Robertson Grant: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5955] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It has been a bad week for democracy. It has been a bad week for the National Government because it has decided this week that it will not listen to the people of New Zealand. It will not listen to the thousands of people who marched down the streets of Auckland calling for Maori representation on the Auckland Council. It does not want to listen to the communities that surround the polytechs in New Zealand. That is what the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill is about. To make it worse we will legislate in this House to not listen to the very communities that are served by our polytechnics. 
Beyond that this bill represents one of the most audacious power grabs in tertiary education that we have ever seen. The Minister for Tertiary Education Anne Tolley will have the right to appoint half of each polytechnic’s council of eight. 
Chris Hipkins 
: How many? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Half of the council of eight—four people. The Minister for Tertiary Education will have the right to appoint the chair and the deputy chair. This is a power grab of the most unbelievable sort from this Minister. 
Let us have a look at the effect of reducing the size of polytechnic councils. Who will be taken out of the councils under this proposal? We will see Maori taken off the councils. For the second time this week we are seeing Maori being told that their voice is not required at the table that their voice is not required to be there to show us how these institutions should be run. I too have served on a tertiary council as Mr Burns has and as my colleague Mr Hipkins has as well and tertiary councils benefit from the diversity of the people on them. Those councils also benefit from representation from unions and employers. I particularly note that this bill means that employer representatives will be taken off the polytech councils. National is taking away the very people who are concerned about the graduates who come out of polytech. 
The previous Labour Government put in place its tertiary reforms to ensure that the polytechs were able to support regional economics. Who are the people in the region who understand those economies? They are the representatives of employers and the representatives of workers. They are the people who are being taken out of this proposal. National is saying it does not want to listen to those people or know about their views. National is not concerned about what they might think about what is important in their regional economy. That is gone because that party on the other side of the House does not care about the views of other people. Its members do not want to listen. They know best they know what is right for the regions and they will put it in place. 
I want to refer to the words of the Universal College of Learning Chief Executive Paul McElroy. He was quoted in the  
Manawatu Standard  
as saying this: “Polytechnics are about the students and the communities they serve. I think they need to be a strong voice on the council. If the majority of the council is controlled by a ministry in Wellington you are not allowing that local voice to come to the forefront.” That is what Mrs Tolley is doing tonight. She is trying to take control of these polytech councils push out the regions push out the community and bring back the power to her. Mr McElroy went on to say “UCOL’s board has 14 members including representatives from campuses at Palmerston North Whanganui and Masterton publicly elected members iwi union and employer representatives.” Under this model Mrs Tolley is saying that one person will be able to represent the communities of Palmerston North Wanganui and Masterton—one person will be able to represent them. Mrs Tolley will appoint the other four and goodness knows who those people will be. Polytechs are expected to be able to represent a region in this case a region of three cities: Palmerston North Wanganui and Masterton. One person will not be able to do that. Mr McElroy went on to say that “New Zealand is a democracy. It’s about people who are consuming government services actually having a say over them particularly in education. We don’t want a situation where the Government writes the textbooks that is not acceptable in tertiary education.” 
Chris Hipkins 
: You don’t want Anne Tolley writing a textbook! 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Indeed no. 
Interestingly the  
Manawatu Standard 
 went on to say this “Mrs Tolley’s office said she did not have time to answer the Manawatu Standard’s questions yesterday.” So not only is Mrs Tolley not listening to the regions not listening to the communities that polytechnics serve but she does not even want to respond to the media when they want to know about the issue. 
We have to question what the Minister is trying to do with this bill and what the reason is behind the power grab. It is a true power grab because not only is it about the appointment of people to polytech councils but also it is about the removal of people from polytech councils. The Minister now has enormous power not only to appoint those people appoint the chair and appoint the deputy chair but also to remove them for reasons of “just cause” which includes a number of things. The Minister might decide to dismiss people from the council for any reason. This is a giant power grab. 
Is this the best that National can come up with when it comes to polytechnics at the moment? It is the best that it can come up with—gutting community representation. Polytechnics are bursting at the seams at the moment because people are desperate to increase their skills. The National Government’s response to that was to bring forward to this House a bill to gut the polytechnic councils. There is nothing in it about how the Government will enable more participation. There is nothing about how it will respond to the recession by getting people into polytechnics getting people to upskill and retrain—there is nothing about that whatsoever. A total of 328 people have been turned away from the Western Institute of Technology in New Plymouth. 
A total of 328 people have been turned away because this Government is not prepared to look at what is really happening in the regions to support the polytechnics and to support them to bring people to their regions. The only response from this Government is to bring forward an anti-democratic bill a bill that shows that the Government is not listening. It does not want to hear the views from the regions. 
But what is Mrs Tolley’s agenda with this bill? Why would we do this? Why would we take $60 million out of the polytech sector? There have been protests all around the country from polytechnic students and staff and the response from Mrs Tolley has been to take away community representation. The agenda here is clear: it is an agenda of control over polytechnics and it is an agenda where investment in polytechnics will be limited. The opportunities to respond to regional needs will be limited as the voice of the representatives of those regional needs will be taken out of the process. 
Now is the time to invest in polytechs I say to Mrs Tolley. Now is the time to put money in and to support people to retrain. Now is the time to listen to the community. Now is not the time to sit there and say: “We do not want to hear from the regions. We do not want to hear from the community.” 
But there is something very interesting and useful in this bill. It is the creation of the tertiary education high school at the Manukau Institute of Technology. It is a 4-year course for students starting from year 11. Students who are unlikely to succeed in a conventional education setting will be given an opportunity to try something different. For that I do commend the Government. It is an excellent idea. It is something that was discussed by Labour. It is a trial. It might not work. But it is worth a go to ensure that people can stay in training and can achieve their potential. 
If only the rest of the bill were focused in such a way. If only the rest of the bill actually focused on trying things out on getting people into polytechnics. But the lack of vision from this Government is astounding. We have been here before. In the 1990s the National Government tried to change the way that people were represented on tertiary councils. In fact my colleague Mr Hipkins was arrested on the forecourt of Parliament on that very issue. I think he will have his retribution soon. We have been here before in the 1990s. 
We know that polytechnics and tertiary institutions operate best when they reflect the communities around them when regional needs are represented at the council table. But once again this week we see that the National Government has no interest in listening to people and no interest in hearing alternative views. This bill is an outrageous shame. It is something that the National Government should be ashamed of coming hard on the heels of the Government saying it will not listen to Maori on the issue of the Auckland Council. The National representatives should hang their heads in shame. Polytechnics deserve good strong community-driven councils. What we see today is the Minister for Tertiary Education controlling who is on those councils and how to take people off those councils. That is anti-democratic and it is bad for education.