Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Chair. It's a pleasure to take a call on the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill. I am going to speak to my colleague Nick Smith's Supplementary Order Paper 435 which really seeks to take the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) out of this bill. My colleague can't be here today so I'm going to try and take the lead for Te Tau Ihu. There are two campuses from Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology one in Nelson and one in Blenheim so they cover both of our electorates. They are significant entities particularly in Nelson but also in Marlborough and they reflect the unique characteristics of that area. In Nelson there's quite a close link to the Cawthron Institute and a lot of the research that goes on in aquaculture and marine biology and there's a good business campus there in Marlborough. There is the aviation component of NMIT. There is also the very important viticultural course that's run there and the facilities that are there are quite unique really in the country with micro vinifications so where wines can be made in very small batches so that the students are able to follow their progress right through. Now why that is important and why I raise that is because NMIT is able to be nimble. It's able to respond to the needs of their community and what that community needs and the fear is—and I think it's quite well-founded—that if this is all rolled up into one entity whether it's run out of the Minister's office or wherever that happens to be doesn't actually matter. What we know is that when things become large and are centralised in such a way they lose nimbleness and an ability to actually react to what's in front of them. I would argue that there will be very few people in New Zealand in the tertiary sector that would have any understanding of a viticultural course and a winemaking course. I think that is beyond doubt. And to have that ability on the ground to react to what is needed—and what we've seen in Marlborough is the school of wine is linking in with that. So that's a secondary component reaching into tertiary and I think that that is really important. That's where I think education will go in the future and good on it particularly with boys and education and getting them to see the point of education. That's half the problem and why so many boys are failing. They don't actually get what the point of it is. They don't see it linking to what their future is. But going back to the facilities—so these have been very successful entities. NMIT has cash reserves of $15 million or just over and that's going to be subsumed into this body and I don't think that's fair at all. It certainly isn't fair. Because an entity has been successful they're going to be punished and they're going to help the entities that are not well run and have lost a lot of money. I think that shouldn't be all put in together. But I think the really important point I want to make when in 1902 the Nelson technology unit was put together the community the ratepayers of Nelson paid for and gifted that land that the entity went on. Now we have assets of $100 million. So those assets that the ratepayers paid for are going to be stolen by the Government—no say from them—and that is just beyond belief. How can an entity like that come in over top take the assets? Who knows? In the future they might wind it up. We'll just say we're going to do it all online now—we don't need that campus; we're going to sell that land. We'll take the money put it back in the consolidated fund. Having done that the ratepayers of Nelson that paid for that land and that asset in the first place just get that taken away from them and I think that's absolutely appalling. It all goes back to the unsuccessful entities around the country that have failed. We are now using the successful ones like NMIT like Southern Institute of Technology and we're going to take those assets take that money and prop up the unsuccessful ones. Rather than focusing on the problem we're punishing the successful. That is not a good way to deal with anything and particularly the education and the future of young New Zealanders. I think that this is a huge mistake and it's run by ideology and not good sense.