Moroney Sue: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17594] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Clause 6 is the main part of this legislation which Labour will definitely vote against. The bill has been wrongly called the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. This clause makes it absolutely clear that there will not be any freedom for students to choose what to do about their association membership. In fact this bill makes it compulsory for students associations to be voluntary. 
New section 229A outlaws the right for students associations to choose to be voluntary. Why does it do that? It seems to do so because there is no call on our student campuses in this country to have voluntary students association membership. If there was then there would be no need for this bill. If there was a call for students associations to be voluntary then that would be happening right now because the proponents of this bill would be able to get more than 10 percent of students on a campus at any given time to actually call for a referendum to make it so. That is what the current law provides for. It states that yes the student body can make a decision for student association membership to be voluntary just by having 10 percent of the student body ask for such a referendum to be held. 
The ACT Party has convinced the National Party to support an entirely new piece of legislation making it compulsory to be voluntary because its members on university and polytechnic campuses up and down the country cannot organise 10 percent of the student body to say that they do not want to have compulsory student membership. They cannot get that 10 percent. So why is National backing something that it cannot get even 10 percent of the student body to ask for? But it is worse than that. I sat on the Education and Science Committee in its journey around New Zealand listening to submissions. There were 4800 submissions on this bill. Ninety-eight percent of them were opposed to the bill. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: No way. 
SUE MORONEY 
: The member should do the figures. Ninety-eight percent of them— 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Well they’ll presumably join the union won’t they? 
SUE MORONEY 
: It is about 4700 give or take a bit. Not only could the Government not get 10 percent of students at universities and polytechnics to say they wanted the associations to be voluntary but also it failed to listen when that 98 percent of submitters said “Don’t do this. It is wrong. It is backwards ideology.” It just goes to show how out of touch the Government has already become in its first term. The Government is completely and utterly out of touch with New Zealanders. The National members in the Education and Science Committee heard submission after submission saying that this is the wrong thing to do and they completely and utterly ignored them. The Government has also ignored the fact that not even 10 percent of the student body will actually get up and fight for the bill under the current law which they can do right now. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What’s wrong with democracy? 
SUE MORONEY 
: That is what I would like to ask National members. That was a very good question from Tau Henare because he knows all about the legislation. He was the architect of the legislation that exists right now—I applaud him for that. Now he is having it ripped apart for reasons of ideology and no other reason—no other reason at all. It shows how joined at the hip National has become to ACT ideology that National is prepared to support this legislation. 
Jo Goodhew 
: Oh my God and you say that the same week as the marine and coastal bill. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Jo Goodhew seems to object to being called joined at the hip to ACT. I am not sure why. Maybe it is because she recognises that not only this legislation but a whole range of ACT policies are completely and utterly unpopular in the New Zealand environment. It would certainly be a very good call if Jo Goodhew recognised that. 
I ask what the problem is that we are trying to fix with the bill. What is the problem that this part of the law in particular aims to fix?