Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20835. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Thank you for the call Mr Chair—and I am sure that members on the Government benches will be anxious to take a call on this bill as well and that will be good. The Education Amendment Bill (No 4) obviously makes a range of amendments to the Education Act. That is the nature of such bills; they do cover a lot of ground.  
The particular area of concern I want to raise is about the reforms this bill makes to student services levies. There is absolutely no doubt when we look at the growth of student services levies in institutions around the country that this could be a matter of considerable concern. In 2010 student services levies increased by an average of 102 percent in universities and what I think has been happening there essentially is that universities have been looking at the fee maxima policy—which the Labour Government introduced and the National Government has carried on with—and have perhaps been looking at ways they can increase their revenue. There has certainly been some concern from students about the way in which these levies have increased over a period of time. This bill allows the Minister for Tertiary Education to give directions to institutions to hold fees in a specified manner as provided in new section 227A inserted by clause 26. For example directing that a separate account be used exclusively for the purpose of expenditure on student services; that adequate arrangements be established to make decisions as to the types of services that should be made available to students the level of a student levy the procurement of student services and the method of authorising expenditure on student services in joint consultation with students; and that a description of the services funded out of the student levy be included in its annual report.  
Now all of that might sound good in the sense that it can control aspects of the growth of student services levies but it is important to see this legislation in the context of another piece of legislation that is before the House and that is Heather Roy’s Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill to make students association membership voluntary. Although a mischief may be being dealt with here in terms of the growth of the student services levies the end result of Ms Roy’s bill—the shutting down effectively of students associations—is that a lot of the services provided to students will now be channelled through the institution—the university the polytech the wananga or the private training establishment—and the control of what services are delivered will become very much the purview of the institution. This is the criticism we have made on this side of the House of the voluntary students association membership bill—that the control of student affairs is moving from students to institutions. And as I think I have said in debates before in the 1990s when I was a student politician we had posters around when we were opposing Michael Laws’ bill. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Ha ha! 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: We came and lobbied Tau Henare. I should tell the Committee the story of when I lobbied Tau Henare about Michael Laws’ voluntary students association membership bill. I was a student politician and I dressed up in my suit and tie. I thought I should scrub up well to go and see Tau Henare when he was a New Zealand First MP. I got there. He walked in the door—jandals shorts T-shirt. That is what Tau Henare was wearing that day when we came to see him. He was casual; very very casual. In those days Mr Henare opposed voluntary students association membership but things have changed. He has moved on and he is now in favour of it.  
But anyway under this bill what we are going to see is that the control of what student services are allowed really does start to fall to the institutions and the Minister will now have a role under this bill. In some senses that is good but the problem we have is that the bill—along with the voluntary students association membership bill if that passes—will see a transfer of the control of what services are provided to students to those institutions. So what we are saying here is that it is all very well to limit the growth of the student services levies but if more responsibilities are falling to the institutions to provide student services that will put pressure on those institutions to be able to provide those services within the context of this. So capping the student services levies at a time when the institutions will be responsible for more things runs the risk that services for students will decline. We know that student services will decline with the voluntary students association membership bill and we now have another bill that may have a good intent—to limit the increase in student services levies—but now more things will have to be dealt with by institutions and there will be a cap in place. So it is a kind of catch-22 situation.  
It might be a laudable goal to try to cap the growth of student services levies—and I know that students want to see that growth reduce and make sure it is not as big as it has been in recent years—but the truth is that if the voluntary students association membership bill passes there will be a great reduction in services available to students. Responsibility for services will fall on to the institutions which will now be in a capped environment for the kinds of services they can provide. Also they will be making decisions about what services are provided rather than the students for whom they work. So it is a concern to us that the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) brings this in. We do not believe that the balance is right. The easy solution would be that the voluntary students association membership bill does not pass and then we will be in a situation where the capping of student services levies will achieve its goal without reducing the quality of services available.