Robertson Grant: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:669;Page:15978] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 This will be the first of a number of contributions I plan to make on the bill this evening and in future sessions we will have debating it. It is interesting to start with the title clause. Obviously in part by part debates we tend to do the title at the end and we are sometimes then able to sum up some of the arguments that come forward. But I will attempt to do that now and I will do so by working through a number of amendments to the title that I have put on the Table. The first amendment would be to say that rather than it being the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill the correct title should be the “Education (Removal of Student Choice) Amendment Bill”. One of the things that is perhaps not well understood but which will be understood by one member tonight and that is Mr Tau Henare is what this bill actually amends. This bill amends a law passed by National—and Mr Henare is very familiar with when this law came into being—that means it is quite possible for students on a campus in New Zealand to choose whether their association will have compulsory or voluntary membership. Indeed the Auckland University Students Association has chosen to become a voluntary student association. The Waikato Student Union chose to become a voluntary organisation then chose to go back to being compulsory. It had the choice and that is why I would entitle this bill the “Education (Removal of Student Choice) Amendment Bill”. 
If 10 percent of students on a campus decide that there will be a referendum then there will be a referendum on the nature of the membership of the students association. That is student choice. The ACT Party’s students on campus are called Student Choice. The notion of student choice is one that the ACT Party should be very familiar with. But this bill takes away student choice. It amends legislation that was not put forward by Labour but which was actually put in place by the National Government. National knew the last time that this legislation came up that voluntary membership was not a workable thing and that it would cause too much damage to important student services on campus. It knew it was unworkable and Mr Henare and others came up with a system by which student choice could be put in place through referenda if enough students wanted it. That was a democratic thing that would enable choice but which still meant that the fundamental work of students associations could go on until such time as students made their decision that way. That is why I would call this bill the “Education (Removal of Student Choice) Amendment Bill”. 
A number of other titles are in the Supplementary Order Paper I have put forward. Another title could be the “Education (Destruction of Student Advocacy) Amendment Bill” or the “Education (Destruction of Student Welfare) Amendment Bill”. They are two of the core elements of work that students associations have done on campus over many many years. There is no doubt that this bill will lead to the destruction of student advocacy and of student welfare but in particular of student advocacy. The promoter of the bill has been at pains to find every way possible to ensure that it will not be possible for a university or polytechnic to contract with a students association for advocacy-type services or for welfare-type services if they are delivered via what is seen as a political body. That is what the promoter is trying to avoid here. So the title of this bill could easily be the “Education (Destruction of Student Advocacy) Bill” or the “Education (Destruction of Student Welfare) Bill”. 
We actually have empirical evidence for such a title because that is what happened in Australia. It is the very thing that happened when this kind of legislation was passed into law in Australia. Seventy-two percent of associations had a significant or total reduction in the advocacy or welfare services they provided. That advocacy is vitally important. During the select committee process the Education and Science Committee heard from submitters who would agree with such a title. One student from Waikato University gave us a particularly interesting submission. He said that he was not a political person but he noted that when his flat burnt down and the flat owner’s insurance company was forcing him and his flatmates out of their flat in Hamilton it was the Waikato Student Union’s intervention—its advocacy—that ensured that those students could stay in their flat. It effectively ensured that those students could continue studying at Waikato University. That example is replicated right across New Zealand in polytechnics and universities over many years: the advocacy and welfare work done by students associations is the reason that students can continue to study. Those services are provided by students for students under the current model. 
It may well be that someone on the other side will say that those services will continue to be provided because the institution will provide them but actually having students provide them has a number of benefits. It has the benefit of being incredibly cost-effective. We also heard about that and in later contributions I will come back to the value of the labour provided. That is a reason for calling this bill the “Education (Destruction of Student Welfare) Bill”. The work that students do will now be taken away because those associations will not have the resources or the ability to provide those kinds of quality services and if they are able to provide them they will be beholden to the institution which may or may not like the idea of significant student advocacy within a students association and that students control what they do. 
Another title could be the “Education (Destruction of Student Clubs) Amendment Bill”. Every time we see a Commonwealth Games athlete or an Olympic Games athlete from New Zealand and we look at their success—and we had this at the recent Commonwealth Games—we can ask ourselves “Did that person go to a university in New Zealand?”. When we watched the World Rowing Championships a number of the successful rowers for New Zealand had come through university sports clubs that are part of students associations and supported by those associations. Our success as New Zealanders is undermined by this kind of bill so the title could well be the “Education (Destruction of Student Clubs) Bill” because student clubs will not survive in the form they are now if students associations do not have the resources they have now. Those resources have meant the difference between some of those sports clubs being able to continue and not continue. Again we heard evidence from cultural and sporting clubs right across New Zealand saying that this bill would be fundamentally damaging to them and to the people who are part of their clubs and their organisations. So that could be an appropriate title. 
But the downgrading of students associations—which gives us another potential title the “Education (Downgrading of Students Associations) Amendment Bill”—caused by this bill has no justification other than an ideological one. At every stage of the submission process every institution—and I am not referring to the students associations—that came before the select committee said “Please don’t pass this bill.” The actual institutions came before us and said “Don’t do this because we value the work that students associations do. We value their independence. We want them to be part of the campus experience.” Quite frankly those institutions do not want to take on a number of the tasks those students associations do at the moment. 
Another title for this bill could easily be the “Education (Don’t Let the Vice-Chancellor Choose the Music for Orientation) Amendment Bill”. There is the rub: orientation and other sorts of activities will now be turned over to the institutions and it will be for them to decide what they can afford in terms of student services. The vice-chancellor and others will decide which things they will contract the students association for where they bother to do so. In a university context it may well be that associations will survive in that contractual framework. They will not survive in many of the polytechnics. 
So it easily also could be called the Education (Destruction of Polytechnic Students Associations) Amendment Bill. Those students associations probably will not be contracted by their institution because they are often small they have not had the historical basis and they do not have their own asset base that perhaps university students associations do. These kinds of titles are more appropriate titles than the glib “freedom of association” label because there already is freedom of association; we know that. This is a term that has simply been invented by the promoter of this bill and the title should be changed.