Burns Brendon: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Burns Brendon: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:659;Page:8476] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to follow the speech of the member from Kaikoura on the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. Once again he is failing to acknowledge what the impacts of this bill will be on his electorate of Kaikoura particularly in his home base in Marlborough. If he has not yet worked it out—and he should have done so by now—this bill will disenfranchise Marlborough from representation on the council of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. That member should be defending his electorate and its rights to be represented. Instead he gave a short speech that simply referred to this being a great bill without acknowledging that he is seeing the disenfranchisement of his community of Marlborough from representation on the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology council. That is a disgrace. He should have the guts to defend his electorate and not be a puppet to a bill that does away with the representation that his electorate should have. 
David Garrett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Even with my limited knowledge of the Standing Orders I heard the member breach them twice there—firstly by alleging that the previous speaker was gutless; and secondly by alleging that he was beholden to interests outside this House. Both of those suggestions are contrary to the Standing Orders. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Speaking to the point of order I made no such reference to interests outside the House. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry I was preoccupied with another matter and I did not hear what was said. But the member must know that members cannot do that. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I ask Mr King what the future of the Blenheim campus of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology is. Will he defend it? Will this bill be used as an attempt to downgrade the Blenheim campus of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology? We know that the financial situation of polytechnics is under some threat. I do not know how the interests of that community and of that polytechnic will be served by gutting the membership and representation of the council. I served for 8 years on that council. It was a strong and representative council. I did 8 years of service and the council served that community of Marlborough very very well. 
I pick up on the comments of Te Ururoa Flavell. I am still not sure what the Maori Party’s position will be on this bill because it seems to me that the Supplementary Order Paper he will be tabling proposed in fact a continuation of the sort of representation that was available prior to the introduction and possible passage of this bill. In the case of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology there were three Maori representatives: one from the Marlborough iwi one from the Nelson iwi and one from Te Maata Waka. The council was well represented. Under the model proposed by this bill I think we will see Maori treated with contempt. We have to ask where the supposed agreement is with the National Government which he has confidence in when he is forced to table a Supplementary Order Paper in the vain hope that there might still be the guarantee of some Maori representation on polytechnic councils across the country. I suggest that Pita Sharples as the Associate Minister of Education might like to take a call on this bill as well and tell us where the mana-enhancing status of the Maori Party is as represented by this bill when this bill is doing away with the right that Maori currently have to be involved at the table for decisions around polytechnic councils. 
The fact is that the Maori Party is being treated with contempt by the Government over this bill. What hope therefore can it really have for substantial progress on issues like foreshore and seabed? This is a repeat of what happened to the Maori Party with its proposals and wishes over the Auckland super-city. It is reduced to hoping that there might be some de facto recognition of Maori aspirations and rights and that it might be able to get a Supplementary Order Paper supported. It will not get it supported by the Government I wager. I would like to know where Tau Henare and Georgina te Hoho are on this bill as Maori members. And I ask why Paula Bennett if she is here to speak for Maori aspirations and rights is not giving this bill the thumbs down that it so deserves—that it absolutely deserves. This bill is reprehensible in its impact on Maori and others. 
I pick up on the comments of Sir Roger Douglas who suggested that 14 or 20 members was too many and eight was about right. Let us apply that to Cabinet perhaps and ask which Ministers we would do away with under that principle—maybe Georgina te Hoho because they will not need her in Cabinet to put a Maori voice in place. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I first came into this House in 1993. Many of the people on the other side of the House have continued to mispronounce my name and I take great offence. I take great offence especially at the mispronunciation of the name of my colleague Georgina te Heuheu. To pronounce it as “te Hoho” is an absolute disgrace. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for that point of order. We had a case yesterday on pronunciation. I ask the member to be more careful in pronouncing names. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: If I indeed mispronounced a member’s name I apologise. 
I go back to the point about Sir Roger Douglas. Who would he like to take out of the Cabinet? Maybe he would take out Anne Tolley as the Minister supposedly presenting this bill or Gerry Brownlee who has shown his command of procedures in this House yet again this afternoon not only on this bill but on the one preceding it. I pick up also on the comments of Louise Upston the MP for Taupo who said this was a way to run inefficient polytechnics and to make them more responsive to communities. How on earth can they be more responsive to communities when effectively we are saying to the councils of polytechnics that they have “Sophie’s choice”? They will have four members appointed and they will then be able to choose whether there will be the chief executive officer a staff representative a student representative a Maori representative an employer representative a union representative or a community representative. Those are the choices faced by polytechnic councils under this bill. It is an absolute disgrace that it has been introduced to Parliament. 
The reason we need polytechnics is that they are the engine room of growth in our economy. They train the people who make our economy tick. They have always been treated as poor cousins in the tertiary sector; this bill now makes them powerless poor cousins. We have to ask the Minister in charge of the bill why she is not doing the same to university councils. Is it because they are more powerful and privileged than polytechnic councils? There is no signal or sign from the Minister that she will apply this swingeing axe to university councils because they have some clout. 
I acknowledge in this speech the contribution that Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology provides in my electorate of Christchurch Central. We have a debate currently in our city about the future of a proposal for a music school on the site of the Arts Centre of Christchurch; it would be a coalition between the university council and the city council. The debate neglects the fact that there are 300 music students at the polytechnic; the proposal is to assist 120 students of the university’s music school. Again it rubber stamps and treats the polytechnic as the poor cousin in the relationship despite the fact that 10000 polytechnic students filter through our city and enrich and add value to it. They do not get any real recognition whatsoever. 
There is indeed—and Sir Roger Douglas raised this question—a case for possible reductions in polytechnic councils. Twenty members is probably too many so there is the case for some reduction. I am sure that the Labour Party would have given this consideration if the bill had suggested some other reductions. A reduction to 12 or 14 may be feasible. Certainly the polytechnic council that I served on had 14 members and that worked extraordinarily well. But there is one problem as far as the Minister is concerned which is that that reduction would not give her the ministerial control that is so essential to her. That is the reason behind this bill. What is the agenda? Are we en route to the forced sale of some of our polytechnics to private tertiary education establishments? 
Nicky Wagner 
: That’s scaremongering. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Just in the past week the Minister has suggested using the private sector to build our schools. So we are not that far removed from what is possible under this Government. The Minister has also put in place cuts across adult and community education. 
One has to ask what is next. Will there be forced mergers between polytechnics as a result of this bill? The Minister will have control: she will appoint four of the eight and one of the other four is likely to be an ally of those four no matter how they are appointed by the council. So that gives the Minister effective control of the polytechnics and that is exactly the agenda behind this bill. I again ask what this will mean for polytechnics especially those that cover more than one community. I think of polytechnics like the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology which covers Nelson and Marlborough; and the Universal College of Learning in Palmerston North which represents people from the Manuwatu the Wairarapa and Wanganui. How on earth can we expect there to be community representation when three communities are being served by appointment? 
I come back to saying that this bill is reprehensible legislation. It is gutting the representation of communities in their polytechnic sector. It will gut the iwi representation on those councils. I challenge the Maori Party to find the courage to stand and take a position against this bill rather than hoping and praying that a Supplementary Order Paper that simply maintains the status quo gets the support of the Opposition. The Maori Party has the opportunity it is in coalition with the Government and it should be opposing this bill fiercely and representing the people it is here to represent. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I call Allan Peachey. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Here comes the ministerial speech!