Hipkins Chris: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17590] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 This is where the rubber hits the road with the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill and I am looking forward to the very fulsome debate that is going to take place here. I am interested particularly in the fact that nobody from the other side of the Chamber has got to their feet and spoken in favour of this bill despite 98 percent of the submissions made to the Education and Science Committee opposing it. National and the ACT Party are using their majority in the House to push this legislation through despite overwhelming opposition at the select committee. It says something about National’s view of democracy that despite the fact that an overwhelming number of submissions to the select committee was opposed to this legislation National is going to push it through anyway. 
I want to talk about what this legislation will mean for individual students and for the costs and the challenges that they currently face when studying at their tertiary institutions. At the moment students associations through a universal fee provide very very good value for money for students. Under this legislation that value for money will be eroded and students will probably end up paying more. But we should not be surprised about that coming from the National Government because— 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Prove it. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Wayne Mapp says that I should prove it. I will easily do that. In 1999 when this issue was last debated there was a referendum at all of the university and tertiary campuses. People got to choose whether it was going to be a voluntary membership system or a compulsory membership system. Victoria University decided that it would continue to provide many of the services that the students association provided even if the students had voted for voluntary membership. It was going to do that by raising a levy to cover the cost of that. That levy was going to cost more than the students association levy because it did not think that it could provide those services as cheaply as the students association did. So it was going to cost students more to vote for voluntary membership than to keep a universal system of membership. Students would receive fewer services—the level of service they would receive would be diminished—but they would pay more for those services. That is the proof that Wayne Mapp was just asking for. I thank him for the question and I look forward to his next one because if he keeps going along those lines I am sure we could have quite a rigorous debate about it. 
Otago University estimated that it had the help of 598 volunteers in 2009 who provided over 20000 volunteer hours amongst them. All of those things are severely diminished in a voluntary membership regime. At the moment students get a pretty good deal because there is a huge amount of free labour that goes into providing the services on offer at many institutions. Yes those institutions would seek to replicate under a voluntary membership regime some of the services provided by students associations under a universal membership regime but it would cost more. Students would end up having to pay more to get less. So that is really important. I am surprised that the Government is not willing to address this issue at a time when students are already struggling. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: They’re doing that to everybody else. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: We should not be surprised because as my colleague Damien O’Connor has pointed out the Government is loading up costs to everybody else. So what is loading up a few more costs on to students going to be for the National-ACT Government? Those members do not really mind and they do not really care about that. 
The tertiary institutions themselves are opposed to this legislation and submitted such a view to the select committee. Tertiary institutions recognised that students associations play a vital role not only in providing services for students but also in adding to the life of the university and in providing a student voice at very important decision-making points within the tertiary institution processes. I was at Victoria University where student representatives coordinated by the students association advocated for students’ interests at all levels of the university. Starting at a pretty basic level each individual class has a class representative who is there if a student has a difficulty with their class a problem with their lecturer or a concern about which they need some advice. Students can go to their class representatives who have been coordinated to be in those roles by the students association. They are trained by the students association in how to deal with certain issues. 
If we move up to the faculty board level again we see that student representation at that level is organised by the students association. At the academic board level student representation is provided and as we talked about in the last part all the way up to the governing level of the institution student representation is coordinated by the students association. Therefore there is a comprehensive system of student representation at tertiary institutions. The reason the students associations have a mandate to do that is that they have as their members more or less the entire student body. We know that students actually support that system of membership because they were given a choice in 1999 as to whether they wanted to continue with it and overwhelmingly they said yes they wanted to stick with that system. Overwhelmingly students said they wanted to stick with a universal system of membership. 
I think it is perfectly legitimate to say from time to time that that regime should be tested. I would have no problem with that. In fact if Heather Roy came into the House with a bill to have another referendum and to give students that choice I would probably vote in favour of it. In fact Labour is offering that choice to the Government now. If the Government wants to provide students with a choice we would happily support it. This debate would be all over very quickly if the choice was given to students to have the referendum to determine— 
Grant Robertson 
: It’s on the Table right now. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That option is on the Table and this debate would all be over if students were given that choice. Students could determine that no they do not want a universal system of membership; they want a voluntary regime. We would accept that. If they wanted by majority to continue to have a universal system of membership—as they overwhelmingly chose when last given the opportunity to do so—we would also accept that. We think that the students of the institutions should have that choice and I am very disappointed that National is voting in favour of a bill that denies students that option particularly given the heritage of that last choice. People like Tau Henare negotiated that arrangement when Tony Steel put forward the bill in 1997 or 1998 I think it was. Tau Henare was one of the pivotal players in securing that compromise that put the choice into the hands of students and there is an awful lot at stake. I think Tau Henare recognised that back then and I am disappointed that he seems to have stopped recognising that now and seems to have turned his back on the things that he was arguing in favour of when he put that amendment forward. 
Activities are provided by students associations that are vital to campus life whether it is at a polytechnic a university or a wananga. We are talking about the clubs we are talking about orientation we are talking about services like student media and we have the student newspapers and student radio. 
In fact the Minister for Tertiary Education himself who went on to make millions of dollars in commercial broadcasting started out in student radio. It was with the money from the students associations that Steven Joyce started on the ladder to making his great fortune. Yet he now wants to yank up the ladder behind him. Paula Bennett started her political career as the president of a students association. I understand that back then she claimed to be a lefty before she joined the National Party. Once again it is another example of Paula Bennett saying: “Well it worked pretty well for me”—much like the training incentive allowance—“but I’m just going to yank that opportunity away from other people. I’m going to take that away. It worked all right for me and I don’t really care about what happens to people who come along behind me.” That is the position of the National members. They are not interested in everybody else. They are not interested in the people on Struggle Street. They are not interested in the people who are trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They are interested only in themselves and their mates. They are not interested in ordinary hard-working Kiwis. University and tertiary students are great examples of people who are working hard to further themselves and lift themselves up but this Government constantly tries to pull the rug out from under them. This is a very bad bill. It is a bad bill that robs students of many of the vital supports they have come to expect. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Why are you such a communist? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Wayne Mapp has just called me a communist. In 1981 Wayne Mapp lost the selection for a Labour Party nomination to Phil Goff. He sits over there now because Labour did not want him. That is why Wayne Mapp is over there and he is still bitter and twisted that he got beaten in 1981 by Phil Goff to be the Labour Party candidate in Mt Roskill. He is all bitter and twisted and chewed up about that. I come back to the point I was raising before which is that this is a bad bill.