Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Madam Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support this legislation.Let me just say after nine years it's good to be here in a Parliament on a third reading of a bill to be voting for positive tertiary education policy because for the last nine years what this Parliament has rammed through is a huge number of incredibly negative tertiary education policies. Remember this was the Government that restricted access to student loans for over 55s reduced access reduced ability increased the fees on student loans rammed through the additional student loan takeback which affected basically the tax rate that graduates pay on their student loan and arrested graduates at the border. For nine years we saw a Government whose policy was to reduce access reduce affordability and in fact make it harder to be a student in New Zealand.Now when former Minister Woodhouse talks—I remember talking to him about the voluntary student membership legislation another negative National bill where they gutted university governance where National said Steven Joyce should decide what happens with students' compulsory levies not students themselves democratically. It's like going to a council—Lawrence Yule you'll know about this—and actually saying Steven Joyce is going to decide what happens with your rates not the students." because that's exactly what a student council was it was the governance body representing students.On that note let me say tonight though how good it is to be voting for positive legislation which is going to support students which is going to support those institutions. Now I welcome the National Party supporting this legislation because the history for people watching is that the Hon Paul Goldsmith originally tabled this legislation and it was incredibly negative. Now sure there was the marginal common-sense stuff around the common seal of institutions the common fund the enrolment of international students and some penalties that can be applied—no one could disagree with that stuff.Now what the member Denise Lee was just talking about was the crux of the issue and why these parties were opposed to the original legislation because the member Denise Lee talked about the need for equal funding. Now successive Governments both blue and red have not used this principle because sure the State does pay for private for-profit education providers but they've never done it at an equal rate because that would be unfair because the State has to pay for all the capital costs of institutions—the physical assets the buildings the infrastructure. When you're talking to private providers when you're talking about equal treatment what you're actually talking about is the State paying for the capital assets of the private for-profit providers.That's why I'd like to acknowledge the excellent work of the Tertiary Education Union. They brought in thousands of academics and workers at tertiary institutions up and down New Zealand to submit to the committee many of them orally and they made the point that this is unfair. In fact what the Government under Paul Goldsmith was trying to do was bind the hands of future Governments to subsidise for-profit private providers' capital assets so they could accumulate more at the taxpayers' expense. So sure talk about equality of funding sounds nice but in practice what you're talking about is subsidising private for-profit providers.And then they went and changed the language to make private for-profit providers sound more innocuous. Now National while I welcome the support as in previous readings at the committee stage decried this legislation. They were calling it ideological yet what their naming change to private for-profit operators was was simply an ideological tool to make it easier to get more cash out of the taxpayers.So look the Government's taken a very pragmatic approach. They have changed the language. For example community or not-for-profit private providers are now called independent tertiary establishments which describes what they are. It's not trying to play ideological language games which is what previously happened. So look it's fantastic to be voting for positive legislation which is going to make high-quality education more likely for New Zealanders.We've got a fantastic tertiary sector and I want to also acknowledge the private providers. They do do sterling work. I don't think the taxpayer should be subsidising their private asset increases but they do do excellent work and I'd like to acknowledge everyone working in the sector.Look when you look at the other positive change we've seen in only the short amount of time of this new Government—historic significant funding increases to make it easier for people to study in New Zealand—this is a really good Government for students this is a really good Government for universities and polytechs and wānanga and this is a really good Government for education which ultimately is going to build a richer Aotearoa New Zealand."