Joyce Steven: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Joyce Steven: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20841. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education) 
: 
 I thought I would take the opportunity to take a short call before Mr Robertson does because otherwise he would not be saved from his rhetoric and he needs to listen to this next bit because his compatriots are digging themselves a rather large hole. He might actually thank me afterwards for not allowing him to dig the same hole for himself. We will see how he goes on this but it will save him from some embarrassment.  
Firstly I take this opportunity to thank the Committee—most of the Committee anyway—for its support of this bill because I think it is a very important bill. I would like to talk about two aspects of it if I could. One aspect in particular that has had discussion this morning is student services levies. The other aspect I will talk about is export education.  
It is important to say after listening to the flowery rhetoric of some Opposition speakers on this bill that they should probably go and talk to the members of their “economic team” because on the one hand they are trying to tell us they will be fiscally responsible as a party if they ever get the chance to be in Government again but on the other hand these guys over here just want to spend more and more money without any reference to the facts. So let me acquaint members with a couple of facts.  
Here in Wellington I think we all know that every organisation that comes to Wellington comes for a reason and they are always looking for a slightly better outcome than they have currently and I do not think tertiary institutions are any different. Every tertiary education Minister since time immemorial has heard tertiary education institutions cry poor as to how they are in life but when one looks at that one has to check and ask oneself how they are going and what the reality of the situation is.  
The reality of the situation is quite interesting. Three things have happened to the public tertiary institutions in this country in the last couple of years. Firstly they have the largest number of funded places they have ever ever had.  
Grant Robertson 
: And the largest number of people trying to get into them. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No next year there will be 20000 more places than when the previous Government left office. That is 20000 more full-time funded places than when the previous Government left office and in a recession. Despite the global financial crisis this Government’s commitment to tertiary education is such that we have funded 20000 more full-time places than the previous Government had in 2008. That is point No. 1.  
The second point—which is probably upsetting for a number of other Government-funded sectors of the economy—is that despite the global financial crisis the funding for tuition fees has continued to increase. Last year it was up 2.2 percent. This year for the degrees it is up 2 percent. 
Grant Robertson 
: This is in the bill is it? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: This is about student services levies. So it has gone up 2 percent this year for a degree in higher education and it went up 2.2 percent last year. It is continuing to increase despite the fact that in most other Government-funded parts of the economy funding has been held flat because of the global financial crisis.  
So what is the outcome? Interestingly the outcome is that the institutions are the most profitable they have ever ever been. They are the most profitable institutions we have ever had in this country and they have the largest balance sheets they have ever had. So on one hand we have the Opposition weirdly siding with the institutions against the students saying that the institutions should somehow get more money and saying it is a bit sad that we have had to put this clamp on them for charging student services fees. But on the other hand they are not even bothering to look at the financial state of the institutions; they are just taking them at their word.  
This is the problem with the Opposition—it is always about more funding. It is always about more funding irrespective of the facts. Opposition members just say that the Government should fund things more. Why? Because somebody asked for it. That is what got us the problem in the first place. In the tertiary education sector these student services levies are very very important. I am sorry; the institutions cannot have it both ways. They walk in the door and say that they only ever use the levies for student services; then they turn round and say to a select committee that they actually need them because somehow the Government is diddling them on the tuition fees. By the way they are the most profitable they have ever been.  
I am siding with the students on this; unambiguously this Government is siding with the students. We are saying the institutions must justify—[ 
Interruption 
]. It is not just Mr Robertson’s little friends. We are saying that they must justify their student services fees. Effectively we are saying—and those who support this bill are saying—they must justify anything they charge compulsorily to students. That is what we are saying they must do and that is what we are doing. That is why this is very good legislation in that respect.  
I would also like to if I could take the opportunity to discuss briefly the issues around export education because that is very important as well. I think we have a very good education system in this country. It is one of those areas we feel passionately about so we are always challenging ourselves to do better and I think that is very good. There is always a healthy debate. We actually have a pretty good education system and a lot of people in the world would love to have an education system like ours.  
We have an opportunity as a country to help us afford more of the things we want to afford by having a strong and robust export education sector; in other words by sharing our expertise around the world and bringing students here. It is very good for our economy and our society generally to bring some of the best and brightest from the rest of the world to New Zealand. We want countries that we want to trade with like China India and the Arab States to bring their students here and we want to sell our services to the world. 
Two things in this bill are very very important in helping to achieve that. Firstly we have had a very fragmented organisational structure at the Government end of export education. We have had effectively three organisations supporting export education—in fact three or four—which for a tiny country of just over 4 million people is overly complicating the situation. So we have had a look at that and we have said that rather than having New Zealand Trade and Enterprise do a chunk the Education New Zealand Trust do a chunk and the Ministry of Education do a chunk we will put those limited resources that we have as a country together into one organisation a new Crown agent called Education New Zealand.  
I think that that will be a fantastic platform to take export education forward from here. My colleagues in Cabinet think so as well and they are as a result supporting that with extra funding of $40 million—$10 million a year over the next 4 years—which is a massive increase on what was being spent previously. That is because we see a great opportunity for this country and for the education sector in this country to actually grow our revenues from export education.  
At the same time we must be careful that the “Wild West” does not develop again. Many of us remember—and some members on the other side of the Chamber have the scars—what happened in the early 2000s when there was insufficient quality control on the export education sector. As a result one of our major client countries took a pretty dim view of our system for a while.  
What we have done about that is to take an approach in Government that is to be very strong on some of the providers that are perhaps not as good as they should be and we have encouraged the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to take a pretty robust approach in the interests of the protection of New Zealand’s reputation overall and the reputation of those providers that do a good job. We have been encouraged by the industry to do so.  
There have unfortunately been some limitations in the law—some quite significant limitations. The law was written many years ago so a number of clauses in the new legislation will help the New Zealand Qualifications Authority do its job which is a very important job as I say on behalf of the country. While we are out there at the front end encouraging export education to grow we must also have a good quality assurance regulator whose job it is to make sure that the reputation of New Zealand and the actual education and training of students are well protected. That is a very important part of this bill which we should not forget this morning.  
I think it is a very good bill. I appreciate the work done by the Education and Science Committee and I will talk more about that in the third reading debate. I look forward to the bill progressing through the House.