Sepuloni Carmel: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Sepuloni Carmel: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:659;Page:8468] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 The Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill represents nothing but bad news for the students of polytechnics for the staff of polytechnics and for the regional communities of New Zealand. It is essentially a power grab by the Minister of Education. Certainly this bill will allow the Government to intervene more rapidly when polytechnics have issues with financial or educational performance but the Minister will not stop there. The bill will allow the Government to intervene in the affairs of polytechnics that are performing as well as of the ones that are not performing. In order for that to happen local communities staff and students will be denied a say in the governance of their institutions and to Labour that is unacceptable. 
The bill reduces the size of polytechnic councils ostensibly to improve their effectiveness and capability. In practice it means that councils of 12 to 20 members will be reduced to just eight members four of whom are ministerial appointees. Those appointees will include the chairperson and the deputy chairperson. Representatives of anyone other than the Minister are not so welcome on the proposed new councils. There will be one academic board member appointed by the council a community member appointed by the council one student representative and the chief executive officer. On the proposed new councils what the Minister says goes. We keep hearing from members on the other side of the House that this Government is about choice about personal choice and individual responsibility and is not about telling people what to do and then what does it do here? It gives all the power to the Minister and says she has the final say and is the only one who can determine what goes on. 
The decisions of a polytechnic council primarily affect the staff and the students of that polytechnic. Why then does the Minister believe that staff and students do not deserve to have guaranteed adequate representation on that council? We should be preserving their right to be heard in the decision-making process rather than adopting the attitude of “this Minister knows best”. There will be some representation for staff and students but it will not be enough. The Government claims these changes will increase the efficiency of the councils. In reality the Government is stripping the councils of legitimacy as it denies key stakeholders the right to make their voices heard. 
For many New Zealanders community polytechnics provide a vital service. They are right in the heart of their community. Why then is there no guaranteed place under this bill for a community representative? Why does the community not deserve to have a say in the governance of its local polytechnic? Under the proposed new form of the councils there is no room for community representatives should a polytechnic serve more than one community as many polytechnics do. Which community will be represented on the council of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology? Who will miss out? I guess that is entirely up to the Minister to decide. 
In this bill the Government notes that it is desirable in principle for a council to include Maori representatives and to reflect socio-economic and ethnic diversity within the community. However it makes no effort whatsoever to guarantee either. We see in this bill as we have seen in the Auckland super-city legislation an example of the National Government’s attitude towards Maori representation. National shows a complete disregard for the rights of Maori to be represented and for the value that this representation would bring. 
The Labour Party supports some provisions in this bill which we believe will make a positive difference. We have consistently supported the establishment of the tertiary education high school at the Manukau Institute of Technology and we will continue to do so. Ensuring that high school students who would otherwise be likely to leave school without qualifications will be provided with other opportunities to gain qualifications is important to us. Labour is committed to making sure that at-risk students do not fall through the gaps and initiatives such as this one are important steps towards achieving this goal. 
Having said that I say the other provisions of this bill make it impossible for Labour to support it. We do not support restricting the right of Maori of students of staff and of communities to participate in the decision-making processes of their local polytechnics. These polytechnics belong to their communities. The right of members of the community to be represented on the council of their local polytechnic should not be disregarded. Why does the Government want to restrict Maori student staff and community representation? Why does it want to slash these representative bodies to half their current size? Although this bill targets only polytechnics I cannot help but wonder what the Minister will do next. What else does she have in her sights? Will universities or wananga be next in line to get this treatment and for what purpose? 
The provisions in this bill send a clear message to New Zealand’s regional communities which highly value the skills and training that their local polytechnics provide. The Government obviously does not trust those communities to be decision makers when it comes to the governance of their polytechnics. The Government obviously does not respect their input. That attitude is simply wrong. In this case the Minister does not know best—I do not know whether there are any cases where she does know best—and Labour will not be supporting this bill. 
Unfortunately I am not on the Education and Science Committee but I have heard from many of our select committee members about what went on there and about their views regarding this legislation. The Labour members of the committee had grave concerns about the passage of this legislation with the exception of as I said the provisions that will enable secondary school students to attend tertiary high school at the Manukau Institute of Technology. That is the one measure in this bill that we support. The concerns of the Labour members of the select committee were firstly that there has been no adequate explanation of why this legislation is necessary for the polytechnic sector alone out of the whole tertiary education sector. Members on the Labour side of the House believe that either the Minister is operating on the basis of outdated information regarding the polytechnic sector or she has intentions for this part of the sector that she does not have for other parts of the tertiary education sector—and quite frankly we would find that to be rather bizarre. The purpose of such limiting provisions which hand considerable power in respect of the running of institutions over to the Minister and restrict community representation is ultimately unclear. 
Next I say we oppose the absolute reduction in council numbers from 14 to 20 members down to eight. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned this restricts the number of community representatives able to be appointed to polytechnic councils and that limits the perspectives able to be brought to the education that a polytechnic might offer to its region. That potentially impoverishes the educational opportunities available in the regions in our view. There is no clear purpose for this provision given that the operating cost of the councils is not large or excessive. The only purpose that can be divined is for the Minister to be able to exercise more control over polytechs. The ultimate purpose for that however is still unclear as I mentioned earlier. 
A particular concern for us regarding the reduction in the number of council members relates to situations where a polytechnic serves more than one community—for example the University College of Learning which serves Palmerston North Wanganui and the Wairarapa district. There is no guarantee that those diverse communities with differing educational needs will have their needs represented at the council level. This was the subject of submissions from mayors in various areas an unusual occurrence in itself and one that reflected the level of their concern about these provisions. 
We will not be supporting this bill. Thank you.