Roy Heather: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Roy Heather: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20322] 
Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to some of the concerns that the previous speaker Gareth Hughes had. The clause that we are debating clause 9 of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is about transitional provisions as we have heard from a number of members. One of the reasons that it is in place is that the member who has just resumed his seat Gareth Hughes implored the Education and Science Committee—I was on the committee at that stage—that this would be a good idea. 
Mr Hughes wanted a transition for those summer students who had enrolled in summer school in December and would carry on over as he did not feel it would be fair that they had two sorts of fees to contend with. In fact he felt it would not be fair to the students associations involved. He had general agreement from all of the committee that this was the fair and reasonable thing to do. He has stood up in this Chamber tonight and tried to pretend that this clause is a “confusing mess” so I would like him to take some responsibility for this “confusing mess” that we have before us. 
Clause 9 is not a confusing mess at all. These transitional provisions actually put fairness at the feet of the students associations to cover that summer school period. Once upon a time when the legislation was originally written summer school did not exist so this provision would not have been required. Many students now for convenience require summer school. It helps them get through their courses much more quickly and it is a very sensible provision. I hope that the Committee now understands exactly why we have this transitional provision. I fully support it as did Mr Hughes at the select committee but sadly he does not support it tonight. 
One or two other things that need to be addressed are issues that have been raised as part of the debate on this particular clause. One was Louise Upston’s comments about the email she received from a female student. Many of us received emails from students that were not actually sent by them. There were at least 100—[ 
Interruption 
]—and I can tell members exactly why. At least 100 were sent by the Labour Party machine Save our Services. The reason I know this is that it sent an email of apology to the Hon Peter Dunne who has given his permission for this apology to be talked about in Parliament tonight. Those members who think that this is not correct should speak to the Hon Peter Dunne. You can ask your friends at Save our Services— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon HEATHER ROY 
: I beg your pardon Mr Chairperson. They can ask the Labour Party’s friends at Save our Services as to why exactly students’ email addresses were used for anti - voluntary student membership emails to be sent to a number of MPs in this House. I think we all deserve an apology but most of all the students whose identities were stolen deserve an apology from Save our Services and from these MPs who seemed to think this was such a good idea. 
The last thing I will address which has been raised as part of this debate is the leave that the member Pete Hodgson tried to seek to table some of the submissions. Actually I would not have had any great objection to one of those being put forward. Ben Nettleton gave a very good pro - voluntary student membership submission so it would be great to have that on the Table. I am not sure why the member just stuck to the Bens but he did and Ben Nettleton’s submission was an absolutely superb submission saying why we need voluntary student membership. 
I look forward to the swift passing of this legislation. I am delighted that we are finally debating it again today. My final point is that Gareth Hughes said we have only 4 months left. The members on that side of the Chamber need to take responsibility for that—for filibustering this bill from 8 December last year.