Hughes Darren: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:16875] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 I will speak on the purpose clause of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. I believe that the purpose clause will have a very chilling effect on student government for tertiary institutes in New Zealand. Effectively the Committee of the whole House is being asked to legislate over the top of rights that students currently enjoy and that have existed for them in law for the last 12 or 13 years because some members of Parliament have decided they do not like what students associations do. Those members have a chilling agenda to try to stop the ability for students associations to advocate for students across our tertiary institutes in New Zealand and to take away from students the rights they currently enjoy to change any aspect of student government. 
The purpose of the bill is not the words written in the purpose clause of the bill. The real purpose of the bill is firstly about adopting and pursuing a right-wing agenda to try to end student government and make it a far less effective force in New Zealand and secondly—on a more personal level—about being nice to Heather Roy. The National Party members like many Labour Party members believe she was treated absolutely shoddily by the ACT Party and the bullies in that organisation. When this bill was in the name of Roger Douglas the National Party MPs were totally dismissive of it. They thought it was a step too far. They thought some changes could be made to the current legislation—and Labour and Green members have been open about debating that aspect of it but we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater—but after seeing the way Heather Roy was treated last year by the blokes in the ACT Party all of a sudden the National Party decided to be nice to Heather by supporting her bill to undermine and try to end student government at tertiary institutes around New Zealand. 
Heather Roy is a nice woman but she is not so nice that she should be the person responsible for getting rid of student government at tertiary institutes across the country just to make her feel better. We will take her for coffee; we will buy her a glass of wine. We will do whatever she likes. We will all sit around and say how much we think Rodney Hide is a terrible person. We will join in on that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: “Kumbaya”. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Mallard suggests we could sing “Kumbaya”. That is all fine; we will do that. But to make the member feel better by supporting this law whose purpose clause undermines student government across our tertiary institutes is just plain wrong. 
I ask the member in charge of the bill some questions. I ask her whether she believes in her heart of hearts that the kinds of services that all students get to enjoy now which have been built up over 100 years of fully participative student government across our universities and polytechs would exist if her bill had been law 100 years ago. 
Hon Heather Roy 
: It’s hard to predict. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: She has such faith in her legislation! Of course the answer to my question is no. Generations and generations of students in polytechs and universities have benefited from the work of students associations that have been built up due to the fact that everybody is part of them. For a number of years students all had to belong to a students association—no question about it. But since the 1990s they have not all had to belong to a students association. Students have had the ability to trigger referenda as other colleagues have said. They can vote on the issue—I will come back to that point. Students have had the ability to object to being a member of a students association and to not participate if they object to being a member. That ability is in the legislation. 
On both of those areas there is room for debate. Grant Robertson has put forward amendments to try to find a common ground certainly with ACT and more latterly with National as it changes its position. For a while National honoured its election commitment not to bring in or support legislation like this bill but it has forgotten about those commitments. 
All it takes is 10 percent of students to trigger the referendum in order to pursue the sorts of things Mrs Roy tells us are important to her. Ten percent is not much. Admittedly I know that 5 percent feels like a mountain to the ACT Party at the moment. I can see that ACT members might look at that 10 percent figure and think it is almost mission impossible. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Especially with Rodney leading them. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Let us not be mean about Rodney; let us leave that to the people of Epsom. I think that getting 10 percent of students to sign a referendum is not difficult at all. In our tertiary institutes students already have the ability to choose. That choice is what this bill is taking away. 
In a weird back to front way this National-ACT Government is putting its nanny State political views on to students. It wants to try to destroy student government. It cannot come out and just ban it because World War II was about that kind of thing so instead it will put in place every possible impediment to student government being a success. I think that is plain wrong. The purpose clause of the bill should reflect the real desire of the right-wing rabble. Helpfully for the Committee I have put forward three amendments to the purpose clause.