Peters Jim: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Jim: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17860. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 Contrary to what the Minister said that is a very revealing and partial viewpoint. It is certainly not one the universities came to the committee with or still have on this very day despite the Minister’s amendments. 
The position as he knows and as has been stated is that the Public Finance Act set out the new Crown entity. A large number of entities were constructed although the term was not properly defined in that Act. Instead they simply became Crown entities because the Act said they were and there are many others such as polytechs colleges of education school boards of trustees the Commerce Commission the Securities Commission housing bodies district health boards and so on. In fact the designation in the Public Finance Act as stated at the select committee had little practical effect. 
That was so because most sections of that Act do not deal with universities. I am reliably told that in that Act the Minister covered only five sections relating to universities. They concerned such matters as one would expect as the preparation of annual statements and auditing. Those sorts of matters are properly and were at that time part of the Act and universities never found those matters unreasonable or burdensome at all. 
Those sections did not impinge upon the universities’ autonomy. They related back to the discussions that took place under the Lange Labour Government and the work done by the then Professor Keith and others to put together a settlement because the University of Auckland and the University of Canterbury took a case against the Labour Government of the day. The universities were of the opinion quite rightly that the Government had failed to consult them on the Learning for Life reforms. 
That is the historical background to the statements made by the Minister just now. As a former university lecturer he knows how important and precious—precious in the real sense—universities have valued autonomy and academic freedom. I speak personally because I have had a long-term association with the University of Auckland. The work that university has done was recognised by Oxford University in its appointment of Dr John Hood to the university. The size of Auckland University and the quality of the work it has done are known throughout the country and internationally. 
The real contention for Auckland University and for other universities as well is the question why this Act has changed the core nature as they see it of the relationship established under the Public Finance Act particularly as the Education Act set out the intention very clearly that universities would have as much independence and freedom to make academic operational and management decisions as was consistent with the services they provided and the efficient use of national resources in the interests of the nation and so on. The Act also declared in section 161 that it was the intention of Parliament that academic freedom and the autonomy of institutions were to be “preserved and enhanced”. Universities feel that greatly. Finally section 161(4) states: “In the performance of their functions the Councils and chief executives of institutions Ministers and authorities and agencies of the Crown shall act in all respects so as to give effect to the intention of Parliament as expressed in this section.” 
That is the background the university group presented to the select committee. Despite what the Minister said it feels that the intention of those sections of the Education Act and the thrust of the work done by the Keith committee are deliberately being thwarted. I will talk more about that when we debate Part 3. So contrary to what the Minister said those university representatives feel that this bill in its original form and even with its recently proposed amendments does not give effect to what they thought they had and what they had hitherto exercised at universities council by council.