Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill

I am pleased to be on my feet to take a call on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill, and on clause 3 of this bill. I am a member of the Education and Science Committee, which heard the many, many submissions on this bill. It is a very good select committee.

Clause 3 is about amending the Education Act—amending the Act that is supposed to enhance public education for the people of this country. It is the Act that is supposed to promote educational opportunities for people in this country, but here we are with legislation that will actually make educational opportunities more difficult for students. The reason it will make educational opportunities more difficult for students is that despite what the member sponsoring the bill says, it will put paid to student representation, and it will put paid to the student voice. On this side of the House we believe that a strong student voice and strong student representation are absolutely important for making sure we have good quality education services in New Zealand, so I find it very ironic that the Education Act is being amended by this particular bill, because I am sure we would find that the objective of that Act is to promote quality education. In the bill we have in front of us, we find that the legislation will do the opposite.

If anyone is in any doubt, I will just take some time to read a little bit from one of the very good submissions we heard, the submission from the Waikato Student Union. I think its submission was particularly powerful because the union had been through voluntary unionism. It had been through voluntary unionism when it was voluntary to have voluntary unionism. This bill proposes to make it compulsory to have voluntary student union membership, but Waikato went through the process voluntarily. The union went through it: it took its own ballot, and it decided membership would become voluntary.

That happened in 1996, and in 1997 it spent the whole year planning what it would need to do to actually retain a student voice under voluntary membership. So it did things at that point. The membership levy revenue was $593,000; it was reasonably healthy. That was before the union went to voluntary union membership. The union created a working party to plan and manage the transition for what it was about to undertake. It started selling assets in 1997 in order to become voluntary. It sold off campus movies. It started asset stripping its own union in order to make that change. I could read out all the bullet points, because there is a lot of detail about what it went through in the year before it got there, but the bullet point that really makes my heart break is the final one: all staff were made redundant, effective 31 December, and that was before the union even went to voluntary student union membership. That was in preparation for going to voluntary student union membership. So in the year of 1998 when the union’s membership became voluntary, it literally had no infrastructure in place to make sure there was a voice for students to ensure that the education of those students was improved—as I believe the Education Act actually envisages. I am sure that the Education Act was put in place to make sure that we had the best possible education system in New Zealand, not a second-rate one, not one where students did not have their voices heard, and not one that has been proposed by this bill.

I think that being on the Education and Science Committee, while an enlightening process, was actually quite disturbing because about 98 percent of the submissions that we heard were against the Education Act being amended in this way. Submitters came forward and said to us that they did not want the Education Act amended in this way, at all; 98 percent of submitters said that, so the majority of the select committee has gone against the wishes of those submitters in amending the Act.

The Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill amends the Education Act of 1989. The question, of course, is how it amends the Education Act 1989, which is dealt with in the substance of the bill. But the wider question is whether there are unintended amendments to the Education Act 1989, and whether there are flow-on impacts to the wider Act that are not being adequately considered. The reason I raise this question is that the Education Act is a very substantial document. As a former president of a students association—

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: Two-term president!

—two terms, actually—I used to have a copy of the Education Act sitting on my desk.

💬 Louise Upston: Oh, that’s really sad, mate!

I know. I can assure Louise Upston that I have read it from cover to cover.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Another one stuffed under his mattress!

I did not go quite that far. One of the roles of the students association was to ensure that the institutions complied with all of the requirements of the Education Act and ensure that the students received all of their entitlements under the law. So one of the issues I have with this bill and the way it amends the Education Act is the unintended consequence of that. Basically it lets the institutions off one of the safeguards currently in place to protect students and to protect those attending any sort of tertiary institution by having a strong students association that can advocate on their behalf. Of course, the bill makes a number of changes to the Education Act. It extends wider than just the membership of students associations; it extends to the membership of a tertiary institutions council, for example. So there are changes to the way institutions will be governed under this law.

The question is the unintended consequences. Are there unintended consequences of this legislation on the principal Act that it amends? I argue that there are some unintended consequences and that, in fact, we need to consider very carefully whether the spirit of the Education Act is being adhered to and whether other safeguards are being put in place to ensure that students’ rights are being responsibly adhered to by institutions. I know, as the president of a students association and as a member of a university council, that I had a few arguments with the vice-chancellor and the management of the institution that went all the way to the university council, to the governance level of the institution, as allowed for under the Education Act. At one particular meeting we won and the vice-chancellor lost, because the other members of the university council, the lay members, thought the case we put forward was sufficiently compelling for them to overturn a decision the vice-chancellor had made with regard to academic grievances. Institutions have to have a process in place for dealing with academic grievances, and this is allowed for under the Education Act. The university council was not satisfied that the vice-chancellor had done an adequate job, and we were able to overturn the decision. We could do that because under the Education Act there was universal membership of students associations, and that gave us that ability to put forward quite a compelling argument and to argue it all the way through the university system, right up to governance level.

In conclusion, I think one of the things this House should be aware of when it amends the Education Act is whether the amendments go wider than was originally envisaged. I argue there is quite possibly a strong compelling case to suggest that they do.

I move, That the question be now put.

I rise to take a call on clause 3 of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. I apologise to my colleagues who were also seeking the call, because I know that a lot of Labour members take this bill very, very seriously and are keen to put their views—[Interruption] Sorry?

💬 Shane Ardern: Some of them might even have had some speech notes.

Oh, there is always a chance of that. A bit of preparation does not hurt, I tell Mr Ardern. I am always keen to do a tutorial on this particular legislation before we speak on it.

I want to follow on from the comments of former student president Hipkins, who regaled us with stories about his copy of the Education Act that he kept so close to him.

💬 Chris Hipkins: How many terms did he serve as president?

Oh, no—you see, I was never up at such lofty heights; indeed, it is unfulfilled ambition in that respect. If it were not for the fact that night schools have been cancelled in this country, I could do a bridge course to get myself back into a university. But, sadly, this is not the case.

The principal Act, though, is the 1989 Education Act; Mr Chairman, you need to be aware of this, because that is the clause we are debating at the present time. I saw by that look on your face that you were confused where the Committee of the whole House was at the present time. That Act is the legislation that of course our entire system is founded on and built on. One of the key phrases in that legislation that all members of Parliament should be very much concerned about, and have their minds focused on, is the role of universities and tertiary institutions to be the “critic and conscience of society”. Those are very lofty words. New Zealand legislation is not often given to lofty concepts. We are very practical people and we write our legislation in terms of what we want to see happen. We do not always write into law such aspirations as that one, but when the original 1989 Education Act was re-formed into the way it is now, there was a big debate about that—about whether that aspiration should stay. To act as a critic and conscience of society goes to the heart of the independence of our tertiary sector, and my concern here—

💬 Jo Goodhew: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek some clarity from you, and some assistance. It seems to me that we are debating clause 3, which is the principal Act being amended; therefore, I wonder whether we should be detailing the amendments to the principal Act rather than the broadest term of the principal Act, which is not under debate.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member raises an interesting point of order. This is functionally a debate about why the principal Act needs to be amended. It does not bring the whole principal Act into it. We have skirted into some stuff that was not part of it, but I think the member was getting back to the point at the time. But I am monitoring very carefully what is being said, and members will note that I have a response if we do stray too far—if we stray at all, actually.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, and as always we are so grateful for the procedural expertise of Mrs Goodhew, who no doubt is co-authoring the next edition of McGee, such is her expertise in this matter.

The point about the Education Act 1989 is that it has to sit in a consistent way for any subsequent amendment. The argument the Opposition is putting forward is that this bill undermines one of the central themes of that principal Act in a way that almost introduces a foreign concept to the Act. The point I was trying to get to was that the responsibility in the principal Act, in addition to its broad theme of being a critic and conscience of society, is its requirements, as set out in its clauses, to ensure quality across the education system—and I do not have the numbers here but it is in the 200s, from my memory. Our contention is that this amendment bill runs foreign to the Education Act 1989 by undermining the students associations’ role in the way that it will do, and the role that Mr Hipkins discussed, in terms of the associations’ ability to monitor and advocate on behalf of students for the educational quality of particular programmes in tertiary institutions. This amendment to the principal Act renders irrelevant some of the aspirations, goals, and objectives of the Education Act 1989.

If Government members do not get that, then there is something wrong with them, because this is a major change in the ability of users of the education system to ensure quality in the system. We hear a lot from Government members opposite about how primary schools should not be under the control of teachers—because, of course, what would teachers know—and that at primary level it should all be about what is best for the consumer. Yet here we are, through this amendment to the primary legislation—the principal Act, the Education Act—taking away from consumers at tertiary level the ability to be able to deliver to them a consistently high-quality tertiary education. The undermining of our students associations is something that we are very, very worried about.

These are not light decisions for the Committee to have to consider. If the Committee passes this clause it alters the Education Act, and that is a major piece of social legislation in our country. I know that our Labour members on the Education and Science Committee put quite a lot of thought into what that would mean, and that came up in their minority report—I cannot find the correct reference to the services linking back into the Education Act; I am sorry but I cannot find in my notes where it was—but the main point is that we do not believe that the change in this clause is consistent with the objectives of the Education Act. It is the job of the Committee to consider this law, but also to defend the principal Act.

I move, That the question be now put.

Like my colleague Mr Hipkins, I am also a former students association president. Unlike Mr Hipkins, I did not have my own copy of the Education Act under my bed. Obviously I was not working hard enough. But I have managed to get my hands on a copy of the Act, and I will argue two points, really. One point is that this bill is contrary to the principal Act, which the bill amends. It is contrary to the provisions relating to tertiary education in section 159AAA. Also, if we look at section 229B of the principal Act—the Act that is being amended, as noted in clause 3—which relates to initiating change relating to compulsory membership of students associations, this bill is actually unnecessary.

The objectives of provisions relating to tertiary education are that we develop a tertiary education system that contributes to the development of cultural and intellectual life in New Zealand, and responds to the needs of learners, stakeholders, and the nation, in order to foster a skilled, knowledgable population over time. It will come as no surprise that I want to focus on the area of responding to the needs of learners and stakeholders, because that is actually what the students associations allow universities, polytechnics, wānanga, or private training establishments to do.

Students associations offer a voice for the students and they also offer a single point of contact for the tertiary institution, to ensure that it is responding to the needs of learners and stakeholders—those particular stakeholders. By undermining students associations—and let us be honest, that is what this bill actually does, because if we did not want to undermine students associations then the Government would have agreed to our amendments on the commencement date, so that is clearly the goal—and making it more difficult for them to operate, this bill is contrary to that requirement that the institutions are able to respond to the needs of learners and stakeholders. If we have no organisation that represents those students, then we have no way of the university actually being able to understand the views of all those stakeholders. There are thousands of students at most universities, and there is no way that the university will want to waste time trying to survey those students to get an idea whether it is responding to their needs. It needs the students association to be the conduit for that point of view.

In that way I think this bill is quite contrary to that particular part of the principal Act. But I think the main point is that this bill is completely unnecessary. If we look at section 229B, which relates to initiating change relating to compulsory membership of students associations, it states: “(1) The students of an institution at which membership of a students association is compulsory may request the council to conduct a vote of all students at the institution on whether membership of the students association should continue to be compulsory.” If it turns out that the result of that referendum is that most of the students at the university want membership of the students association to be voluntary, then it goes voluntary—the job is done. There is absolutely no need for this bill whatsoever. Indeed, the contrary proposal is true. If there is no students association at a tertiary institute, or, at least, if there is no compulsory one and the students request a referendum on that question and more that 50 percent of the students want to introduce a compulsory students association, then that can happen too. It can happen only if there is a petition with 10 percent of the student vote.

That is actually far more legitimate than what we have right now. This bill has come about only because a tiny, tiny, very narrow section of the student population—that is, ACT on Campus—has lobbied the member in the chair, the Hon Heather Roy, and managed to get her to push this legislation through. There were no petitions from 1 percent, 2 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent, or 20 percent of students in tertiary education. There was no call for this. It is currently stated in legislation, without any need for change at all, that any changes to the status of students associations can be initiated only if there is—

I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will put the closure. The question is that the question be now put.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am surprised that the closure motion has been accepted, although I do not want to cause problems by challenging the Chair. The Greens have a perspective that I want to hear. The Green members have sought the call every time. They have not had a call on this clause. I seek leave for you to review your decision.

I have been listening very carefully to the debate and looking ahead at what is in the bill. The purpose clause and the requirement as to the constitution of councils are largely what the debate so far has been about. This is a very narrow debate and the points about which members have been debating slot into the debate on clause 4 and clause 4A particularly. I am persuaded by the quality of the debate. I have listened to it and I have accepted the closure.