Coddington Deborah: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17944] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak on clause 1 of the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill which should rightly be called the “Public Finance (State Sector Control) Bill”. The Government thinks that control and management are synonymous. The honourable member Jim Peters was absolutely right when he argued on behalf of academic freedom. This legislation breaches the spirit of the Education Act 1989. No good reason has been put forward as to why sections 160 and 161of the Education Act 1989 should be overridden by this legislation. 
The Vice-Chancellors Committee has met with the Government on innumerable occasions on this matter but it has not been listened to and yesterday in the Chamber the Minister of Education dismissed that committee as a bunch of fairies. That is how the Minister of Education who has had the privilege of a tertiary education treats academic freedom. It is an absolute disgrace. The Minister argued that the status quo is preserved. If the status quo is preserved why do we have page after page of amendments to the Education Act 1989 in this legislation? If the status quo is being preserved why do we have those amendments? Why are we bringing tertiary institutions under the same executive control as other Crown entities for which academic freedom and autonomy are not an issue? They are an issue with tertiary institutions. 
Adequate measures are already in place for accountability and transparency in the spending of taxpayers’ money it is just that this Government has not bothered to ensure that that accountability is put in place. For example Christchurch Polytechnic The Open Polytechnic and various wananga are under investigation in relation to conflicts of interest. Nothing ever happens unless an Opposition member brings it to the attention of the public and the media and then the Government steps in with the appropriate audits that should have been conducted properly in the first place. That is one major issue in this legislation. 
The other major issue is that no good reason has been put forward for the Fiscal Responsibility Act not remaining as a stand-alone law. The bill as it is now is considerably better than the bill that went to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and New Zealand taxpayers have the Clerk of the House to thank for that. He made a very strong submission because under the bill that this Government sent to the select committee it wanted to be able to spend public money without the authorisation of Parliament. Because of the Clerk’s strong submission and his arguments we have at least got back to the situation where money should be spent only with the authorisation of Parliament. 
However the executive has not been restricted enough. It still has the unfettered power to spend money. No measures have been brought in to prevent that. We could have built on the Fiscal Responsibility Act. We could now be debating a taxpayers’ Bill of Rights under which every bit of Government spending of public money is subject to a value-for-money test and where there are constitutional restraints on the spending of public money like targeting it to not increasing the rate of inflation or population growth and ensuring that to go above that there has to be a referendum with more than two-thirds of the population in favour. We could be debating those issues but instead we are passing legislation that considerably waters down the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Yesterday the Minister of Education and Minister of Finance blathered on about the need for transparency and accountability in the spending of public money.