Woods Megan: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 27 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:962. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):I would also like to concentrate primarily on clause 6 of the bill in the first of my many contributions on this piece of legislation. Although Steven Joyce has dumped his tertiary reform into a bill of Hekia Parata’s there are actually some common themes that run through the two aspects of the bill. My colleagues Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson have drawn these out largely. Primarily what these reforms are doing is taking away the representative nature of our education system and investing a whole lot more power in the Minister of Education and the Minister of Tertiary Education Skills and Employment.In the second reading of this bill the Minister of Tertiary Education Skills and Employment in his contribution to the House said there is nothing to worry about here because academic freedom and the role of the university are protected and enshrined in sections 160 and 161 of the primary legislation. Well if we have a look at new sections 171 through 176 inserted by this legislation what we will see is a number of clauses that actually undermine sections 160 and 161 of the primary legislation—that very fundamental purpose of what it is a university is to do and protecting the fundamental right of our universities to academic freedom.So if we turn our attention firstly to new section 171B covering the matters to be considered when appointing members to a university council. What is required to be considered is that the appointments reflect the socio-economic diversity of the community in which the institution sits. Although this is an admirable requirement to put into the legislation and certainly nothing we took any issue with what we do have is some sympathy with a number of submitters in the ability to ensure that that representation of communities can be reflected in a council that is so small.We heard from a number of speakers about being situated in incredibly diverse communities right along the socio-economic axis—various people who needed representation. Their ability to do this in such a small council when the Minister was going to be appointing such a high proportion of the people to the council was indeed problematic.As my colleague Grant Robertson has alluded to no case for change has been made for this legislation. We have had the Minister tell us it was about creating innovative and efficient universities that could foot it in the world. Well what we have seen is that our universities actually have smaller councils already than a number of far more successful universities around the world have. What we also heard around the reduction in the size of councils and the erosion of academic freedom—and I will go through some more of the clauses that bring this into effect—was that a number of the vice-chancellors and indeed universities in New Zealand had a very real concern about what this would do to our international reputation and our ability to market our academic institutions in order for them to be able to be seen as a credible place for international students to come to and undertake their studies. Because what we can see is the severity of what is happening to that core purpose of a university and its institutional and academic freedom.If we turn our attention next to new section 176A inserted by clause 9 of the bill what we can see there is the individual duties of the members being defined. One the things that really comes into play here—which we can see in new section 176B(1)—is that the duties are not accorded to the institution or indeed the council but to the Minister. This is something that a number of submitters rightly took a great deal of umbrage to. They expressed real concern that the duties of the members of the governing body of a university would be answerable to the Minister is a fundamental change in the way we govern our universities. A fundamental change that makes the people who are running a university accountable to a Government Minister rather than to the university itself undermines the very notion of what a university is. This is something that needs to be taken very seriously. For centuries universities have been colleges of colleagues—that is where the word comes from—who have run successful academic institutions. We are not saying that there cannot be any accountability but every member of that appointed council is going to be primarily and firstly accountable to the Minister.It does not stop there in terms of what this does to erode academic freedom if we turn to new section 176C and look at the removal clauses that are there and the powers that the Minister has to remove members from the council. The Minister not only has these powers to remove their own appointments the Minister also has the power to remove any member appointed to the council whether it be by the institution or by the Minister themselves.This is a truly frightening prospect when you put this together with the previous clause which makes the members of those governing bodies accountable to that Minister. If you do not do what that Minister wants they have the power to remove you. Remember we are talking about organisations that are meant to be the critic and conscience of our society. We are not talking about the board of directors of a company; we are talking about a university which has a particular function within our society and it is being eroded by this legislation.The Minister has not made the case for change. I invite the Minister in the chair the Hon Hekia Parata—I realise this is not under her responsibility but she is the Minister in the chair—to stand up and make the case for change. Tell us why it is that we are departing from centuries-old traditions of how we ensure that academic freedom is guarded and why it is that we are departing from centuries-old traditions of how we have a critic and a conscience in our society because the case has not been made.The universities are opposed to it the vice-chancellors are opposed to it and Universities New Zealand is opposed to it. This is a serious and grave change to an important set of institutions in our society and I would like to hear from the Minister why those changes are being made. We need to consider how all these new sections interact. It is not enough for Minister Joyce to say that there is nothing to see here and nothing to worry about because sections 160 and 161 of the principal Act remain intact. They do not because they are being eroded through a series of clauses that are contained in this legislation.The case for change needs to be made by this Government because this is nothing short of disassembling an important institution in our country at the very time that this Government is showing us we need institutions that will hold power to account. This is a Government that is intent on shutting down discussion. It is a Government that is intent on shutting down criticism of itself. We have seen its own smear machine that seeks to shut down dissenters. We are now seeing the Government introduce legislation that attempts to curtail the ability of our universities to fulfil that function in our society and it is not good enough.