Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: I move, That the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Science Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by a date that is 4 months and 1 week from the date the bill receives its first reading. I also intend to move that the select committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week where there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

This bill will help the tertiary education system run more efficiently, ensure quality, and provide additional student protection. Tertiary education providers need to innovate and be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of students and the labour market. The changes the bill is proposing balance an increasingly flexible system with the appropriate accountability and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that providers can focus on delivering better outcomes for students. The changes in this bill will also ensure a more consistent playing field for tertiary education providers and will broaden student protection arrangements.

Currently education legislation does not allow the Government the flexibility to make reasonable changes to increase or shift funding across the tertiary education system in response to changes in Government policy or student demand. The lack of flexibility has meant that the Government has been operating short 1-year to 2-year funding cycles, meaning that providers are more focused on short-term planning and outcomes. This bill will enable changes to be made to a funding mechanism after that funding has been approved, including to conditions on the funding. This flexibility will give the responsible Minister more confidence to approve tertiary education funding for up to 3 years, it will reduce compliance for providers, and it will give them more time and resources to focus on improving student outcomes.

To ensure the changes do not compromise funding certainty for providers, the legislation will require the Minister to make changes only when it is reasonably necessary, following consultation with the sector and with an appropriate lead-in time. The Government has already implemented a number of changes to strengthen the monitoring of tertiary education organisations, in response to a recent investigation. This bill builds on these changes by allowing better monitoring of the tertiary education institutions’ use of Government funding.

The bill requires providers to have information on their use of Government funding prepared and collated, to be provided to the regulatory authority when the need arises. I want to assure the House that this is not increasing the reporting burden on providers but is a requirement for providers to hold information in an accessible format, for use when required. It allows the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) to impose conditions on a tertiary education organisation so that, if required, they can monitor activities not funded by the Government. It will allow the TEC to recover some of the cost incurred as part of investigating breaches of funding conditions only where breaches are found to have occurred. These changes will give the TEC more ability to identify, investigate, and address compliance issues.

The bill also seeks to create a consistent playing field for tertiary education providers to encourage performance and innovation. Tertiary education providers that provide good outcomes for students should receive the same benefits, regardless of whether they are publicly or privately owned. Currently, public and private providers receive the same rate of funding for similar provision. However, the Education Act 1989 allows a future Minister to fund private providers at a different rate from public providers for the same provision. The bill requires tertiary education providers to be funded at the same rate for the same provision, regardless of their ownership. This change reflects current practice.

The Education Act regulates the use of four terms that refer to tertiary institutions: university, polytechnic, institute of technology, and college of education. Only institutions established as such under the Act can be described using these terms. Wānanga, particularly Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, consider the current law unfair. Awanuiārangi wishes to use the term “indigenous university” as an English language description after its official name, as the term “wānanga” is not well understood internationally. I propose to allow wānanga to apply for ministerial consent to use a protected term in the same way a private training establishment can already under section 253C of the Act. This would not mean that a wānanga will become a university under the law; it simply means a wānanga could apply to use the term “university” so as to describe itself as an indigenous university.

In the past year a number of issues have arisen that highlight gaps in the legislation relating to student protection arrangements, so this bill aims to broaden student protection. Following the recent collapse of a private school in Auckland, 14 international students were transferred to another private school, which meant additional tuition and homestay fees, which were paid for directly by the Ministry of Education. The export education levy is a contribution paid by all providers who take on international students, both schools and tertiary providers, to fund development and risk management initiatives for the export education sector. The bill will extend the levy’s reimbursement provisions to cover private and partnership schools. This will allow international students to be reimbursed for their fees and continue to study in New Zealand, should their provider fail.

A recent High Court ruling found that schools cannot stand down, suspend, or expel international students for misconduct outside school, even if their enrolment contract allows for it. This has consequences for international students’ safety and well-being. The schools are unable to effectively manage risky or potentially harmful behaviour. The bill will enable schools to manage international student misconduct outside school, so they can uphold their contractual duty to ensure international students’ health, safety, and well-being.

Following the recent closure of an international education provider, there was evidence to suggest that learners had not been appropriately assessed. The current offence provisions do not hold that provider to account. The bill will make it an offence for a person to falsely award credits to a student studying towards a qualification. This will allow the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to pursue action against providers for falsely awarding credits.

The bill also proposes a number of other changes that are minor or technical, or seek to modernise other aspects of the Act. In conclusion, this will increase funding flexibility and further strengthen monitoring and accountability of the sector, create a consistent playing field for tertiary education providers to encourage performance and innovation, and broaden student protection arrangements, which supports all students studying in New Zealand to have a high-quality education experience. I commend the bill to the House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Before I get into my contribution on the first reading of this bill, I would just like to seek some clarification from you that that referral motion moved by the Minister will be debated separately at the end of the debate on this first reading.

The short answer to the question is yes. It is a debatable motion not because it is a shortening motion, but because of the other conditions that have been put in there. So there will be a debate that will be held if the bill gets its first reading.

Speaking to that point of order—and I am moving this motion on behalf of another member—the signal is of the intent to move a motion, and at the end of this debate there will be that motion, Mr Assistant Speaker, can you just clarify whether or not, in response to that, it is possible to move a different motion that warrants no debate?

I think I am in the relatively lucky position in that I will take some advice on that question and I will report back to the House this evening on that. My gut feeling is that it is possible—and the fact that the member has not supplied a copy to the Chair, which is somewhat unusual, might give him a bit more latitude—but I will consider that matter and we will come back to the House on it.

Speaking further to that issue, I was on the Standing Orders Committee when this rule change was proposed about two parliaments ago. The decision of the Standing Orders Committee was that the only non-debatable part of a referral motion would be a referral to a select committee with a shortened time frame of no less than 4 months. Any other conditions or any other shortened time frame would be debatable.

That is absolutely the case, and I did not want anything that I said to take away from that. The question, I think, that the Minister asked was a different question, and that was whether, if the Government changed its mind as to the type of motion that it wanted to move, it had the flexibility to do that. That is something that I am currently considering and will report back on. I think, though, to be fair to the member, who is about to make a speech, he is free to refer to the motion as currently indicated now, although the debate will happen later.

As long as my voice remains, I intend to take my speech on this first reading of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I want to say that I am very proud to stand here in defence of New Zealand’s quality public education system against yet another attack by the current National Government.

We used to have a public education system that all New Zealanders could be proud of. We could be proud of the fact that we had polytechs and universities that were world class, particularly a network of polytechs—or nowadays we know them as Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics, or ITPs—around New Zealand that we could be proud of and that were providing a quality education in our regions, with a variety of subjects and options to ensure that all New Zealanders had access to the type of education that they needed to achieve their potential in life and to secure good employment, as well. Unfortunately, what we are seeing under the National Government is that that quality network of provision around the country is being eroded, and this bill will serve only to exacerbate that problem.

One of the things that this bill does is it removes any presumption that the Government would consider its ownership interest in tertiary education institutions in making funding decisions. I think that that is an abrogation of the notion that the Government has a responsibility to provide for a network of public tertiary education institutions throughout the country. This bill will serve only to harm our polytechnics and our institutes of technology, even more than they already have been. The first real onslaught against them came with the idea that some parts of their funding would be thrown up for contestable funding rounds. That has seen a significant transfer of funding from public institutions to private institutions, and now this will do them even further damage. There are many aspects of this bill that the Labour Party is very strongly in favour of, but the provisions that relate to funding are ones that we are going to be strenuously opposed to.

Public institutions should be able to receive a differentiated level of funding. They serve a different purpose to private training establishments (PTEs) in many cases because they are ensuring that there is a base level of educational provision in all parts of the country. A fully contestable, market-driven model is not going to deliver those same outcomes. It is going to result in private providers being able to cherry-pick the aspects of tertiary education provision that are the most profitable, leaving the polytechs and the institutes of technology with the least profitable parts, and with no recourse back to Government to say that they need to have additional funding in order to continue to provide that education.

The result of that is that the polytechs and the institutes of technology will continue to be financially crippled, and the breadth and depth of educational provision in New Zealand’s regions will continue to contract. New Zealanders will have less and less access to that education, and that is what this bill is going to exacerbate. So we would oppose this legislation based on that factor alone because it is going to be such a fundamental change to the way our tertiary institutions are funded. We think that public funding for education should go towards education and towards supporting public educational institutions, not be sucked out in the form of either capital accumulation by private businesses or dividend making by private businesses, as this bill would allow to happen.

There are some aspects of this bill that we are open to debate on, and I suspect there is going to be good and lively debate on them. The renaming of private training establishments to a title that is more representative of the breadth of provision that exists within the sector is an appropriate thing to do. Whether the use of the word “independent” tertiary education providers is the right one is something that I am yet to be convinced about, because our public institutions—the universities and polytechs—are independent. In fact, they are statutorily independent from the Government. So saying that PTEs are going to be regarded as independent would suggest that the public institutions are not, which simply, I think, is a bit of a misnomer. So I am open to a more inclusive form of wording here. In Australia, they make a differentiation between community-based or not-for-profit education providers, and profit-driven education providers. If that was to be a differentiation that we were going to make within our law, I would be certainly open to that debate, and I think that that would be helpful. I think it is frustrating when some of the very, very good community education providers are lumped into that PTE category and receive, rather unfairly, some of the criticism that goes with other parts of the PTE sector. So I would certainly like to see a different terminology that better embraces what it is that they do.

We are open to the debate around wānanga being able to apply for the use of the term “university”, which is a protected term at the moment, but we want to have more debate and understanding about what that will mean. We have eight universities in New Zealand. We have not done what they did in the United Kingdom, where they called all of their tertiary education providers universities, including the ones that were dealing with predominantly sub-degree programmes. We did not go down that road in New Zealand. We kept the term “university” for institutions that are dealing predominantly with level 7 and above qualifications—so degree-level and above qualifications. If we are going to extend the term to wānanga, I would want to have a bit more discussion around what that might mean and what type of wānanga provision might be able to be covered by that term. There are international expectations of what a university looks like and what the breadth of provision a university should provide should be, and therefore we want to see those issues fully canvassed before we would agree to that particular provision.

There are parts of the bill that we strongly support. Aligning the refund entitlements for domestic students involved in short courses at a PTE with those of international students—that makes a lot of sense. It seems wrong that an international student and a domestic student withdrawing from a course within the first few days are currently treated differently, and the domestic students are the ones, ultimately, who are worse off there. We think that enabling State and State integrated schools to manage international student misconduct outside the school is a very welcome change—and one that I know the schools will welcome, as well—including giving them the power to use stand down, suspension, exclusion, and expulsion, so that they can uphold their contractual duty and the duties they have under the code of pastoral care to ensure international students’ health, safety, and well-being, both in and out of school. We support extending the export education levy reimbursement provisions to cover private training establishments.

We certainly support allowing tertiary education institutions to pool assets from a number of trusts to create a common trust for investment purposes. In a past life I was involved with the Victoria University foundation that manages a number of different scholarship funds. One frustration for the university was when the investments of those scholarship funds were unable to be managed in a rational and sensible way. I hope that this provision will allow for those sorts of issues to be dealt with.

We also support the greater transparency around the compulsory student services fee. Of course, the reason the compulsory student services fee is as high as it is is that the institutions are currently trying to provide—[Bell rung]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Short-changed, I know, but you know.

—that is all right—services that students associations used to provide a lot cheaper, but students are paying more to get either less or the same as what they were getting before.

We also support the provisions that allow for the modernising of council operations, such as allowing councils to convene meetings via teleconference or other electronic means. I sat on a university council where it was somewhat frustrating. The council would meet maybe seven or eight times a year, and there was no provision for that council to deal with more urgent matters of a restricted and confined nature between meetings, so special meetings would need to be convened, even if they were just to do something as minor as pass a single resolution. So the ability for a council to use other forms of convening meetings and other forms of communication to do that in a way that is sufficient is, I think, very welcome.

The final thing I want to do is to actually provide a compliment to the Government around the process of this bill, and that is that I think that the development and release of an exposure draft of the bill before it was introduced for first reading is a very, very good practice. It is one that allows the sector to have its say and to actually make informed contributions to the drafting of legislation before it comes to the House, rather than select committees trying to tidy up something after it has already been through its first reading.

I think the issues here are going to be well canvassed, because this has been a good process. There will be bits that we strongly disagree with; there will also be bits that we strongly agree with. We welcome the opportunity to have an informed debate on this bill, and we commend the Government for a good process, if not for everything that is in the bill.

Before I call a member, I am now prepared to rule on the matter that has been raised. It is going to be an ad hoc but slightly convoluted ruling.

The first point that is of debate is Standing Order 287(1)(b), where there is a requirement to “indicate the terms of that proposed motion.” I think that if that was strictly interpreted, it would mean that the Government could not propose a motion other than the one that it indicated as part of the speech. But I have got vague memories of Governments being convinced to change their mind and move things more reasonably, to come back from a particular motion—even though it agreed to it—and for the House to allow the motion to be moved. It would, of course, have been helped if Standing Order 287(2), which requires the delivery of written notice at end of the speech or after the speech to the Clerk—it would have helped our discussion.

But there is an overriding matter that means the motion will not be accepted, and that is that the motion attempts to bind the House for a period beyond the period when this House is going to be sitting. So the requirement for a select committee that will not be in existence because, according to the information we have received from the Prime Minister, the House will be dissolved in 4 months and 1 week—you cannot bind a committee that, at the time, will not be a committee of the House because the House will not be in that form at that stage. So my ruling at the moment is that at the end of the first reading, there is not a motion of that type that can be moved. I will also indicate to Minister Woodhouse that he does not have the option now to shorten up the period in order to defeat the ruling that I have just made.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for that ruling, Mr Assistant Speaker. I have just a couple of comments and a question. Firstly, it is not my intention to disrespect the process of delivering the instruction to the Clerk. The Standing Orders do not prescribe a time, but it is customary that it is done immediately after the Minister moves the motion at first reading. I am holding back just so that I can understand what the process is.

In respect of the lifting of the House, I am intrigued because, in fact, that is the function of a machinery that has not yet commenced, and, indeed, it is quite possible—although extremely unlikely—for the House to continue to sit past 16 September, which would be the date 4 months and 1 week from now. The law requires the election to take place, I think, by no later than the last week in November and the Prime Minister has signalled that it is likely to be 2 months earlier than that, but the machinery of that has not commenced yet. Therefore, I would have thought that at least at the first reading, it was possible to indicate a report-back time that is within the period of the House sitting calendar that has been agreed by the Business Committee and confirmed by the House. It is a technical matter—it is almost unlikely to come up—but the failure to move a motion on the report-back date means that all bills are required to be reported back within 6 months, and, of course, that would mean all first readings from now on would fall into that electoral vacuum.

Yes, and it is unusual for the member to be more of a constitutional purist than I am, and that is the angle that he is taking. I think, though, that the way that government works in New Zealand is that when the Prime Minister announces an election date and informs the country of it, there are processes that must be put in place that mean that the House cannot sit. If the election is to be held on the date indicated by the Prime Minister, the House cannot be sitting at the time that the member nominates. That means that I think that the Speaker is bound to take the advice of the Prime Minister as to the sitting of the House.

I can understand that the member might have a slightly more parliamentary point of view than that, but I think the practice up until now is that when Prime Ministers have indicated that there is going to be a general election on a specific date, the machinery of the House takes notice of that.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I beg your indulgence. I was going to make two points and ask a question. I forgot to ask the question. Is it your ruling, therefore, that at the appropriate time the Minister has two choices: to either move the motion, as he had signalled his intention to, or to not move the motion at all—and therefore there can be no variation from those two options?

If it were not for the overriding matter, then my ruling would be that the Minister could move a motion in regard to the shortening, without the others, and have a non-debatable motion. It is pretty clear from the Standing Orders that it is only the addition of not sitting during the time of the House or on Fridays—that is the area that makes it debatable. On balance—and I do not want to make a ruling that will necessarily stand for all time, because it is not considered—I think the Government could move a lesser motion if it so chose, but as I indicated, that is not an option that is open to the Minister in this particular case because of the matter of the general election being called. Does that answer the member’s questions?

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Absolutely, thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Right.

As a former university lecturer, I support this bill.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Very important.

Yes. I am very proud of our tertiary education. We have eight universities, and all of them are ranked in the top 450 universities worldwide. My former employer, the University of Auckland, is ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. So this bill will further strengthen our tertiary education by increasing funding flexibility, strengthening accountability, monitoring tertiary education organisations (TEO), and also by ensuring consistent treatment of public and private tertiary education providers.

Increased funding flexibility will reduce compliance costs for TEOs, will provide TEOs with more incentives to focus more on student demand and outcomes, and will also be able to enable them to innovate. It is important that we enable our tertiary education providers to innovate, to remain at the cutting edge of technology and innovation. This will enable them to attract domestic and international students.

Strengthening accountability and monitoring of TEOs means that we are able to ensure these TEOs use funding more appropriately. These changes mean that we are able to deliver better services to our students, which is crucial to the growth of a globally competitive workforce in New Zealand. According to the OECD Survey of Adult Skills 2016, New Zealand adults are ranked the fourth-highest in literacy, fifth-highest in problem solving, and 13th-highest in numeracy. So we are doing well, but we can do better.

This bill also attempts to further strengthen regulations of for education. International education has become increasingly important to us. It supports 32 jobs in New Zealand and contributes $4.28 billion to our economy, which is an increase of 50 percent from 2014. This growth did not come easily. We experienced ups and downs in the past two or three decades in our international education. We can do better. This bill responds to a court ruling that a school had no rights to manage international students’ misconduct outside school. This bill proposes to amend the law to enable our schools to monitor, or to manage, international students’ misconduct outside school. This will ensure our schools or tertiary education providers can provide better services to our international students.

This bill will certainly enhance our reputation in terms of international education. This Government is committed to providing better services to our domestic and international students. This Government has done a great deal in terms of enhancing achievement and in terms of improving the management of the education sector. So I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

Before I call Jenny Salesa, there is one further matter that has come to my attention, which I do want to place on the record of the House again, and that is that the Prime Minister has written to the House and has tabled the date for the 2017 general election. While I was relying on general comments that were made in the media, he has actually informed the House. I do accept the argument that it is within the prerogative of the Prime Minister to change his mind, but I think what we have got to do at the moment is go by the intention as formally notified to the House.

Thank you for this opportunity to debate the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. New Zealand has a world-class education system. That is something we celebrate and are really proud of. Given this fact, why should we stuff it up by agreeing to what is proposed in this new bill? While there are some provisions in this bill before the House that Labour may have supported, what we have in front of us as proposed continues down the track of developing a privatised model of competition in tertiary education in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is the main reason why Labour opposes this bill.

This bill, according to what we read, will amend the Education Act of 1989, and it will “increase funding flexibility in the tertiary education system” and it will “ensure consistent treatment of public and private tertiary education providers”. This is simply code for supporting private commercial interests over the rights of New Zealand students to a well-resourced, well-rounded tertiary education by robbing needy Peter to pay for-profit Paul. So, as I said earlier on, this is the main reason why the Labour Party absolutely opposes this bill. It will further privatise tertiary education.

Part 1 of this bill covers the amendment to the principal Act as it relates to international students. Clause 34 amends section 238I, so that the funds of the expert education levy can be used to reimburse students if a private school or a partnership school fails mid-course and is unable to reimburse the students. This will allow international students to be reimbursed for their fees, but they will still be able to continue their studies here in New Zealand in the event that either of these two schools fails.

However, we know, because this has been covered very well in the media over the last few months and over the last couple of years, that there are a number of fraudulent agents that are currently operating in New Zealand. The Government needs to step up in this area because students and their families—their lives are being ruined. Ultimately, the tertiary education sector as a whole may pay the price of this fraud. It is New Zealand’s international reputation, our reputation for excellence in education, that may be irreparably damaged if this current Government does not step up and sort this out.

We also know that right now there are certain sectors in our society that are currently using skilled migrant labour. They utilise short-term visas, including working holiday and student visas, to fill the skill gaps that we are currently experiencing right across New Zealand but especially in Auckland.

But we also know that this current National Government is not actually transitioning a lot of our young people—thousands of our young people—successfully from secondary school, either on to further education in the tertiary sector or into employment. We also know that this current Government has not actually addressed the fact that we now have over 90,000 of our young people under the age of 24 who are not in education, employment, or training. We know that this number has increased from just over 70,000, 12 months ago.

This is an issue that I would have thought would be strongly addressed in this bill—that we should see more of what this current Government would be doing to address those who are not in education, employment, or training, and to address the fact that we have so many that we are needing to be skilled and in training. But we do not see that strongly covered.

Part 2 of this bill actually panders to private providers in education in a number of ways. First, it proposes that private training establishments—PTEs—should get the same rate of funding as universities, polytechnics, and wānanga. But we must ask: why should shareholders of those private companies get what are essentially massive corporate subsidies from all of us as taxpayers? That public money would be much better invested in New Zealand students, and indeed should be so invested at this time, when public institutions, our staff, and our students at those public institutions are under-resourced and are enormously stressed. We know this from recent studies. Over a thousand of our staff in those institutions have been surveyed, and they have told us they are enormously stressed and under a lot of pressure.

Private companies should not be given the same status as those of our independent universities and our polytechnics. Our public institutions have legal obligations to teach New Zealanders from all backgrounds, from all walks of life, and from each area in Aotearoa New Zealand. They maintain and they protect our academic freedom, and they support New Zealand with robust, unbiased research. By contrast, private, for-profit providers’ main obligation is to make a profit for their shareholders and for their owners.

According to Statistics New Zealand, just last year tertiary fees have gone up by more than 43 percent since the National Government took office. Our institutions are not coping with the funding freeze under this National Government. The enrolments at many of our public institutions continue to decline. The recent contestable funding process has seen a significant transfer of funding from public institutions to private ones. Regional polytechnics and institutes of technology—they are suffering. They are struggling for survival as we speak. Public institutions should continue to receive a differentiated level of funding because, amongst other things, their capital investments remain in our public ownership. Private establishments are under no obligation whatsoever to continue to use their accumulated publicly funded capital for educational purposes. Public funding for education should go towards education, not just towards capital accumulation and profit dividends for shareholders.

We have mixed feelings on some of what is proposed by this bill. One of the things that we have mixed feelings about is that we think we should have an open debate about whether or not wānanga should be able to use the term “university”. We think that we should have an open debate about this, but there is merit in having a debate before wānanga are allowed to use this term. We do know that universities already use the term “wānanga” in their Māori translations right now. But, as we say, we are open to a debate on this.

As I conclude, I would like to acknowledge those on the opposite benches because they have had a really good consultation process in preparation for this bill. Sadly, however, significant measures within this bill remain tinkering around the edges by the National Government—just tutu-ing around with the system—and we do not support this bill.

I am just going to warn the member about her language. I am not going to formally do anything about it, but the member should take care.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I thought you were about to warn the member of having inconsistent—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member is now going to sit down and not comment on my ruling. He knows absolutely that he is not allowed to. When the member gathers himself, he can start again.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. As I was saying, it is great to be able to speak on the first reading of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points following on from my colleague Dr Jian Yang, the chair of the Education and Science Committee, around international education—the point around the importance of it, in particular. International education last year was our fourth-largest export earner, generating around $1.3 billion in revenue for our country. Right across New Zealand, outside Auckland right through to Southland, Otago, and other parts of the country, everyone benefits from international education. But, in saying that, it is important that we have the structures right in order to—

💬 Tracey Martin: He believes such rubbish.

—accommodate that growth. Clearly, Mrs Martin has not been down to Southland and seen the Southern Institute of Technology, which runs quite a unique operation. Traditionally, the international students whom it attracts are generally older—late 20s, early 30s—many of whom come to New Zealand with a partner. While one part of the partnership is studying full-time, the other is working. They often have got children as well. So for Southland, the proposition of international education—in particular, through the Southern Institute of Technology—provides overall benefits for our economy by attracting more people to Southland.

The other thing about it is that, unlike many of the more urban centres with younger international students—who come, perform their studies, and many of whom then leave again—of the students who are attracted to the Southern Institute of Technology, many of them stay and actually contribute and live in the community for quite a while after that. So it is important that there is a level playing field for international and domestic students and that the codes of conduct are fair in order to protect them while they are here.

In terms of the contribution this bill makes towards that, around managing the conduct—it is in response to a recent court ruling that said that schools have no rights to manage international students’ misconduct outside school. This bill contains a proposal to amend that law to enable State and State integrated schools to manage international students in the same way that private schools do, including the use of stand-down suspensions and exclusions for activities performed outside the school environment. That is consistent with the code of conduct and practice of pastoral care of international students who are at tertiary education organisations.

It is great to be able to speak on this bill. I look forward to considering it in greater detail in select committee.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Well, that was not really commenting on the bill at all. It was just a vague homily about how wonderful foreign students are for the country. It would be good to actually have a debate on the legislation, because this is tremendously important—right?

I am going to talk about some of the technical, reasonable things that we agree with, but let us be clear: this is a major change to tertiary education funding and investment in New Zealand. This is a major ideological push by the National members, who clearly see the clock ticking on their Government and they have got to quickly ram through as much pro-market, pro-private, pro - for-profit provider support legislation. So yes, the National members can just give these vague homilies, but let us talk about the real issues, eh guys?

Look, I rise to oppose this bill. There is some pretty reasonable stuff in here that we can agree with—for example, giving wānanga the chance to use the term “university”, allowing the Tertiary Education Commission the ability to charge tertiary education institutes (TEIs) for investigations, transparency over how student levies are funded, and providing an opportunity for TEIs to censure students for off-campus behaviour.

I actually quite agree with the point made by the member Chris Hipkins, with regard to the other change that allows private tertiary establishments (PTEs) to be now called independent tertiary establishments. It makes quite a juxtaposition that on one hand you have got the State-run institutes not “independent”, because what we have at the moment are private tertiary establishments. The Government wants to change it because it is scared that everyone is going to view them as for-profit, which we know the vast majority are—so it is changing them into independent tertiary establishments, which has the problem that it implies that the current universities and polytechs are not independent, which we know is absolutely not true when you look at the university Acts and you look at the roles of the university councils. So that is an interesting point that Chris Hipkins has raised, which will be interesting to follow up in the select committee.

What I want to focus on, and why the Green Party is stridently opposed—we would like to make sure that this is repealed when we are in Government—is the private, for-profit funding changes. You see, I am opposed not just because of the negative technical changes—and there are some—but because of the significant changes, these milestones, which would see a fundamental change in our tertiary education sector. What we are seeing by the inclusion of the words “consistent funding” for private, for-profit providers is that it absolutely changes the historical playing field in New Zealand. In fact, this is explicit in the legislation that this is the point—to change the playing field.

Essentially, what we are going to see is private providers receiving as much as State-run universities and polytechs. Basically, this is public money for private profit. It is going to have a huge impact on the tertiary education sector, because what we know, and what we have seen in level 1 and 2 courses, is that they compete by lowering wages and they compete by lowering working conditions. What we have seen is the ability to cherry-pick specific courses. We are going to see the large, offshore PTEs get a foothold in New Zealand, and what this is going to mean is that funding is going to be much more precarious for tertiary institutions. But what it means on the ground for Southland, which we heard the member, Todd Barclay, talk about just then, is that we have already seen a massive decline in our polytech provision in regional New Zealand, and this is going to eat into it further.

So what is the agenda behind it? The Government throws out all of these slogans—“consistent funding”, “funding flexibility”, “level playing fields”. These are just slogans based on ideology. I believe there is a difference, and Governments for decades and decades in New Zealand have believed there is a difference, when the State provides high-quality public tertiary education. Those members cry on about the need for flexibility but present no evidence on where the system is failing. We have seen considerable flexibility in the sector to change with new technology and new pedagogies—and you see that, in fact, in the Productivity Commission report.

We look forward to engaging with this in select committee, but we are stridently opposed to this massive change to tertiary education. We are going to fight it all the way. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Good evening, Mr Assistant Speaker—

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.