King Colin: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
King Colin: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13685] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 In speaking on the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill I would like to address just a couple of comments the previous speaker made—that is that effectively private training establishments are not protected by the Official Information Act and that they are exposed by the request for information. It is worth my noting at the commencement of my speech on this third reading that the concern is with how that is perceived on the outside as far as the declaring of sensitive information about whether research relationships will be entered into. We know that confidentiality is a very sensitive matter where there is alignment between universities and research institutions. 
I will address the issues that the bill presents from the point of view that at this time while we listen to the rhetoric of this Government which assures us that everything will sail off swimmingly into the sunset and that we will not have any more problems with tertiary education I can inform Government members that they are dreaming. 
We have a situation whereby one of our polytechs is already unsure of its future. The Open Polytechnic has a lot to contribute in my view and it has a lot to contribute from the point of view of the Industry Training Federation. Yet The Open Polytechnic will have to again re-establish its quality and relevance. Most of my qualifications were done around that organisation and from my point of view as a member I found its quality and relevance to be outstanding. I would be horrified if the implementation of this bill was in fact the death knell of that institution—The Open Polytechnic—which has some 32000 people enlisted and undertaking education of a high quality of whom two-thirds are in employment. 
It is a bit rich when this Labour Government talks about itself as though it is as white as the driven snow because we can see that it was presiding over the tertiary education sector while we witnessed the most outrageous rorts ever brought upon the sector. Come the eleventh hour of this Government in its state of paranoia it brings in this centralised-management overly prescriptive model of micro-management. But when we look at it from the point of view of other areas—say the industry training area—we find that the Government turns a blind eye. 
The Government is still loading up the Modern Apprenticeships programme with no sense of discipline and no sense of management. We are finding that with this so-called flagship policy of the Labour Government now in total disarray it is an absolute shambles. Yet the Government is still talking about increasing the funding to 14000 places by December 2008. We see situations where Modern Apprenticeships coordinators are not being held to account. They are costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars with just one completion or millions of dollars with a handful of completions. So I would lay the claim back at the feet of the Government. When will it rein in this outrageous behaviour around the Modern Apprenticeships programme? 
On a basis of consistency it should be holding those people to account. In fact a number of Ministers for Tertiary Education have said that in the near future they would change and strengthen the policy and hold those Modern Apprenticeships coordinators to account. But we do not see any result of that. 
Can this Government be trusted? I do not think so. We can look back on another incident which I will take the opportunity to have recorded in  
Hansard 
 during this third reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. It is related to the commencement of a good policy in 2002 through to 2004-05—that is the programme for enrolled nurses. But the Government butchered that as well. There were 240 students who undertook that training. They were the very best in the aged-care sector and they took on the training to reach the qualification of enrolled nurse. However when that last class sat their qualifications and graduated their qualifications were taken away the day after. 
It is under that sort of climate and environment that this side of the House is extremely sceptical of the Government’s way of managing the tertiary education sector. The sector has been seriously rorted all the way through. It is far too much about institutions and not enough about quality and relevance. It is an absolute shame. 
We see in front of us further complexity. We have not seen any reduction in the number of staff of the Tertiary Education Commission—in actual fact we find that it is now increasing. We are seriously concerned about the complexities that are emanating from this bill. The Tertiary Education Commission has presumptuously rolled ahead and is using the bill as if it is now law. As my colleagues on this side of the House have explained we are already seeing the unintended consequences of the issues. 
There is a lot of work to be done in the industry training situation. We still have issues around the overlapping provision—that is where the polytechnics mimic the behaviour and training of the industry training organisations and are able to access equivalent full-time student funding. When a question of that nature was directed to the previous Minister for Tertiary Education Michael Cullen he said honestly—I must give him that—that the Government had not thought that one through and did not have an answer. 
We are still living in a very fluid situation which this bill does not address. When we stop to think about the situation those enrolled nurses encountered we find that it does nothing to give the public confidence that the Government will back people up on what they go into institutions to receive. For the Modern Apprenticeships programme and for those enrolled nurses this Government should hang its head in shame. Those are just two examples of some very very poor management of the tertiary education sector over the last 7 years. 
Turning to the situation of this bill coming into law I say that we have so much more work to do. When we look at section 195 of the Education Act which was reviewed this year and which empowers the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit to look at the financial basis of tertiary educations—basically the institutes of technology and polytechnics section—we see that only three were on their knees at this time. However it is a very volatile situation. The institutes of technology and polytechnics effectively have got themselves into a problem whereby they are coming to Wellington about every month begging for money. Yet the problem at the other end is that there is no quality. The report on section 195 stated that in future we should look at the quality coming out of the institutes of technology and polytechnics section because that along with financial viability is hugely important to this country. 
In conclusion I would like to give an award to the Labour Government. I believe that in the last 7 years you— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
COLIN KING 
: —have qualified in butchery. It gives me great pleasure to award the Labour Government a Modern Apprenticeship in butchery level 4. I award this certificate to those members on the other side— 
Nathan Guy 
: What does it say? 
COLIN KING 
: It states: “The Labour Government. Modern Apprenticeship in Butchery Level 4. This is to certify that for 7 years the Labour Government has butchered the tertiary education sector. Awarded on 4 December 2007.” Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Just by way of explanation every time the member uses the word “you” he is referring to the Chair. In future the member must refer to a Minister or another member as “the Minister” or “that member’’—that is in the third person.