Hodgson Pete: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hodgson Pete: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17599] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I begin by congratulating two members of the ACT Party on remaining true to their neo-liberal origins which is something that the other three members have not done—or at least two and a half of them have not. But as is the case with the ACT Party when it does remain true to its neo-liberal origins and becomes consistent it is also within the bounds of possibility that it is consistently wrong. 
Society ranges itself variously either collectively or individually. One can call it user-pays or payer-uses; one can call it public sector or private sector. All economies are mixed—all economies are mixed—and they always will be. It is always better to have a payer-uses society to deliver health services for example and a user-pays society to deliver whatever it might be—fruit and vegetable services. It is always going to be mixed. Students associations themselves are economies that are mixed. They provide their pastoral services their welfare services and most but not all of their health services on a payer-uses model. On the other hand for example advertising in their radio or print media is on a user-pays model and they charge like wounded bulls. So students associations have a mixture of ways in which they build their revenue base. 
The reason they have a mixture is that it is sometimes more efficient to use user-pays and it is sometimes more efficient to have payer-uses. If one gets rid of payer-uses one ends up with less efficiency and lower delivery of some things that students have erstwhile considered important including welfare pastoral or health services. Of course some of the services such as agitation advocacy or whatever also come from student fees and that may be something that the ACT Party members would like to raise in support of their position. 
But the truth of the matter is that the vast bulk of the revenue collected from students for students associations is spent collectively on things that students in general over the years have found useful. How do I know this? Well because for 20 years I have been the member for Dunedin North. My electorate office is next door to the Captain Cook Tavern. Not a week in the academic year goes by without students coming to my office to see me and my staff over something and that has been going on for 20 years. There are now 19000 of them washing through the place every 3 or 4 years. It is like a transit camp. In that time in those two decades not one student has darkened my door to speak in favour of this legislation—not one. 
Not one student has darkened my door to speak in favour of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill and yet we say we are a democracy. We say we are a democracy we say the majority are entitled to have the sway except in this instance where we have a 3.5 percent party having its way with a party that is supposed to be principled to overturn something that no student in my electorate in over 20 years has ever asked for. That is outrageous. It is outrageous because ACT members say they know best but they are not part of this debate. They are not at university as far as I am aware. I was at university last year and I had to pay student fees to Victoria University and I did not use the services. That is what happens with payer-uses. Sometimes I do not use the health services in this country either even though I am paying tax. It is still the most efficient way to run those services. Yet ideology is being rammed through and is skewering common sense. 
As my colleague Maryan Street pointed out National members sit there and say diddly-squat. They know in their hearts that it is a bit awkward. They know in their hearts that back at their polytechs and especially at their universities they will have to face some difficult questions. They know there will be destruction of services but they sit there because somewhere at some stage there needed to be some trade-off to make sure that that coalition partner of this ill-begotten Government would get its jollies over this legislation. That is not a good way to run a country. It is not principled it is not called for it is not democratic and it is not popular.