Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Tertiary Education) Link to this
I move, That the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. Later, I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Education and Science Committee, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 13 November 2009, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). The purpose of this motion is to bring forward the report back of the bill to ensure its enactment before Christmas. This will give existing polytechnic councils at least 4 months to transition towards the new governance arrangements, which will come into effect on 1 May 2010.
This Government is committed to building a stronger and more responsive tertiary education system. A key priority is to strengthen the quality of provision and to enhance provider accountability. As a critical part of the tertiary education system, it is important that the polytechnic sector in New Zealand is a financially viable sector that is capable of providing high-quality vocational education and training opportunities for New Zealanders. This Government is committed to polytechnics and institutes of technology. We understand the role they play in communities as economic and education hubs. We want to give them governance arrangements that are workable and allow polytechnic councils to get on with the business of serving their students and communities. At the same time, this Government does not have the desire or the money to continue to provide the $416 million of special assistance funding that the sector has received since 2005-06.
The first objective of the bill is to improve the governance capability and effectiveness of polytechnic councils. The bill establishes new governance arrangements for polytechnics, with the aim of building the capability of councils. There are four main features of the new governance arrangements. Firstly, the bill emphasises the importance of good governance. Appointments to councils will be made on the basis of relevant skills and experience, especially governance experience. New individual duties are placed on council members that highlight the primary obligation of members to act in the interests of the polytechnic as a whole. The Government’s expectation that these duties will be complied with is demonstrated through the new power conferred on the Minister for Tertiary Education to remove council members for just cause. Just cause includes breaches of any of the collective or individual duties of members.
Secondly, the size of polytechnic councils is reduced from a membership that can currently range from 12 to 20 members to eight only. Provision has been made for four ministerial appointees: the chief executive and one member each from the student body, the academic board, and the community served by the polytechnic. This size strikes a balance between a council that represents the key parties involved in a polytechnic and one that is workable.
Thirdly, the Minister for Tertiary Education will appoint the chair and deputy chair of each polytechnic council. They will be chosen from among the four ministerial appointees and the successful community nominee. Having the Minister make these appointments is consistent with the Crown Entities Act 2004. It does not mean, however, that the chair and deputy chair will be subject to ministerial direction. As council members they must comply with their duty to act in the interest of the polytechnic.
Fourthly, the bill provides for collaborative governance arrangements such as enabling individuals to sit on more than one polytechnic council and allowing two or more councils to combine. These arrangements are intended to assist with the recruitment of suitable candidates for council membership, especially in rural areas. They also create a more flexible legal framework that councils can take advantage of when looking to develop innovative responses to governance issues as they arise in future.
The second objective of the bill is to allow the Crown to more effectively respond to the risks posed by polytechnics with educational or financial performance issues. The bill amends the Education Act 1989 to create a more flexible intervention framework for the polytechnic sector—one that allows for a gradually escalating series of responses to situations of risk. Three new interventions are created. Subject to appropriate legal constraints, the chief executive of the Tertiary Education Commission will be able to require a polytechnic council to obtain specialist help or prepare a performance improvement plan. The Minister for Tertiary Education will be able to appoint a Crown manager to undertake specified council functions. It is intended that the Crown manager will perform a similar role to the limited statutory manager in the compulsory schooling sector. The bill also empowers the Secretary for Education to issue specific criteria for assessing the level of risk to the operation and long-term viability of polytechnics.
The bill contains a number of miscellaneous amendments. Firstly, this Government is concerned about the number of young people who are leaving school without adequate qualifications. The bill amends the Education Act 1989 to allow the Manukau Institute of Technology to establish a tertiary education high school, which will operate from the beginning of 2010. Intended as a trial project, the tertiary education high school will offer a course of study to students in years 11 to 13 who have been identified by their school as unlikely to succeed in a conventional school setting but who are motivated to succeed in tertiary education and whose parents are supportive. Secondly, under the Education Act 1989 each individual polytechnic is required to have an academic board. The bill enables two or more separate polytechnic councils to establish a combined academic board. This provides councils keen on developing closer working relationships another option to consider, and improves administrative efficiency. Finally, the bill includes minor technical amendments to the tertiary education parts of the Education Act 1989. These amendments will update the Act by removing redundant provisions. I commend the bill to the House.
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this
I rise to speak to the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. There seems to be a theme developing this week from the National Government: do not listen to the public. It does not matter whether thousands of people march in Auckland to express a view on the need for Māori seats in the Auckland super-city; the Government will not listen. It does not matter whether thousands of people sign a petition against cuts to adult and community education; the Government will not listen. It does not matter whether locals do not want the northern boundary of Auckland City to change; the Government will not listen. It does not matter whether the select committee on the Auckland super-city finishes its work in respect of Māori seats; it does not matter, because the Government will not listen. This theme brings us straight to this bill.
The essence of this bill is the cutting back of community representation on polytechnic councils. It takes the possibility of community input and representation on polytechnic councils out of the equation. It moves polytechnic council membership from anywhere between 14 and 20 members to eight, of whom four are appointed by the Minister for Tertiary Education, one is a student representative, one is an academic representative appointed by the council, and one is a poor community representative, who is to be elected by a process that is not entirely clear. There is also the chief executive officer of the polytechnic. That is the sum total. So what has been taken out?
The Māori Party may be interested to know that this bill contains particular provisions around Māori representation. First of all, there is none. Māori representation has been taken out, as has Pasifika representation. Business representation and union representation have also been taken out. For the Māori Party’s benefit, I will quote from the explanatory note of the bill in respect of Māori representation, which states: “it is desirable in principle that a polytechnic council should include Māori; and that, so far as is possible, a polytechnic council should reflect the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of the community it serves.” For a party that was not prepared to have a Māori as its president, what are the chances of this Minister appointing people who represent Māori interests? What are the chances? National cannot even do it in-house, so how could it possibly do that in an area that really matters?
Here we have another iteration of this week’s theme of “Let’s not listen to the people, and let’s chuck out any provision in legislation that requires community input.” It is probably a little more honest than some of the activities earlier this week, whereby people were led to believe that the select committee process may reflect their views, only to have the Prime Minister cut across that process. It may be more honest for the Government simply to say upfront that it has no interest in the community being represented.
I will highlight a couple of disadvantages. Polytechnics are charged to deliver educational opportunities and training for the benefit of the region they serve. How will a polytechnic council know what the interests of the region are if there are no community representatives, including business representatives, on its council? Let me give some examples, and I will choose one at random. The chairman of Eastern Institute of Technology, David Pearson, said that regional voices ensured that the institute could best service Hawke’s Bay, but that he was worried that this legislation will weaken the voice of regional interests. He said that there is no strong voice guaranteed for business and communities in these proposals, and that a real potential also exists for political swings backwards and forwards, as Governments change. Let me also refer to the chairperson of Wintec in Hamilton, Gordon Chesterman. He is quoted in the Waikato Times—and this is even scarier—as saying: “This section of the bill suggests that the polytechnic sector is in disarray, sending a bad signal to the international market place. We rely on the growth of our international students so to suggest we are in a poor state is sending a message that New Zealand is not the best place to gain qualifications.” We can also look at another article, which quotes the Universal College of Learning’s chief executive Paul McElroy. It states: “the local polytechnic council is doing a ‘stunning’ job, and there is no need to give board members their marching orders.”
That leads to the next question: what is the purpose of this restructuring of the polytechnic councils? Why does the Minister want to reach so far into the polytechnic councils to run them, and to control four out of the eight councillors? Two of the other members of the council—namely, the chief executive and the academic board representative—are dependent on those four for appointment, and the other two are the poor student rep, who will have to carry the can for the whole student community, and the somehow elected community representative.
The control being exercised by the Government in the polytech sector is not a healthy sign. It is not a healthy sign for academic achievement. It is not a healthy sign if a polytech is meant to be required to reflect the needs of, and to provide training appropriate to, its region—and it will be unable to do that. It is not a healthy sign, because we do not know what the Minister’s agenda is; we are not told what it is. The polytechnic sector does not need the kind of wholesale swingeing attack that this bill represents. There are possibilities for improvements in polytechs, and they know that better than anybody. They know it better than the Minister, and they themselves are looking to improve their performance every day and every year. There have been difficulties in the past, but to lump all polytechs into this kind of bucket is a slight on all of them.
This bill is not an essential move. It conveys the impression that the Minister is keen to control the polytechs, and, through the graded process of being able to intervene, she will be able to again alter and reach into those polytechs in order to control what they are doing. Governments should not be in control of curricula. Governments should not be in control of the kinds of courses put up by a polytech as long as it is meeting the requirements of its region, which is what polytechs are charged to do under existing legislation. This bill takes away community voice. It takes away people’s representation on polytechnic councils, and, even worse, it introduces a very serious precedent for the control of tertiary institutions. Academic freedom is one principle that is very important to every tertiary institution. To have the Minister, who has no understanding of the importance and the merit of academic freedom, as the person who will determine who runs the polytechs is enough to give everybody—I was going to use an inappropriate word—a fright when they think about the purpose of a polytechnic.
This bill is dangerous. It is limited, and, although we might wish to say some good things later about the tertiary high school, it is apposite that this particular bill is being brought in this week, when we have had the repeated theme of not listening to the public.
COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) Link to this
I rise to take a brief call in support of the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. I think the Minister has articulated very clearly what needs to be done, and it is a pleasure to speak in support of the bill. The tone is set at the top of any organisation, and it was obvious as the previous speaker sat down that members opposite are in total denial of just how poorly polytechnics have performed under the Labour Government of the past 9 years. Close to half a billion dollars have gone down the gurgler, and there is now a big disparity between polytechs achieving well and poorly achieving polytechs.
It is essential that we give some certainty to those people who are prepared to invest in education. Opposition to this bill is nothing more than socialistic adhockery—
Hon Maryan Street Link to this
There go the international students. You are damaging our reputation here.
That member should reflect on what she is saying. Obviously, she has been in the House for only 5 minutes. She is a very lightweight member who has been here a very short time.
I draw the Opposition’s attention to the wonderful part in the bill that enables young students to attend a tertiary high school at the Manukau Institute of Technology. What a wonderful opportunity! I believe that this bill will start us onward and upward, and that we will see a truly robust, high-quality, First World - economy education system. Thank you.
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) Link to this
I rise to speak on the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. This bill represents an attempt by the Government to take over the governance of New Zealand’s polytechnics. The Minister for Tertiary Education will be allowed to appoint half of a radically reduced board of eight members. All the power is in the hands of the Minister. The Government’s argument is that this will allow it to intervene more easily when polytechnics have financial or educational issues. The reality is that the Government will be intervening in all polytechnics, not just those in trouble. This intervention will come at the expense of community representation. Currently, polytechnic councils operate with representatives from a wide variety of groups, including academic staff, general staff, students, and employee and employer representatives.
Perhaps Colin King, the member who spoke before me, should have written his speech, and then he would have spoken for more than 30 seconds. The current arrangement allows a wide range of valuable perspectives to contribute to the running of each polytechnic. The Government’s proposals will strip councils of this representation, leaving only the Minister’s representatives, the chief executive officer, a member of the academic staff, a student representative, and one community representative. The Government argues that this will improve the efficiency of the boards. But what about the legitimacy of such a board when important stakeholders in the polytechnics are being denied adequate representation?
Polytechnics are vitally important for much of regional New Zealand. Members on this side of the House recognise that, but members on the other side, unfortunately, under the leadership of that Minister, do not recognise it at all. Polytechnics provide the skills and training that regional economies need. They also ensure that young people in regional New Zealand who want training qualifications are not all forced to go to the main centres. Polytechnics have become an essential part of communities all over New Zealand. These same communities now find that the Government is refusing them input into the governance of these institutions. It is the kind of Minister-knows-best attitude that these communities do not need.
Many of New Zealand’s polytechnics serve several communities—like the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology and the Waikato Institute of Technology—but these institutions’ community representation under National’s proposal is woefully inadequate. Are these communities expected to fight over a single place on a council so that they can have a say in its governance? That is unacceptable. It shows the disconnection between the National Government and New Zealand’s regional communities. These communities want leadership, not micro-management from the Minister—also known as nanny State.
In the explanatory note of this bill the Government notes that it is desirable in principle that the polytechnic councils should have Māori representation. It also notes that the councils should reflect the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of the communities that the polytechnics serve. These are worthy points that Labour agrees with. However, the bill makes no provision for any of this. This is essentially a case of the Government saying that it would be nice if we had Māori representation, while deliberately not making any effort to ensure that this happens. This kind of attitude to Māori representation is obviously not new to the National Government, as we have seen with its refusal to allow Māori representation on the super-city council. It continues with that pattern in this bill. Is the National Government fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi? Is it responding to the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? I do not think so. By denying Māori representation on the super-city council, and now on the councils of polytechnics nationwide, it is clearly not.
These changes to representation on polytechnic councils are disturbing. What will be in the Minister’s sights next? Will the boards of universities and wānanga soon be stripped of stakeholder representation and stacked with the Minister’s appointees? With this bill, the Minister is wresting control of the governance of polytechnics from New Zealand communities. Why? It is true that some polytechnics have had financial or educational issues in the past, but there are many reasons for this. The fact that the National Government, instead of investigating the reasons why some polytechs have run into difficulty, is choosing to gain greater control over their boards suggests a hidden motive. The bill represents the corporatisation of our nation’s polytechnics.
This bill also includes a proposal to establish the Manukau Institute of Technology as a tertiary education high school. This is a proposal that Labour supports, as it will support year 11 to year 13 students who would otherwise leave school without gaining qualifications. Despite this, the bill as proposed would do more harm than good to tertiary education in New Zealand. We will not take the good with the bad if it means that communities are sacrificing their say in the running of these institutions, if it means that Māori and other ethnic groups are denied representation, and if it means the corporatisation of these valuable community assets.
This bill would deny communities representation on the boards of institutions that should be serving their needs. It would add insult to injury to Māori, who are already denied representation on the super-city council. It would mean that the Minister’s appointees would make up half of every polytechnic board, giving the Government enormous power over the governance and direction of these institutions. New Zealand polytechnics should work to support their communities, providing the skills and training that are required. A diverse range of representatives from communities, unions, and employers is necessary so that this aim is achieved. This bill would ensure that these groups do not receive adequate representation and that this aim is not achieved. Labour cannot and will not support this bill. Thank you.
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this
Tertiary education is part of the wide-ranging educational opportunities that help all New Zealanders fulfil their potential and deepen their understanding of the world we inhabit. The Green Party wants an education sector that builds a foundation of wisdom in this country and helps us to develop as a sustainable nation.
The Green Party wants a tertiary education sector that is well resourced, vibrant, innovative, and responsive to the needs of students and our society. We want a tertiary education sector that is preparing and prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. To this end, we must have a sector that is well resourced to meet the diverse needs of a diverse community. We need to have community sector commitment to these institutions, where the institution and its community work together to fulfil both local and national needs.
In this respect polytechs have a great advantage, because polytechs incorporate a broader range of educational levels. They can readily move people along the educational pathway, especially those who were missed out in the schooling system. Those people can be moved along to great educational success. Because of the stepped programme option, polytechs are so much more accessible to many in our community, and because polytechs deal with both research and the practical application of that research they are flexible and able to meet the quickly changing circumstances of the community, of our ecology, and of our economy.
The Green Party is always very pleased to see legislation that will assist polytechs to achieve even more. What a shame that, instead, we have been dealt this garbage from the Minister for Tertiary Education! This legislation is a gross waste of our time here in Parliament tonight. It shows a complete misunderstanding of—and, really, a contempt for—those institutions, which have proved to be so valuable and worthwhile to our communities across the sector. We have a piece of garbage to debate tonight, presented to the House by Anne Tolley.
The asserted aims of this bill are to improve the governance capability of polytech councils and allow the Crown to intervene more effectively in their performance. Well, it certainly does that. It certainly provides for the highest possible level of intervention by the State in these institutions, which provide such a great service to our community.
The bill achieves this intervention by slashing the number of community representatives on the councils. I have heard the comments of my colleagues in the Labour Party, and I agree wholeheartedly with their concerns. The bill is slashing the number of community representatives allowed on the councils. It gives the chief executive of the Tertiary Education Commission the power to intervene. It gives the Minister extraordinary powers to intervene in the management and governance of polytechs. It allows the Minister to have a say over who is on the council and even to say who the chair and deputy chair of the council should be. That is an unprecedented level of intervention in polytechnics.
The bill also allows for an amalgamated council to manage multiple institutions, which is something we are seeing in the compulsory schooling sector, as well. The bill will sever the incredibly important governance links between polytech institutions and the communities they belong to and serve. The Government claims that poor governance poses a risk to the Crown, but there is no evidence whatsoever that that is a serious risk. Even if there were a case to answer, the bill is very clearly heavy-handed State interference to fix what is likely to be a non-existent problem.
We have spent many years listening to National members blather on about nanny State interference. The bill is an absolute classic example of excessive State interference in educational institutions that by and large are doing an excellent job serving the communities they are designed to serve. The polytechnic councils are committed to community engagement, but the Government has decided that that is not good enough. The Government does not want community engagement; it wants absolute control over these institutions. The legislation is an attempt to create that situation.
The result of this bill will be that polytechs will be under the strict control of ministerially appointed business people, and Anne Tolley, who presented this garbage to the House, will be the person who appoints those business people. Community and academic interests on the councils will be sidelined by the design of the bill, and communities will no longer have the high-quality relationships with council boards that they currently have. That will mean that polytechs will not be able to be as responsive to the needs of their communities as they have been. It means that polytechs will not have the freedom to innovate as they currently do.
In short, the bill imposes Government and corporate control over the polytechs, just as National is doing, as I said earlier, to schools, with education legislation that is currently before the Education and Science Committee. There is provision in that legislation for corporate management of school boards and the ability for one corporate-managed school board to be able to manage a variety of different schools. We talked about that issue some time at the end of last year and about whether it is one of the steps towards the privatisation of the public school system. The bill is just another obvious example of the corporatisation by the National Government of polytechnics.
The Green Party values the concept of an institution that elevates trades and vocational education and bridges the gap between the practical needs of a trade and the opportunity for research and advanced skills. Technological changes and the developing needs of our society are driving that change, so we must have a tertiary sector that is able to readily meet those opportunities. That is especially important when we consider the nature of the global environment and the changes in it, particularly the increasing recognition of peak oil and the need for energy alternatives, the impact of climate change on all aspects of our society, and the need to be prepared for the changes that are inevitably coming our way. The Government is driving for a tertiary polytechnic sector built on the principles of State control and a 19th century level of investment. The Green Party opposes this garbage.
HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. When we talk about representation I am reminded of a comment from a couple in New Plymouth yesterday. They were really upset with the decision to deny the Māori seats in Auckland and said: “In this case democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” They were a couple who came here 18 years ago and thought Aotearoa was a wonderful place because of the relationship between Māori and European as Treaty partners. They wanted to help correct the injustice of denying the Māori seats in Auckland, because in their view we will all be poorer if this issue is not resolved.
Some MPs will recall an event at Te Papa about a month ago called Rangatahi Represent, which featured artists like Dam Native, Upper Hutt Posse, and King Kapisi, who are all relations of Tau Henare. The event was a celebration of youth culture, which this Parliament could take a lesson from, and a statement of their ability to represent their own opinions, speak for themselves, and stand up for themselves. All MPs will know how well the Māori Party has grown into its role of representing Māori opinion and standing up for the rights of Māori as the first peoples of this land and as the partner to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the constitutional foundation of Aotearoa. Sometimes the Government gets the representation thing right, like with the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act, which requires the Minister of Health to ensure that Māori membership of the board is proportional to the number of Māori in the region, and also to ensure that at least two Māori are on the board. But the latest debacle around the Māori seats in Auckland shows very clearly how even when a royal commission recommends Māori seats, when all Māori submissions support Māori seats, when 80 percent of non-Māori submissions support Māori seats, when the majority of Auckland’s councils support Māori seats, and when most of the five major parties in Parliament support Māori seats, the Government can still conspire to make a fool of itself by pandering to the whims of a party that is polling below the margin of error, for God’s sake. Now it appears that another crisis is looming in the way polytechnic councils are appointed.
The Māori Party has always supported strong Māori representation, because of the value we place on the Treaty partnership and on honouring that partnership by both Māori and the Crown. Indeed, in the National Party and Māori Party agreement there is a statement of faith in the opening paragraph that is supposed to say it all: “Both the National Party and the Māori Party will act in accordance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi,”. We take that statement of faith seriously because it acknowledges the Treaty partnership as the very basis of the Crown’s relationship with Māori, and we expect the Government to do its best to uphold the Treaty. So when the chair of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua, Naida Glavish, says of the Government’s plans to dump the Māori seats that “continuing to treat Maori as ‘mere stakeholders’ will maintain the status quo of poorly managed natural resources, ineffective consultation and ongoing inefficiency in decision making and planning for the city.”, it is clear for everyone to see how much the Treaty is not a priority for either the Government or local government.
Although that debate is not over yet, by any means, the House is already witnessing another massive hit on the Treaty with the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill, which will cut the number of community members to one. The Government reckons it is to ensure that polytechnics have strong governance, but that is bullshit, of course, and suggests that communities do not have the smarts to pick the right kinds of people. Down in Gisborne, for example, the Tairāwhiti Polytechnic Council currently has four community places, which are held by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Porou, Te Rūnanga o Turanganui-a-Kiwa, the Wairoa Waikaremoana Maori Trust Board, and the Māori Women’s Welfare League. Given the breadth of participation from those various tribal areas, cutting the community seats to one will enhance neither the representation nor the quality of skills that can be brought to the table.
Most polytechnic councils already have Māori representation, and some have dedicated mana whenua seats, such as Tairāwhiti Polytechnic, Whitireia Community Polytechnic, and Waiariki Institute of Technology, but not Northland Polytechnic. Those initiatives should be lauded, not discarded, because they show the value of the relationships between polytechs—and politics—and the communities they serve, and the institutional success that flows from those relationships. Just a couple of days ago Dennis Sharman, spokesman for the national body for councils of institutes of technology and polytechs, said: “The performance and value of polytechnics depend strongly on the professional and vocational education they provide for communities throughout New Zealand. Community interests must therefore feature strongly in the governance processes for polytechnics”. That is from the people most affected by this proposal, yet here we are planning to give that community input the chop.
If that community viewpoint, including mana whenua, is removed, governance will become simply an extension of central government rather than an exercise in decentralisation and community ownership. Central government will be trying to do for the regions what the regions have been doing well for themselves for decades; the nanny State that National so reviled over the last 3 years will be getting steroids when National says it should be getting laxatives.
When the Prime Minister says that he wants to move forward to bring the nation into the future together, he needs to understand that respectful mana whenua must be part of the move, that cutting back on Māori representation is a backward step, that eroding the significance and the support of communities for polytechnics is a sign of danger to positive community development, and that the Māori Party will never agree to any moves that threaten the Treaty as the basis of Māori representation to organisations and authorities in Aotearoa. On that basis, the Māori Party will be opposing this bill. Kia ora tātou.
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) Link to this
I am delighted to stand this evening to support the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill in its first reading and the strong Minister Anne Tolley, who demands excellence. One of the reasons New Zealanders voted for National in November last year was our stand for excellence in education. We will not hold back. We are unwilling to tolerate mediocrity. One of the things we want to ensure is that New Zealand has a great future because of education. We will not sit back and tolerate anything else, so I applaud the Minister for her leadership in taking hold of the polytechnic sector and being willing to shake it up.
In terms of the polytechs, we will not listen to the Opposition’s scaremongering or its use of its socialist adhocracy to try to scare New Zealanders into believing that we are up to something different. All we want to do is make sure that the leadership and governance of the polytechs are strong, that the polytechs are future-focused, and that they are leading New Zealand in the direction we want it to go in. We need strong institutions that are financially sound and responsive to the needs of their communities and economies. That includes meeting the changing needs of employers, the voluntary sector, communities, iwi, and others who need high-quality vocational education.
The bill proposes that polytech councils are reduced in members from 20 to eight. Let us have a conversation about quality. It is not about the number of council members; it is about the quality of those who are on the council and who are leading their institutions forward to ensure that the young people in their communities get the education they deserve. That is what this Government is about.
The bill will also allow the Crown to respond more effectively when institutions are possibly at risk of not delivering the educational outcomes they need or are financially in trouble. It allows for more flexible interventions so that those institutions can be better supported.
Education is vital to our success as a country, and we will not sit back and ignore that fact. The bill is about improving, growing, extending, and, more important, delivering. That is what this Government is doing. We stand for excellence, and we will not tolerate mediocrity. I am delighted to support the first reading of the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill.
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) Link to this
I am very pleased to rise tonight in opposition to the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. I think I will be able to make a worthwhile contribution to the debate, and perhaps a unique contribution, because I may be the only member of the House who has actually been a member of a polytechnic council. I will speak from that experience.
First, I want to note the contribution from Colin King, the member for Kaikōura, who managed to fill only 2 minutes of his speaking slot. He should be standing in opposition to this bill, because he represents a community that will lose its representation on the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology council under the arrangements introduced by the Minister for Tertiary Education tonight. His community will hold him to account for that decision.
I joined the Nelson Polytechnic council—which later became the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology council—more than 10 years ago, before the previous Labour Government came to office. So for Mr King to suggest that this issue is a legacy of Labour maladministration ignores the cyclical problems that are very much there in the polytech sector. At the first council meeting I attended, in February 1999, we inherited a $1.7 million deficit. Who was in Government at that time? National. What was the reason for that deficit? It was largely because the Asian financial crisis had happened, and, like most polytechnics—they are always strapped for cash—that polytechnic had embarked upon recruitment of Asian students to try to fill its numbers and bolster its budget. With the downturn in student numbers, the polytechnic went into the red. I was one of the council members who tried to ensure that it got back some form of viability.
The council had about 12 members. It included two iwi representatives, later becoming three, who were important, helpful, worthwhile members of that council. They contributed fully. That community has a big Māori population. A large percentage of the students—about 2,000 equivalent full-time students—were Māori, and the council was proud to have Māori membership on it. That situation will go under this legislation, and that is utterly reprehensible. I hope Tau Henare will take a call to speak in the way that he has spoken so boldly on the same issue affecting the Auckland super-city.
A representative of the trade unions was on the council, and that was very useful because the chief executive was able to talk to the unions and negotiate pay rises. A Nelson-Marlborough representative of the Employers Federation was also on the council. So it was a balanced council and it was supported by the community. The reason we were able to turn round that deficit of $1.7 million and get that polytechnic back on its feet was that the council was representative of the community it served.
Absolutely. But polytechnics, like many other businesses—if one wants to describe a polytech as a business—are cyclical. They are very finely tuned; they are never much in the black. They often teeter towards the red, because many of them are regional institutions, like the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, of which I have spoken. If there is a drop in student numbers in a major course—like nursing—for cyclical or other reasons, polytechs can be pushed into the red and into financial loss. There are ways to combat that, and council membership is really important in building an institution and improving its viability.
For instance, in the case of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, we looked at the ground training wing, a huge, air force - owned facility on the perimeter of Blenheim, in Marlborough. It was built during the time of the former National Government. It had spare capacity, and that facility is now used by the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology to train dozens of civilian aviation engineers, and to bolster the finances of that institution. That case was put up and supported by council members, including me. Mr King represents Marlborough. He has to go back to his community and tell them that he is in favour of gutting their council’s membership and leaving it with one community representative, who almost certainly will be from Nelson. He has to go back and tell his voters that that is the support he has given to this bill.
Another initiative was using the polytechnic site in Blenheim, which had spare capacity, to establish the Marlborough Wine Research Centre—a national wine centre of excellence—on the campus in Budge Street. That centre has received $10 million of research funding. It is adding value to the wine industry. Marlborough is the centre of the nation’s wine industry. That centre is another example of a strongly supported initiative driven in part by the community council membership that the Minister now wants to gut with the bill before us tonight.
A final endeavour that was undertaken with strong council and community-driven support was the fostering of aquaculture training in Nelson-Marlborough. The mussel industry is based in Nelson-Marlborough, and the polytechnic established training that was driven and supported by the council membership, which included—at times—representatives of Marlborough who had a background in the mussel industry.
I ask Mr King who will stand up for Marlborough in the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology when it is brought back to one community representative, and when all iwi representation is taken away. He will have some fun in terms of iwi representation; he has eight iwi across Nelson-Marlborough.
I conclude by commenting on some of the introductory remarks from the Minister about how this bill supposedly will introduce financial viability in the polytechnic sector, and show how the Government is committed to polytechnics. What rubbish! We have a representative model in place, which helps and strengthens those institutions, and she will take the axe to that membership so that she can command those institutions to do what she wishes. It is not as if there is not strong State sector influence in the polytechnics. The Tertiary Education Commission is in daily contact with the polytechnics. It monitors their finances. It is able to intervene when the polytechnics get into trouble, to appoint Crown monitors, and to put people on to the councils to steer them out of what are quite regular occurrences, because the polytechnics have long been underfunded. They are the poor cousin of the tertiary sector—
I say to the Minister that she is talking about supposedly being a Government that has a commitment to industry and training, and here she is saying that she will take an axe to the representative model that is in place. What a disgrace! Here we have community-driven organisations represented by maybe 10 or a dozen people drawn from all sectors, and they cost virtually nothing. The turnover for the polytechnic in my electorate of Christchurch Central, the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, is about $80 million. The cost of the governance by its council is about $100,000. The Government will gut the membership of those councils so that it can put in place its agenda. That is wholly inappropriate and wholly contrary to what the Government should be doing.
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) Link to this
The Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill will empower the “chief executive of the Tertiary Education Commission to require a polytechnic council to prepare and give to him or her a draft performance improvement plan …”. The chief executive will be using this provision only if “he or she believes on reasonable grounds that a polytechnic, or the educational performance of the students at a polytechnic, may be at risk.” I suggest to members opposite that that is a pretty important provision and that it is sound management practice. It is worrying, to say the least, that Opposition members do not recognise the need for improvements in existing governance arrangements for a significant number of polytechnics.
I listened carefully earlier as the Hon Maryan Street drew attention to the outstanding Waikato Institute of Technology, which has two campuses in my electorate. I am very proud to be the parliamentary representative for Wintec’s electorate.
Ms Street quoted very selectively from some reported comments of Gordon Chesterman, the Wintec chairman and a Hamilton City councillor. He has some concerns, but he has also expressed many constructive thoughts on the issue of polytechnic governance. Let me fill in some gaps in respect of the press report the member referred to. Mr Chesterman noted that “Here at Wintec we recognised the need for change about four years ago. … It’s worked incredibly well for us and we now have a highly skilled and successful council.” As a result Wintec, which previously had 20 councillors, is now down to 13 in a “lean, mean organisation.” Mr Chesterman’s main concern is with the funding structure. He says it is clearly wrong. The Wintec council inherited the situation from the previous Labour Government.
Although I have no doubt that the Wintec council will be making submissions on the bill—and I encourage it to do so in order to contribute to the Act achieving its purpose, and to secure the support and confidence of quality providers throughout the country—nevertheless there is much in the bill that we can be positive about and that will be good for the polytechnics of this country.
We should all want quality; we all need quality management. I encourage members to look constructively at the bill and work towards that end.
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this
It has been a bad week for democracy. It has been a bad week for the National Government, because it has decided this week that it will not listen to the people of New Zealand. It will not listen to the thousands of people who marched down the streets of Auckland calling for Māori representation on the Auckland Council. It does not want to listen to the communities that surround the polytechs in New Zealand. That is what the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill is about. To make it worse, we will legislate in this House to not listen to the very communities that are served by our polytechnics.
Beyond that, this bill represents one of the most audacious power grabs in tertiary education that we have ever seen. The Minister for Tertiary Education, Anne Tolley, will have the right to appoint half of each polytechnic’s council of eight.
Chris HipkinsHalf of the council of eight—four people. The Minister for Tertiary Education will have the right to appoint the chair and the deputy chair. This is a power grab of the most unbelievable sort from this Minister.
Let us have a look at the effect of reducing the size of polytechnic councils. Who will be taken out of the councils under this proposal? We will see Māori taken off the councils. For the second time this week, we are seeing Māori being told that their voice is not required at the table, that their voice is not required to be there to show us how these institutions should be run. I too have served on a tertiary council, as Mr Burns has, and as my colleague Mr Hipkins has as well, and tertiary councils benefit from the diversity of the people on them. Those councils also benefit from representation from unions and employers. I particularly note that this bill means that employer representatives will be taken off the polytech councils. National is taking away the very people who are concerned about the graduates who come out of polytech.
The previous Labour Government put in place its tertiary reforms to ensure that the polytechs were able to support regional economics. Who are the people in the region who understand those economies? They are the representatives of employers and the representatives of workers. They are the people who are being taken out of this proposal. National is saying it does not want to listen to those people or know about their views. National is not concerned about what they might think about what is important in their regional economy. That is gone because that party on the other side of the House does not care about the views of other people. Its members do not want to listen. They know best, they know what is right for the regions, and they will put it in place.
I want to refer to the words of the Universal College of Learning Chief Executive, Paul McElroy. He was quoted in the Manawatu Standard as saying this: “Polytechnics are about the students and the communities they serve. I think they need to be a strong voice on the council. If the majority of the council is controlled by a ministry in Wellington, you are not allowing that local voice to come to the forefront.” That is what Mrs Tolley is doing tonight. She is trying to take control of these polytech councils, push out the regions, push out the community, and bring back the power to her. Mr McElroy went on to say “UCOL’s board has 14 members, including representatives from campuses at Palmerston North, Whanganui and Masterton, publicly elected members, iwi, union and employer representatives.” Under this model Mrs Tolley is saying that one person will be able to represent the communities of Palmerston North, Wanganui, and Masterton—one person will be able to represent them. Mrs Tolley will appoint the other four, and goodness knows who those people will be. Polytechs are expected to be able to represent a region, in this case a region of three cities: Palmerston North, Wanganui, and Masterton. One person will not be able to do that. Mr McElroy went on to say that “New Zealand is a democracy. It’s about people who are consuming government services actually having a say over them, particularly in education. We don’t want a situation where the Government writes the textbooks that is not acceptable in tertiary education.”
Indeed no.
Interestingly, the Manawatu Standard went on to say this, “Mrs Tolley’s office said she did not have time to answer the Manawatu Standard’s questions yesterday.” So not only is Mrs Tolley not listening to the regions, not listening to the communities that polytechnics serve, but she does not even want to respond to the media when they want to know about the issue.
We have to question what the Minister is trying to do with this bill and what the reason is behind the power grab. It is a true power grab, because not only is it about the appointment of people to polytech councils but also it is about the removal of people from polytech councils. The Minister now has enormous power not only to appoint those people, appoint the chair, and appoint the deputy chair, but also to remove them for reasons of, “just cause”, which includes a number of things. The Minister might decide to dismiss people from the council for any reason. This is a giant power grab.
Is this the best that National can come up with when it comes to polytechnics at the moment? It is the best that it can come up with—gutting community representation. Polytechnics are bursting at the seams at the moment because people are desperate to increase their skills. The National Government’s response to that was to bring forward to this House a bill to gut the polytechnic councils. There is nothing in it about how the Government will enable more participation. There is nothing about how it will respond to the recession by getting people into polytechnics, getting people to upskill and retrain—there is nothing about that whatsoever. A total of 328 people have been turned away from the Western Institute of Technology in New Plymouth.
A total of 328 people have been turned away, because this Government is not prepared to look at what is really happening in the regions, to support the polytechnics, and to support them to bring people to their regions. The only response from this Government is to bring forward an anti-democratic bill, a bill that shows that the Government is not listening. It does not want to hear the views from the regions.
But what is Mrs Tolley’s agenda with this bill? Why would we do this? Why would we take $60 million out of the polytech sector? There have been protests all around the country from polytechnic students and staff, and the response from Mrs Tolley has been to take away community representation. The agenda here is clear: it is an agenda of control over polytechnics, and it is an agenda where investment in polytechnics will be limited. The opportunities to respond to regional needs will be limited, as the voice of the representatives of those regional needs will be taken out of the process.
Now is the time to invest in polytechs, I say to Mrs Tolley. Now is the time to put money in and to support people to retrain. Now is the time to listen to the community. Now is not the time to sit there and say: “We do not want to hear from the regions. We do not want to hear from the community.”
But there is something very interesting and useful in this bill. It is the creation of the tertiary education high school at the Manukau Institute of Technology. It is a 4-year course for students starting from year 11. Students who are unlikely to succeed in a conventional education setting will be given an opportunity to try something different. For that, I do commend the Government. It is an excellent idea. It is something that was discussed by Labour. It is a trial. It might not work. But it is worth a go, to ensure that people can stay in training and can achieve their potential.
If only the rest of the bill were focused in such a way. If only the rest of the bill actually focused on trying things out, on getting people into polytechnics. But the lack of vision from this Government is astounding. We have been here before. In the 1990s the National Government tried to change the way that people were represented on tertiary councils. In fact, my colleague Mr Hipkins was arrested on the forecourt of Parliament on that very issue. I think he will have his retribution soon. We have been here before, in the 1990s.
We know that polytechnics and tertiary institutions operate best when they reflect the communities around them, when regional needs are represented at the council table. But once again this week we see that the National Government has no interest in listening to people and no interest in hearing alternative views. This bill is an outrageous shame. It is something that the National Government should be ashamed of, coming hard on the heels of the Government saying it will not listen to Māori on the issue of the Auckland Council. The National representatives should hang their heads in shame. Polytechnics deserve good, strong, community-driven councils. What we see today is the Minister for Tertiary Education controlling who is on those councils, and how to take people off those councils. That is anti-democratic and it is bad for education.
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) Link to this
I was not intending to speak on this bill, the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill, but I feel I must respond to the comments made by the previous speaker, Mr Robertson. This should be a relatively non-controversial bill. Under the provisions of this bill, the size of polytechnic councils will be reduced to eight members. Currently, the number of members range from 12 to 20. The bill also provides for the Minister for Tertiary Education to appoint 50 percent of the members. I do not intend to go on in a great deal of detail in respect of the provisions of this bill.
Mr Robertson started his speech by saying this has been a very bad week for democracy. I am very pleased Mr Robertson said that, because he has it within his power to do something about it. He and his colleagues have it within their power to do something about it. He talked about the Government not listening in respect of the Māori seats. But most people in this Chamber this week have not reflected on the fact that 1.5 million people voted No in the referendum; 1.5 million people said they do not want it to be a criminal offence to lightly smack a child.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I thought we were discussing the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) Link to this
The debate is generally a broad one, and I think the member is traversing material that has already been brought up by members of his own party. I ask the member to continue, but I just remind him that this is a bill about polytechnics.
I do not intend to talk for much longer, but I was very interested to listen to Mr Burns’ comments and to hear him talk about his experience as a member of a polytechnic council. He said he is probably the only person in this Chamber who has been a member of a polytechnic council. I can say to Mr Burns that I have lectured at a polytech. I lectured in accounting some 25 years ago. If Mr Burns wants me to talk in some detail about my experience as a lecturer at a polytech, in the same way as he spoke about his experience as a councillor, I will be happy to do so.
Let me just sum up my comments in this way. The Prime Minister has given a response this afternoon to my member’s bill, the Crimes (Reasonable Parental Control and Correction) Amendment Bill. He said that the National Government is not prepared to support it at its first reading. I put the focus back on the Labour members. I say to them, to Mr Robertson and his colleagues, that they can support this bill at its first reading. They can represent the 87 percent who voted No in the referendum. I ask them to reflect on the embarrassment that that would cause to the National Government if Labour members were to support this bill. Mr Robertson said that it has been a very bad week for democracy, but he and his colleagues will have a chance to do something about that. If he wants to have the issues associated with this referendum aired before a select committee, by way of public discussion, the onus is on that member and his colleagues to support it. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Roy.
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) Link to this
I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring to a close the first reading debate on the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. I have only one comment to make, and it is that once again the Labour Party does not get it. Once again, the Labour Party does not get it. Its speakers have demonstrated tonight, in this debate, that they do not begin to understand the genuine nature of governance and the role that governance will play in ensuring that our polytechs meet the needs of the communities in which they are located, the needs of the local economies, and the needs of the national economy. That is what the Labour Party does not understand.
Currently, the emphasis for representation on the councils is literally that—representation. This bill shifts the emphasis away from straight representation to effective governance and governance skills. It will do that by significantly cutting and streamlining the size of the councils. It is well known that it has been found difficult to identify suitably qualified candidates who are willing to sit on councils. Why? Because the perception is out there, and it is a correct one, that in too many cases the councils are considered unyielding, inefficient, and underskilled.
This is a very good bill. It will bring very much needed change to the sharp edge of polytech governance. I commend it to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 64
Noes 56
Bill read a first time.
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Tertiary Education) Link to this
I move, That the Education and Science Committee consider the bill, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 13 November 2009, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time during a sitting of the House (except during oral questions), and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 187, and 190(1)(b) and (c).
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the motion be agreed to.
Ayes 64
Noes 56
Motion agreed to.