Sepuloni Carmel: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sepuloni Carmel: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20837. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 At the beginning of my speech I do need to respond to what was said by the previous speaker Allan Peachey. He is the chair of the Education and Science Committee so I would expect that he would have a great knowledge of the legislation we are debating and actually address the bill thoroughly. But instead he spent the whole 5 minutes of his speech attacking my learned colleague Grant Robertson about the Royal Society bill when we are here to discuss the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). He accused him of filibustering on the Royal Society bill but took 2 minutes of his time on his speech to do that. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. You brought us back to the bill before that member rose to speak. I would love to hear something about the bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will just respond to that. It is out of order to refer to a ruling by the Chair. Members need to move on. I think you have made your point. Now can we get on to the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: The point that was made with regard to capping the student services levy which is what Part 1 is about was really in relation to the fact that institutions are struggling at this point in time. Although we support the capping of the student services levy we know that at some point the institutions will have to find the money somewhere in order to provide the student services that students need to be able to make it through the degrees they are studying towards. That is the point we make here. 
Mr Peachey talked about the fact that we need to have faith in 17 18 and 19-year-olds in terms of their ability to make decisions for themselves. Before I get more thoroughly into this bill I need to make the point that it is members on the other side of the Chamber who are saying that 16 and 17-year-olds are not capable of making decisions for themselves hence National is proposing the introduction of a payment card so that they have restrictions around what they can buy with their independent youth benefits. So I think that before that speaker who happens to be the chair of the Education and Science Committee gets to his feet again he needs to reflect on some of the other legislation and policy initiatives that his Government is putting into place so that he is not standing up and contradicting a whole lot of proposals that his side of the Chamber is making. 
Moving back to this bill as my colleague Grant Robertson said before me this bill does make a range of amendments. We are looking at the fact that a student services levy within institutions will be capped. We are aware that in terms of the fees students have to pay and the amount it costs them to study at a tertiary level what is being proposed is good. Again I just have to say that we are concerned about this measure within the context of what is being done across the tertiary sector. The student services levy along with the money that is raised through voluntary student membership is really important in terms of the student services that are provided. Having worked at the university I know that it is not just about academic study and putting on classes for these students; there is a high level of support that students require whether it be additional study support in terms of the academic services provided through student learning centres or whether it be pastoral care. We cannot say that a student has qualified for a tertiary qualification and therefore every aspect of their life is intact and they no longer need any support at all because that is simply not the case. Any good tertiary institution wants to be able to provide that level of service to their students because at the end of the day it is about supporting them to remain at that institution and supporting them to achieve the academic qualifications they went there to obtain. Retention and achievement are two of the most important things at a tertiary level along with recruitment. We do support this part.  
We support putting a cap on the student services levies but as we said we have real concerns about what this will mean with regard to student services across the board. We think this bill does make some positive changes—some positive changes. However we look at the huge levy rises last year and we see that they really were a result of the National Government’s squeeze on tertiary funding. Basically tertiary institutions had no option but to raise student levies in order to raise the revenue that they needed to provide the services that the students required. That resulted in a squeeze on their funding and it forced institutions to lay off staff or pass the buck on to students. 
I will not take a full second call. I hope that the Government side of the Chamber will consider this bill carefully and look at it in the context of some of the other ill-informed decisions that it is making across our tertiary sector. Thank you.