matter, rather than the students.

I was fascinated to hear Heather Roy say that she wanted to return to the original intent of students associations, so I presume that she will be advocating for lady vice-presidents and for port to be served after all meetings. Things have changed. Students associations are different entities now. They are the providers of professional services. That is why all bar two institutions came to the Education and Science Committee and said: “Please do not pass this bill.” The institutions know that as time has worn on, students associations have become even more important to the quality of education that is delivered in tertiary institutions and to the well-being and welfare of the students at those institutions. This bill in fact takes away choice, it takes away democratic rights from students, and it hands on to the institutions the decisions about what kinds of services students will have.

I will also refer to the question of how this bill relates to polytechnics. I have in my hand a letter from the students association of Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, which has raised the concern that the commencement date and the transitional provisions—which we believe should be expanded—do not actually take into account the situation for polytechnics. Heather Roy said that it was months before universities get going. Well, that might be true. It is certainly not true for polytechnics. It is all very well to have in the transitional provisions something for polytechnic students who are part-way through a programme, but students will be starting right away, from 1 January 2012. I look at the letter here from the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology students, and they are saying that in actual fact, enrolment forms and invoicing for 2012 have already been generated by the institution. So here we are. We are in a situation now where the institution is already getting itself ready, and this bill comes along and causes huge drama for them over that.

The associations will have to change constitutions. A number of the institutes of technology and polytechnic students associations have quite different arrangements to universities, because they tend to be closer to their institutions, in some cases, but they also have constitutional arrangements that give them independence. All of that is trampled on by this bill coming in, in this way. Heather Roy said in her comments that she was waiting for the New Zealand University Students’ Association to come to her. I do note that it has been lobbying, for some considerable time, not only ACT but also National on this.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

The Green Party supports the amendment put forward by Grant Robertson to the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. His amendment is intended to make sure that details are provided to students associations of the people who might become members and people who are members. I think that is critical. If we look at other associations such as unions and professional associations, we see that part of the standard arrangement—particularly these days, when people are quite mobile and change addresses and all the rest of it—is that the employing agency often provides those details to the association or union. I think that is the appropriate thing. The Green Party will be supporting that amendment.

Heather Roy said that way back—and it would be interesting to know how far back—student unions were voluntary. Of course, tertiary institutions and universities have undergone a lot of changes. At one time they were very much elite organisations. I would imagine that the students associations would have had to battle for recognition, battle for rights, battle to get a more comprehensive membership, etc., and there has been a very positive evolution over the years. The speeches given earlier prompted me to think back to when I went to the University of Canterbury, many years ago, and joined the students association, as I think everyone did at that stage. The services provided were not terribly wide ranging, if I recall correctly, compared with today when one goes to a university and there are all sorts of counselling services and a myriad of other services available to students that were not previously available. That is a step forward, that is progress, and now it seems that after this bill we might be going backwards, where there would be less provision of services by student unions. Sometimes that slack will be taken up by the university administration as a whole, but probably in a less adequate way.

As other speakers have pointed out, those services will not be under the control of the students association and will not be informed by the students association. Students associations better understand the needs of the students in order to shape these particular services. I think that is important, particularly for people who are sometimes a bit alienated and might not necessarily join the student union first off if it is a voluntary system. They might be a bit alienated, and there only for certain lectures or whatever, but they are often the very students who get into financial and emotional trouble. They need professional help, the student services, and the community of the students association to support them, and now they might be the very people who miss out. To have a well-resourced students association will help enable everyone to be part of the students association and to understand that they have access to the services, because they are being informed of them—perhaps all the time with modern communications, emails, and all the rest of it. That will lead to a much better situation for individuals and for the students association as a collective entity.

All round, I cannot see why we are changing the status quo. I have not really heard an argument explaining why we need to make this move, except if there is a political agenda to weaken the political heft of students that is currently in evidence through students associations. That is very important, because universities, and students in particular, are often the conscience of society. We see all the former students association officials around this Chamber, and we see that they are very much making a contribution to our democracy. If we knock off that channel of people into public life and into Parliament by weakening the students associations, then we will have a much less informed and vibrant society and, indeed, Parliament. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

Kia ora tātou e te Whare i tēnei pō. I want to take a call on clause 9, “Transitional provision”, of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, as other speakers have, and in particular the direction that this clause applies to any student with regards to having an establishment date of 1 January 2012.

I think it is very important to say that while we are debating a provision of this bill tonight, critical action is taking place before the Waitangi Tribunal at the instigation of Te Mana Ākonga. What is Te Mana Ākonga? It is the national Māori tertiary students association. This is an urgent action, which has come to bear only because of the significance given to it at Te Huinga Tauira 2011. What is Te Huinga Tauira? For many years now, Māori students have been getting together to debate issues that happen to be current, and to talk, I suppose, all about student life. Last week over 250 Māori students gathered for Te Huinga Tauira at Ngā Whare Waatea up in Māngere in Auckland.

Part of the discussions at that hui included the news—the breaking news at the time—that Te Mana Ākonga had lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal against this bill. The students have asked that this Parliament tonight do what is necessary to ensure that they are heard and, indeed, that the case is heard by the Waitangi Tribunal before this bill becomes an Act. I know that those are pretty tight time lines, but things can happen in a short space of time if we really want them to happen.

At this point, then, I guess I am calling on the compassion and understanding of all the parties in the House to listen to the views of a number of the Māori students organisations that have been in touch with the Māori Party over this issue. I am talking about Te Mana Ākonga, which is the national association; Ngāi Tauira, from Wellington; the WelTec Students’ Association; Manawatahi, from Massey University; Ngā Tauira Māori, from Auckland; Te Akatoki, from Christchurch—

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

That was a very interesting turn of events, and I thank the previous speaker, Te Ururoa Flavell, for putting that to the Committee, and for the brave attempt at preventing this Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill from passing through.

I start by commenting on a couple of points that Heather Roy mentioned in her contribution just before about the students associations going to her and—as she intimated, anyway—their lack of ability to get back to her on a number of issues. I think that was a bit unfair. I think the students associations have come to her on many occasions to talk through this bill with her and to try to seek a compromise, as have we. What they realised was that at the point when there was a possibility that this bill would not get through, Heather Roy was willing to listen and to compromise. When she believed that the bill was unlikely to be prevented from passing, she closed that down. That, in some ways, is in complete contradiction to what she said on Back Benches the other night. She said that some of the best legislation that she had got through had been when parties sat around and compromised—that is exactly what she said. I think it is somewhat sad that she did not take that advice, those ideological words she talked about on Back Benches, and put them into action, particularly with this bill. This bill could have had a much better outcome that would have been durable and long-lasting, and it would have respected the students associations and the ability of people who wanted to opt out and not be part of a students association. Instead, we have the situation as it is today.

Let us be quite frank about this: at the point that we were looking for a compromise with Heather Roy, Labour’s point of view was that we thought we could defeat this bill. We thought we had sufficient time to defeat this bill and it would not come forward. We were willing to compromise and put up an opt-out clause, because we felt we could get much better legislation out of this and it would stop this whole issue being ping-ponged around the place, to the detriment of students. I want to put that pretty firmly on the table. When Heather Roy pops up and says that it is all Labour’s fault that we are looking to extend out the transitional arrangements to 2013 so that students associations have an opportunity to get themselves ready, we can say that there was an option on the table to have different legislation to the bill we are debating today.

The second thing that Heather Roy says, of course, is that it is Labour’s fault that students associations will face an inordinate problem to get ready by 1 January. So, therefore, we are not looking at trying to do something to ameliorate the position of the students associations; we are simply blaming Labour. Well, Heather Roy can blame us if she likes. I submit that, in fact, she is equally as uncaring about what will happen with the students associations as she is in blaming us. I think there is a very strong case under clause 9 to put together a transition clause to enable students associations to get ready much more adequately.

I will refer to a point I made in my last call. Under the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) there are some real restrictions on universities increasing their levies to meet the services that students associations will no longer be able to provide. This is a very serious issue. We all know what will happen when this bill comes through. We all know what will happen when clause 9 is enacted. What will happen is that the students associations will run short of money, which happened in Waikato and at Auckland University and every single Australian university where the same sort of legislation was put in place. When that happened, the universities had to step up and pay the students associations or contract out the very services that the students associations once provided. It is ironic, and I hear Sir Roger Douglas call out “freedom” or “democracy” or whatever he calls out from time to time.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

It will take somewhat longer than 5 minutes to read it, but I am sure an extension of time will be granted by the Committee, which will no doubt be enthralled by it. It was a dissertation; I should not overstate what it was. I am sure it has been one of the highest interloans the University of Otago library has ever had!

I will talk about two additional clauses that are being proposed by Labour. In particular, I want to talk about an amendment to clause 10 in the name of Trevor Mallard. It was an issue that was raised numerous times during the select committee process and was around the question—

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Whip—Māori Party) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Just listening to my colleague Mr Locke with regard to the votes for the Mana Party, and bearing in mind that the Mana Party has not voted for some time and Mr Locke is exercising that vote, I am just checking whether that is right—especially in respect of this bill, because we did not have any discussion earlier.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

New clause 10 that is in my name is an important addition to this Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, because by extending the debate around clause 10 we are trying, essentially, to make sure that students have all the information they need to be members within students associations. It is important, in saying we are putting forward a new clause 10, that the bill gives us the opportunity to ensure that students associations can survive. That has been the concern raised on this side of the Chamber, and it has been accepted by National on the other side of the Chamber, that the bill is not about destroying students associations. So if the bill is not about destroying students associations, then we need to provide a way in which students associations can continue to exist. The new clause 10 I am proposing will insert in the principal Act a new section 229D “Institution to provide association funding”, which states: “Every institution where a student association exists—

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

If National and ACT members actually believe the rhetoric they have been espousing during the debate on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill—if they actually believe what they have been saying—they will be voting in favour of Grant Robertson’s proposed new clause 10, “Review of Sections 229A to 229CA”. They have argued that if the bill is passed, all of the services, all of the representation, and all of the things that we on this side of the Committee have argued will be at risk are, in fact, not at risk and will still continue to be provided.

They will, therefore, be quite happy to have a review in 5 years’ time and demonstrate all of those things. They will be quite happy for the Ministry of Education to take the politics out of it and to review it and say “Yes, this service is still being provided, this service is gone, and this is the way institutions are choosing to manage student representation.”, or that student representation has disappeared altogether. An independent review—and I think the Ministry of Education would be sufficiently independent—would establish whether the rhetoric being put forward by National and ACT members is true or whether it has simply been a move by them to remove from the political process and the democratic process organisations that have in the past been very vocally opposed to many of the changes they have tried to make. I would certainly argue the latter, whereas they have argued the former.

The reason I would argue that is if we look at the limited experience we have had in New Zealand of voluntary students association membership—and it has been limited because overwhelmingly when students have been given the choice as to whether they have a voluntary or a universal system of students association membership, they have opted for the universal system—we see that many of the services previously offered have disappeared. At Waikato University, the students lost just about everything, so much so that they opted to go back to a compulsory system because the students at that institution valued those services and wanted to see them restored.

I think there is a really good cause to say that if we pass this bill today, in 5 years’ time we should reflect on it. As a matter of fact, I think that as a broader principle for the House in general, it would be very useful for us to review much of the legislation that we pass 5 years after enactment, to consider whether the laws are working in the way they were intended to or whether the House needs to reconsider them. I think it is probably quite good practice for Parliament to make sure that laws are reviewed regularly to determine whether they have had the desired effect. I do not think anybody should be afraid of this amendment. I think that if National and ACT members believe the things they have been arguing through the debate of this bill, then they will be very happy to support this new clause.

What the new clause would do is allow the Ministry of Education to report to the Minister of Education and the Minister for Tertiary Education, with the terms of reference for the review set out by the Minister of Education. The review would assess the impact of the provisions on students and the tertiary sector, in accordance with the terms of reference that would be established. I guess it is important to note that this review would be 5 years after the date on which the bill receives the Royal assent. We are not talking about something that would come into effect straight away. It would allow a period of time for the claims that have been made by the people proposing this bill to be tested. A review would allow students, the institutions, and other interested parties to have a say on whether the claims made by National and ACT were, in fact, true, or whether they were misguided, as I think they must be.

It would also allow the consideration of evidence from international jurisdictions. There is probably more evidence from Australia on the impact of voluntary student membership than there is in New Zealand. Like I say, the New Zealand experience in universities has been relatively limited to simply the association at Waikato University, which has gone back to a universal system of membership, and the association at Auckland University, which built up a very large asset base under a compulsory membership system. That is one of the things that has helped that association get through, despite having voluntary membership. It would be interesting in this review to consider, for example, the respective positions that students associations go into the voluntary system in. Some of the university students associations have very large asset bases.

The associations at Canterbury University and Auckland University have large bodies of assets and large cash flows from trading operations with which they will go into this voluntary regime; others, such as the association at Victoria University, go into it with very few assets and, therefore, the impact of a voluntary system on them may be significantly greater. They will lose their revenue very quickly. They do not have trading activities to support them that they can continue to cross-subsidise from. A review in 5 years’ time would allow those impacts to be assessed. Although I am very strongly in favour of this amendment by Grant Robertson, he probably should have given us a few options. Rather than a 5-year review, it would have been useful to have some options as to whether it should be after a year, 2 years, or 5 years. I strongly contend that for the associations that I have mentioned that have a very low asset base and no trading activities, the impact will be quite immediate. For the associations that have a large asset base and have built up large reserves, the impact will potentially be felt in the longer term.

One of the things that a review after 1 year would do is assess how associations that have built up those large asset bases and large reserves have behaved, and what they have put those assets towards. One of the things I am a little concerned about—it has not actually been touched on much at all in the debate—is the potential under a voluntary system for asset stripping of the students associations once they become voluntary. It is quite possible that when we move from a system where membership of these associations is totally universal to one where a very small number of students could effectively take over a students association, they could asset-strip them, spend the money however they choose to, change the constitutions of those organisations, and spend up the money at large and not necessarily for the purposes for which it was originally collected. This bill does not make any provision for that. That is one of the reasons why I think it is very important that there be some systematic form of review. In fact, I argue that 5 years is too long to wait to do that.

We are not talking about inconsiderable sums of money; it is in the millions for some of the larger university students associations. They have assets and reserves in the millions, and there is no protection of those once this bill passes. There are no transitional measures that mandate, for example, any democratic process or any protection in terms of what happens to those assets once these organisations become voluntary. That has not been canvassed in the debate by any Government member or by the member proposing the bill. I am genuinely concerned about that. These assets have been built up over a number of years.

In the case of my old students association, the Victoria University of Wellington Students Association, it has been in existence for about 110 years—maybe 111 years, I think—and a lot of assets have been built up over that period of time. A lot of interests have been built up over that period of time that are not immediately tangible assets, and we potentially need to think about how they would be transitioned to a voluntary membership environment. For example, the student union building at Victoria University does not belong to the students association, because the students association, in its benevolence, gifted it to the institution, but the association continues to have a significant interest in that building. That is based, of course, on the current settings where all students are members of that association. What happens to the beneficial interest in that building that the students association currently has when it no longer represents all of the students at the institution? How will the institution manage that? There is no mention of that in this bill, and no systematic process is set up in this bill for addressing those issues.

I think that is a good justification for there being a fairly thorough and comprehensive review of it. Again, I argue that 5 years is too late, but at least after 5 years we would be able to establish where some of the money has gone if, in fact, it has disappeared. At the moment it is quite possible that the money will disappear and we will never hear anything more of it, because there will be no review to determine where the money has gone. I am very concerned about the significant asset base that these associations have built up, about how they could potentially be abused, and about the fact that this bill does not make any provision whatsoever for dealing with that issue.

So a review after 5 years—as set out in new clause 10, proposed by my colleague Grant Robertson—is a very prudent and sensible move, and I think that National and ACT would be very well advised to vote in favour of this provision. It is a sensible provision and it will not delay the progress of the bill.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) Link to this

I also support the amendment put forward by Grant Robertson, for similar reasons to those that Chris Hipkins was just talking about. I think we need to look at two things here. First of all, the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is a contentious one. Over the last decade and a half we have swung backwards and forwards between voluntary and compulsory membership. A review of that, a review of the way that the bill is progressing and the way that the students associations are actually faring under this new regime, would be a good thing to institutionalise within the context of the bill with the addition of new clause 10. Of course, if and when we have the next Labour Government, we will probably bring forward the review much sooner than 5 years. We will probably look at putting in place robust and enduring legislation that would perhaps depoliticise this particular issue and enable the students associations to carry on and do what they are supposed to do, which is to continue to provide the services and advocacy they have been providing up to today.

But if we were to have a review, and if it were to happen every 5 years, we would want that review to look at a number of different aspects. First of all, what services were being provided at that time versus the services that were being provided 5 years before? If we look at the experience of both the Australian situation and what has happened at universities in New Zealand, we sort of know what will happen. We will see a degradation of services, we will see services taken over by the universities, and we will see the universities charging students for the continuation of those services. We will see the universities not only charging students but then contracting back many of those services to the students associations, which have been running those services for many, many years, and we will see students paying a levy but not having the opportunity to have representation in relation to what money is going to them and how that levy is being set. That is one aspect of a review of this area that I would certainly welcome.

We could also look at some of the services that the students associations are taking an active role in right now. We, as New Zealanders, have an active interest in making sure those services continue. One, for example, is Student Job Search, and the job search and careers advice that is being provided to ensure that our students go on to be productive members of, and enormous contributors to, the workforce of New Zealand.

CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) Link to this

Taloha ni, Mr Chair, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on clause 10 of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. I, like my colleague David Shearer, want to focus on the amendment—

HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I thank my colleague from Mana, Kris Faafoi, for speaking just prior to myself. Kia kaha, bro. I was not going to come to the Chamber to speak to the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, but I heard the kōrero from the Māori Party while I was up in my office and I just had to come down. The reason why is that when I heard the Māori Party talking about Māori politicians getting in behind this Treaty claim, I shook my head.

I shook my head because I have been talking to Māori students. I met with them at their annual wānanga just last week, and they told me that the only reason they had to put in a Treaty claim was that they came to the Minister of Māori Affairs, who is also an Associate Minister with responsibility for Māori education, to get assistance with this issue, the review of the provisions. They came to ask for his support for this kaupapa, to ensure that Māori rights would be recognised under the terms of the provisions of the clause that we are considering now—the review of the provisions.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.