Curran Clare: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Curran Clare: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17596] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 The Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill which is before us in the Committee tonight is an attack on vulnerable students on quality education and on fairness. It is all being done in the name of the Government pandering to ACT Party ideology.  
I address clause 6 because it is the main part of the bill and because as members know we fundamentally oppose this part of the bill which undermines the ability of student representation to organise and provide invaluable services for students and to organise to do good in the wider community. 
I have not spoken in this debate until now. It has been many a year since I was a student. 
David Shearer 
: Not that many. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: It has been a few years. I was not active in student politics at university. I attended the odd protest but my activism happened in other forums. But I was a beneficiary of student services and good student organisation. I will talk about good student organisation and the value it can bring to a community. I will talk about the organisation I have observed amongst our student organisation in Dunedin in recent weeks following the Christchurch earthquake. They have played a critical role in our wider community in organising to do their best to bring relief to the people of Christchurch. If the students had not had an effective student organisation that action simply would not have happened. 
I will give just a couple of examples. A thing called the “Christchurch Embassy” was set up in Dunedin the week after the earthquake. It was essentially based at the Dunedin Railway Station to provide a place for people fleeing from Christchurch to go and a central point to receive services. It was set up by a group within Dunedin that included student organisations. They sat around the table right from the very beginning and initiated that really important service. Those students also organised the assembling and sending of 18000 packed lunches to Christchurch. They organised and sent teams of people to Christchurch. That action would not have happened without the good organisation that they provide. 
That is just one example of the benefit that student organisations can bring to the wider community. As I said I was a beneficiary of the student organisation when I went to university. I used the services that were made possible by it and I happily paid those dues. Under clause 6 which I think goes to the real heart of this bill this Government will force all those students associations to operate an opt-in system of membership rather than allow those students to choose between opt-in and opt-out systems through referenda as is the case under the current legislation. 
It is funny that a bill taking away so much choice has come from National and the ACT Party which normally love to throw around rhetoric about the nanny State. In fact in continuing to push this legislation through the House they have ignored the 98 percent of submissions to the Education and Science Committee that were against voluntary student membership. 
We know that students do not want this change. It is blind ideology. Students associations were open to make opting out of membership easier and fully refundable. They were open to the option of mandated 5-yearly referendums on association membership. These compromises are being put forward on Supplementary Order Paper 191 which would amend this clause and would make a real difference. My colleague Grant Robertson and other colleagues have appealed to National members to see reason on this bill and vote for these amendments. 
The important services provided by students associations include things—