Street Maryan: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Street Maryan: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17598] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to rise and take a call in this debate. We are on clause 6. I would like to respond to the member Heather Roy’s comments with the honesty she requested. 
My comments essentially go like this. Clause 6 which contains all of the substantive parts of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill reflects the fact that this bill is simply the result of flawed tactics on the part of National. National members have now found themselves backed into a corner by a minority party that is pursuing this bill on the basis—let me give the member credit—of some principled position without considering however the practical outcomes of the bill. That is a travesty of this House’s purpose. Of course bills should be brought here on the basis of principle and they should be submitted to a select committee to our democratic process for improvement. That is what happened with this bill. But for the National members of the Education and Science Committee to then suddenly fold their arms and say they would not have any more to do with the arguments put up by submitters is a fault and an inadequacy on the part of tacticians in National. 
Let me explain that a bit further. Clause 6 says membership of students associations should be voluntary. If Heather Roy indeed brought this bill to the House on the basis of the neo-liberal principles on which the ACT Party hangs its hat then all credit to her. But for National then to concur with legislation that is going to ruin part of student life in New Zealand and part of the life of tertiary institutions is simply wrong. It means there has been insufficient thought applied to this legislation by National. Once National members worked themselves into this position of not seeking improvements or amendments to the bill they persisted in sitting as they are now—each of them to a person with their heads down not looking and not engaging—because they know that that position is a failure on their part. They are standing up for legislation that will wreak havoc and cause something that significantly contributes to tertiary education in this country to grind to a halt. 
It is a nonsense to say that clause 6—and I am looking at the new section 229A which states that membership of students associations is to be voluntary—will benefit the student population the tertiary experience or even the institutions in any way. Besides that there were almost no submitters in favour of this legislation. Why has National capitulated in this way on an imperfect bill that will have practical and pragmatic outcomes that are destructive? Why would it back itself into that position? Why have its members still not had the courage to say—not one of those members has said—why they have changed their position why they have not sought improvements or why they have not sought amendments to the bits they might not agree with? If there are problems I say to Mrs Roy with the way students associations have operated if there are problems in that people have found it difficult at times to get out of a students association then why not simply address those issues? Why cause this destruction?