Shearer David: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shearer David: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:16878] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 Listening to the debate on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill I get the feeling that it is basically an ideology looking for a problem. In a sense it is not really a problem; it is simply an ideology that is trying to create or manufacture a problem in order to change legislation that at the moment is working particularly well. 
When it comes to the purpose of the bill—and I will address it specifically—I think the member who put forward the bill Heather Roy has characterised the problem wrongly. She kept calling the students associations unions as she might refer to a union such as the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union or the Service and Food Workers Union. Students associations are simply not that sort of organisation. Students associations are not like those kinds of organisations; they are associations that have two basic fundamental roles. 
The first role is financial. A number of members spoke earlier about this issue. If the finances are not paid then the resources that students enjoy at the moment will not be available to them. The services they have at the moment will not be available to them. Iain Lees-Galloway brought up an interesting point that in a sense there is a tipping point. If everybody contributes a range of services are available whether or not they use them. As soon as those services start withering away the ability to understand the importance of those services for students associations starts to diminish. In a sense it is then a self-fulfilling prophecy that the students associations will wither and die. That point is extremely important. 
The second role is representational. I was not part of the students association or one of the elected officials at university. In fact I found them to be pretty dull to be perfectly honest. I was much more enamoured with the gym the orientation the fact that I could go to a health service the fact that I had an advocacy service and the fact that I had a newspaper. All of those other services attracted me to the university. But also I had a students association that was able to go out and represent me and my interests at a higher level. I did not necessarily always agree with the students association but nevertheless it represented the body of students. 
I think this comes to the crux of the mistake that Heather Roy has made in interpreting the purpose of the legislation—that is students associations are not unions; they are associations. We pay a tax or a levy for services we enjoy and if we do not pay that levy—if we all do not pay that levy—then the services deteriorate to a point where we actually do not get any value out of them. The example of the University of Waikato was brought up. A $700000 budget went down to a $3000 budget. A $3000 budget can provide an absolutely insignificant degree of service. Nobody understands its value and therefore students will not opt to contribute to it any further. 
The conceptualisation of the bill is completely wrong. Even if I am generous and accept that the ACT Party has the conceptualisation wrong I still believe that it is really about politics and ideology before it is about the welfare of students. It is not about the freedom of students; it is about the ideology of the ACT Party and it is more about Heather Roy existing after she was ousted from her ministerial portfolio. I very clearly remember her saying on the  
Close Up  
television programme that she was really looking forward to getting into this particular bill because that was the end of her life as a Minister. That is the reason we are here arguing this matter today. 
I know for a fact that National was willing to consider some compromises over the legislation that would have ensured that it endured beyond another Labour Government. As soon as another Labour Government comes in this legislation will be gone. 
This bill is a piece of ideology. It is a piece of politics. It is looking for an issue a problem that simply is not there. It is simply not in existence. As a result of that the real losers from this bill will be students who will lose their students association.