Peters Jim: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — In Committee 
Peters Jim: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17943] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the title Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill. New Zealand First sees this legislation as an all-embracing controlling inquisitive framework developed under the present group of Ministers. This could take effect from 25 January 2005 and indeed is an important Act in the innate traditions of the controlling Labour Party. To a degree many of the organisations that were created by the Labour Government in the late 1980s and that continued through the 1990s will not find a great deal of change in some sections. But there is one group in this country that does believe earnestly that there is change—the tertiary education institutions. I want to take the Committee back to why that might be so. 
The Education Act of 1989 very clearly expressed the intention under that Act of giving as much independence and freedom to make academic operational and management decisions as needed. Section 161 states: “(1) It is declared to be the intention of Parliament in enacting the provisions of this Act relating to institutions that academic freedom and the autonomy of institutions are to be preserved and enhanced.” Section 161(4) states: “In the performance of their functions the Councils and chief executives of institutions Ministers and authorities and agencies of the Crown shall act in all respects so as to give effect to the intention of Parliament as expressed in this section.” The question is: where is the statutory duty to preserve and enhance institutional autonomy and academic freedom? 
I quote Professor McCutcheon who was reported in the  
New Zealand Herald  
this week as stating: “In a democratic society we cannot allow state control of our free-thinking institutions.” When the Minister in the chair last night was queried as to the intention of Part 3 “Preliminary provisions relating to Crown entity reform” and the actual impact of that provision there was no answer. There was no answer to the questions about clause 46 in that part which talks about reforming the law. The questions: “What law what intentions and when?” were not answered at all. Again I turn to the comments made by Professor McCutcheon. His answer to that question was this: “No nation in the Western world has universities under state control. The pillars on which New Zealand academia is built are being eroded by creeping Government control.” That was his answer. 
We know that this move is but part one of a two-phase action on the part of the Government. It is proper that universities should be very very concerned as to where part two will take them. Advice has been given to Ministers and changes have been proposed that are not revealed in this bill and that is the unanswered part of the preliminary provisions in Part 3. That will be revealed in time—probably a year from now should the Government unworthy as it is be returned to where it is now. The conflict that those proposals would cause in our community and our academic society will take place for the first time then. That intention in this bill is dishonest in regard to academic institutions. Personally I cannot conceive as to why that should be so. 
It was so strange to hear Mr Mallard one of the three Ministers involved say that most taxpayers would think that the spending of taxpayers’ money should be transparent and there should be accountability. We have been in the House week after week and have heard those very issues raised here. It has been shown that under the present provisions the accountability of some institutions has not been at all clarified and it has not been an issue for Ministers. The Hon Bill English who sits to my right has said over and over again in regard to the case in Christchurch that that is not so. This deserves further attention.