Peters Jim: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Jim: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17882. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I thought that when the Minister stood to give us an explanation he might have given us an explanation about the very section in Part 3 that relates particularly to tertiary education institutions and their understanding of past history. Instead he went right back to the dim distant past as far as I could see. 
I believe that the Minister should also have taken more time and relayed to us why tertiary education institution representatives particularly members of the Vice-Chancellors Committee are so upset about what they see as the understandings of the working party that that Minister helped to develop but that they feel in the actual development of Part 3 seem to have been so misconstrued. I take that point because the title of Part 3 and the suggested amendments begin with the words “Preliminary provisions”. I would like the Minister to take a call to tell the Committee exactly what that means. 
I have been informed and I know that the select committee was informed that not only are tertiary institutions concerned about the actual language of these provisions in Part 3 but they are also very concerned about the implications of these provisions being passed in this Parliament put into practice and having implications for them following that. As I said earlier they really feel that there is a shift from the known administrative matters under which universities are working. Instead this is about a movement to a completely new framework where in the language here there is consistency in the way Crown entities operate in the Government’s operation of Crown entities and in accountability—all of which by the way are matters tertiary institutions feel they do rather well right now. 
Does the Minister really want to have responsibility in the comprehensive sense for every tertiary institution? I know that we have heard some discussion here about polytechnics. One can think of the major tertiary institution in this country the University of Auckland and the size of the university as it is today with almost 4000 staff coping with 33000 students and with approximately only 36 percent of its funding coming directly from the Government. Its accountability is in the public domain with regard to what the Government seeks from the university. In relation to research the work that is done by a leading university such as Auckland University and others in all cases has sponsors who demand accountability. Students themselves increasingly and wisely so demand accountability today as well. Donors to universities demand accountability. Why then does the Minister in the course of his or her year seek to have the overriding power that is implied in the part before us? 
Again I would like the Minister to tell us what “Preliminary” really means. If that had been explained along with the explanations we have had from the select committee about submissions made by the universities there may have been another path on the part of the Vice-Chancellors Committee. But at this very point in time and as I speak the Vice-Chancellors Committee and in particular representatives of Auckland University have expressed their extreme concern publicly in the last few days about what Ministers really desire with regard to the autonomy and academic freedom of tertiary institutions.