Hipkins Chris: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 It seems that Max Bradford has made a reappearance in the Chamber today. I am sure he would be very very proud of several of the bills on the Order Paper. He would be very proud of this Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill and I am sure he would be very proud of the Electricity Industry Bill which we will also be discussing later tonight. Max Bradford would be very proud of the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill because it bears a striking resemblance to his tertiary review green paper that he introduced into the House in the late 1990s in the dying days of the last National Government. As a matter of fact a lot of the proposals that the Minister for Tertiary Education Anne Tolley has brought forward to the Committee today mirror the proposals that Max Bradford brought forward about 10 or 12 years ago. That shows how much National’s thinking has moved on in the last decade. National members are debating the same failed ideas that National was putting forward in the late 1990s. 
Max Bradford’s tertiary review green paper wanted to introduce a corporate governance model not just for polytechnics but for universities and wananga as well. It wanted to place a higher share of the cost of tertiary education on to students in the form of higher fees and it wanted there to be more private sector involvement in the tertiary education sector through private training establishments. Ultimately that is where this bill is going. This bill is a precursor to more private sector involvement in tertiary education. 
I have to say though that there is one difference between the proposals that Max Bradford would have brought forward at the time and the proposals brought forward by Anne Tolley: Max Bradford would have shown up in the House. He would have spoken in the second reading debate not scurried away. He would have sent the bill to a select committee. He would have fronted up. He would not have sat in the chair and signed Christmas cards while the bill was being debated in the Committee stage. He would have fronted up and justified the reforms that he was putting forward. We have seen nothing even close to that from this Minister. One would think that after the embarrassment of missing her own second reading speech the Minister would have been the first person to rise to her feet when the Committee stage came up to correct the fact that she was too hopeless even to be in the House for the second reading. It will show on the record of the House that there was no substantive second reading speech from a Government Minister because Anne Tolley was too hopeless to show up in the House and make a speech. 
Anne Tolley does not care enough about that to try to correct it now while we are in the Committee stage. For a moment I thought she was conscientiously writing down the points that were being raised by Opposition members so that she could stand up and respond to them. In fact we have no evidence that she is going to do that. She thinks that her Christmas cards are more important than the law that she is trying to make in this Parliament. She thinks that Christmas cards are more important than participating in the debate on a law that will be in her name. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: They’re apology cards to everyone she’s upset. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: They could be apology cards to everybody whom she has upset this year. I cannot see enough of them to judge whether that is the case. 
This bill is an outrageous abuse of process by the National Government and it shows once again how little regard the National members have for the voices of people whom they disagree with. They are seeking to remove from the councils of polytechnics the voices of people who are likely to disagree with them. 
I have been a member of a tertiary institution council the Victoria University of Wellington Council. I became a member of that council in 2000 and it would be fair to say that at the time I became a member there had been several years of governance failure. The university was practically broke. Up until that point the university council had included many of the people whom the National Government holds up as pillars of good governance. Roger Kerr was on the Victoria University council when the university just about went broke. He was pushing the types of reforms that the National Government has brought forward in this bill. In fact I would say to the Minister that the reason Victoria University turned itself round is that it had a very inclusive approach to dealing with its financial deficit and its financial problems. The leadership of the university and the council were very committed to hearing the voices of students staff employers unions and all of the other stakeholders in the community—the alumni—and were interested in involving those people in the process. That started at the council level. It started right at the highest level of the institution’s governance and as a result there was widespread buy-in to the changes that resulted from that process. I think there was— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will give the member another call but I will just give a little clarification because he has been a wee bit remiss. It is a convention in the House and it is recorded in  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 on pages 24 and 25 that the absence of a member should not be referred to in either the House or a select committee. The point has now been made and I do not wish to have members continuing with that theme. Members can say a member did not take a call and make a lot of references in that vein but referring to the absence of a member is not something that is permitted by convention. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The point that I would like you to clarify now is whether it is permissible to say a Minister came into the Chamber for a short time and left the Chamber in a hurry and to clarify where those lines are drawn. That was the case. The Minister did come into the Chamber. She was here for a very short time and she ran away— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member is now getting into the area that I said the member Chris Hipkins should not be going into. I think he has just repeated the things that I have a concern about. I am trying to be consistent with regard to rulings. Any single thing that refers to the absence of a member is out of order. 
Jo Goodhew 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek your assistance with regard to Speaker’s ruling 108/5. I ask whether speaking to the question could be a ruling that you would perhaps make on this issue. We are hearing a fair bit of repetition that does not in any way address the question. I ask for your guidance on that point. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The presiding officer takes a range of things into consideration particularly when it comes to closure time. Repetition relevance and a whole range of things are in there and that is the way that we will deal with that when the time comes. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: As I was saying this part of the bill that we are debating reduces the stakeholder representation on polytechnic councils. That ranges from employer representation through to former student representation current student representation staff representation and so on. In my experience having been on a university council—those councils are not covered by this bill but until this point they have followed the same governance model as polytechnic councils—the student and staff representatives are often some of the people who are the most prepared for meetings. They offer an insight and a perspective that is not offered by the corporate governors—if we can call them that—who are involved in the governance of the institutions. As a matter of fact those representatives managed to haul the institutions back in some instances from making decisions that would be detrimental to the long-term interests of the institutions. One of the last Victoria University council meetings that I attended as a student representative—and there will be no guaranteed student representatives on polytechnic councils if the Minister continues to force this bill through Parliament— 
Jo Goodhew 
: There can be four. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Jo Goodhew said there will be four. Obviously she has not read the bill as there have never been four student representatives on polytechnic councils. I think a maximum of three was the allowance for polytechnic councils previously so perhaps the member might like to read the bill that has been put forward in the name of the Minister. 
As I was saying the student representatives in particular provide a unique perspective on the governance of councils. That allows the corporate members or the non-stakeholder representatives on a council to be given a unique perspective. At perhaps the last university council meeting that I attended at Victoria University we were debating a number of changes to some of the statutes of the university. The student representatives put forward a position that the corporate members or the ministerial appointees ended up supporting because they thought that the issues that we were raising on the statutes dealing with student grievances and so forth were very legitimate. Those views would not have come forward if the stakeholder model of governance had been abandoned but unfortunately the model that the Government is moving towards is very much one where stakeholders are excluded from governance. The Government is moving away from the idea of having a representative participatory democracy where the people who are impacted on by the decisions of a particular body have the chance to have a say in those decisions. Stakeholders certainly have not had the chance to have a say on much of the legislation brought before the House including this bill because the Government has an aversion to the regular parliamentary process. Ministers do not speak on their own bills bills are not routinely referred to select committees and so forth. 
In conclusion I simply wrap up by saying this is a bad bill. It excludes people from the governing processes of polytechnics. 
Hon Member 
: So sad. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It is very sad. It excludes from the governing processes of polytechnics people who have a lot to offer to the good governance of polytechnics. The Minister seems to completely fail to understand that stakeholder representatives provide a unique perspective. They provide very valuable input into the governance of polytechnics and it is a shame that she is excluding them from the process.