Shearer David: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shearer David: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:21077] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I would like to follow on from what Grant Robertson was arguing and it is about something that students associations have mentioned to me in a number of meetings I have had with them over the last few weeks. They are concerned about the transitional arrangements that are to take place as a result of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill coming into force. Unfortunately it looks as though it will even though we have tried the best we can to argue against it and debate that. 
We have met with both National and Heather Roy herself to look at a compromise alternative that might have actually been able to get through. That alternative could have enabled this legislation to get through with an opt-out clause—an opt-out clause that would mean that students who were signed up to a students association would in the first month of signing up be able to get out of it pretty much as we currently do with KiwiSaver. We believe—and the students associations do as well because they announced this in a press release a few weeks ago—that in fact this opt-out clause would enable us to do two things. Those with a pathological dislike of students associations who do not want to be part of one could get out of it yet the legislation would not undermine and gut students associations which we know has happened in every other jurisdiction where legislation has done the same thing as is proposed here to students associations. In those places that legislation has meant that the students associations are undermined. 
But unfortunately that compromise and those discussions collapsed when ACT realised that it could possibly get the bill through the House before the end of the year. I think that is a real shame because what we would have had was legislation that had some durability. It could have continued on without becoming a legislative ping-pong game between different Governments as they come and go out of power. 
Having said that I do think there are some real issues around the transitional arrangements mentioned in clause 9. There is one thing I would not mind some elucidation on. Now as we all know many students join an organisation or an institution halfway through the year; with the semester system people do not always join at the beginning of the year. If people join halfway through the year under the current regime and suddenly on 1 January they shift to a different regime according to this legislation—as I understand it anyway—those people would stay part of the students association having paid their full entitlement for the course of a year. This is the question: should they be eligible for a pro rata refund should they decide to opt out of that students association because they do not want to be part of it? That is a legitimate question. I am not sure whether that is completely covered in the transitional arrangements but it is one of the questions that will arise I think should this legislation come into force on 1 January 2012. Clause 9 alludes to a number of transitional arrangements but perhaps does not fully cover them as a result of the way that the legislation is written at the moment. 
The second point regarding clause 9 that I want to raise is about the implications of the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) which passed into law a few weeks ago. As we know as part of that legislation our students associations will have to sit down with universities to look at any increase in levies. I submit that if this bill goes through and it goes through on 1 January 2012 a number of students associations will basically fall over and some of the services that some of them are currently providing will not be able to continue to exist simply because the finances for those services—be they counselling or medical or sporting or—