Hipkins Chris: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:16868] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 Give it time Mr Chair; I have been here only a little while. I am very happy to talk about the purpose clause clause 4 and clause 4A of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. Clause 4 states: “The purpose of this Act is to uphold students’ rights to freedom of association by removing any requirement for students to join students associations.” There is a huge amount of material. This is where we get down to the guts of whether this bill is desirable. 
First of all the question becomes under the purpose clause whether this bill is actually required—whether it is actually necessary. Its purpose is to uphold a student’s right to freedom of association. First of all let us look at whether the provisions in the current Act infringe on a student’s right to freedom of association. I put forward a pretty compelling case that in fact they do not and that they do not compel students to associate. One could mount a convincing case—and I am sure that one of my colleagues will do so further down the track—that being a member of a wider collective body such as a students association even if someone has to be a member does not actually infringe on a student’s right to freedom of association. This is in much the same way that the compulsion for me to pay taxes to the Government does not infringe on my rights to freedom of association either. We will address that argument as we get further down the track. 
But the question that I will turn my attention to particularly at the moment is whether students have no option other than to join a students association as the law currently stands. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that that is the case; in fact it is definitely not the case. Under the law passed by the then National Government in the late 1990s stewarded through the House by Tau Henare who was at the time a member of New Zealand First and supported by people such as Deborah Morris in order for there to be universal membership of a students association all of the students at that institution had to participate in a vote to say they wanted there to be universal membership of that students association. Those votes took place at the beginning of 1999 and only two university students associations opted for voluntary membership: the Waikato Student Union which was already voluntary—and in a subsequent referendum there students opted to go back to a universal system of membership—and the Auckland University Students Association. Those were the two voluntary ones. 
At all of the other universities—and we will talk about polytechs and institutes of technology shortly—all of the students voted in quite large numbers to retain a universal system of membership. At Victoria University where I was a student at the time from memory about 78 percent of those who voted in the referendum voted to retain a universal system of membership. One of the arguments put forward by those in favour of voluntary membership is that those who vote in students association - related activities are a small number and are not representative of the wider student population. In fact more than half of all of the students who were enrolled at Victoria University voted in that referendum on whether there should be a universal system of membership for the association and 78 percent voted in favour of having that. 
There is a provision within the Act that if students become dissatisfied with their association having a universal system of membership they can call another referendum and they can make the membership voluntary. They have that ability at the moment. Having watched the Victoria University students association in the last 3 or 4 years I think there were probably a few instances where many students may have felt compelled to call such a referendum because I do not think the behaviour of some of the elected representatives at the Victoria University students association in the last few years has been particularly acceptable. Actually one of the disciplines that the referendum option puts on students associations is that if they become unresponsive to their members if they lose touch with what their members want then they know that the members can take away their ability to continue to levy them and can remove that universal membership provision. 
That is already there under the current Act and it was an Act passed by a National Government. National’s position going into the last election was that it would not change that. Paul Hutchison went around the country saying National would not change this legislation. This is another broken promise from National—a bit like its promise not to increase GST. National members promised that they would not touch this legislation but they bowed to the pressure from the ACT Party to do just that. That is the second point that I raise. 
The third point that I will raise given all of those arguments is whether if there is a universal system of membership at a students association there is an ability to opt out. If a student feels so strongly offended by the notion that they are associated with the students association at their institution—polytech university or otherwise—can they opt out? Under the current law yes they can opt out. So to say that the current law infringes a student’s right to freedom of association simply is not true; a student can opt out now. I would say to Heather Roy the member in charge of this bill that those provisions could actually be strengthened. There is a legitimate cause to say that under the old law that existed before the current law it was almost impossible to opt out of a students association and one of the changes that happened in the late 1990s was that the provisions were strengthened somewhat. I think they could actually be strengthened a bit more without going the whole hog and having totally voluntary student membership. In some cases individual students clearly do not want to be members of an association and they could opt out. 
The difficulty that I have with this bill is that it goes all the way to the other extreme and makes it almost impossible to have a large-scale students association at a tertiary institution that is largely reflective of the composition of the students at that institution. I think that a students association without the ability to claim representative status will have all of the good work that it does eroded. Many of the things that students associations do simply do not get noticed and the associations will not be able to do them under a voluntary regime. 
Another one of the arguments put forward by the proponents of voluntary membership is that some students particularly those involved in activism on political issues such as voluntary student membership typically come from a right-wing perspective whereas a students association would be arguing in the old-fashioned terms from a more progressive left-wing perspective. Those students would say that a students association does not represent them and ask why they should have to join that association. I think that argument is a red herring. First of all those students can participate in the process and if they can get themselves elected to the students association executive they can change the policy of that association. Students associations actually operate on a very democratic basis; it is not hard to call a general meeting. It is not hard to get elected to a students association executive; I managed to do it four times— 
Moana Mackey 
: So humble. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I know. It is not hard to do that. 
Of course the candidates who put up the argument that they do not agree with the politics of the students association never manage to get themselves elected because students actually largely believe in the position put forward by students associations. It is a position that is supported by the majority of students at the institutions and that is reflected in the fact that they vote for the executive and for people who espouse those views. When I was the president of the Victoria University students association we did surveys to get students’ views on things—and I am not talking about small-scale surveys; I am talking about surveys of large chunks of the campus population—to make sure that the views we were putting forward on students’ behalf actually represented what they thought. Overwhelmingly they favoured the arguments that we put forward around lower-cost access to education and so on. 
We know that the National Government does not like the arguments put forward by many students associations because it made all sorts of promises up and down the country that it does not intend to keep. I remember a very famous promise that students associations have continued to remind this Government about: the promise made by the then National spokesperson on education to abolish student fees altogether. That was made in 1990 by National’s then spokesperson on education Dr The Rt Hon Lockwood Smith who went up and down the country and signed his name on those pledges at every students association in the country. The students associations got him to pledge to do that and they continue to remind him time and time again that he broke that promise and that they are now paying much much higher fees increasingly so every year. 
Students associations have played an important role in keeping both National and Labour Governments honest. I was the president of the students association at Victoria University when the previous Labour Government was elected to office. It would be fair to say that we did a little bit to try to keep that Government honest and to push for policies that advanced student interests further than that Government might have been willing to go. It is good for us that the previous Labour Government respected the position of students associations even though it did not necessarily agree with what we were arguing for. It was unlike the current National Government which would prefer to do away with students associations altogether rather than to listen to the position that they put forward on behalf of their members.