Mackey Moana: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:16861] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on the commencement clause. The reason is that sometimes the commencement clause might be seen as not particularly important but when we are talking about the scale of change seen in this legislation the clause in fact becomes critical. There is only one reason why a commencement clause with a date at the beginning of next year would be forced through and it is that the massive changes that will occur in our tertiary institutions and students associations cannot be undone by future Governments. We sincerely hope that at the election this year this commencement clause will not matter because we will be in a position to revisit this issue. I am very grateful that our election will be held before 1 January 2012 so that we may have the opportunity to do that. 
I do not think we should underestimate the scale of change that will be happening in the very short time period this commencement clause allows for. It is in that light that I congratulate my colleague Grant Robertson on his amendments to move the commencement date out to allow for students associations to prepare for the scale of change that is coming. It is not just so much as preparing the students for what it will mean for them but it is giving students associations the time to organise alternative methods of funding if that is what they have to do. If they will need to go out and look for philanthropic donations to keep running some of these services that students have come to expect and to value then a commencement date of 1 January 2012 simply does not allow for that—it simply does not allow for that. I believe that that is entirely deliberate. 
I completely endorse what my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway said that it is too late for our polytechs. They are not going to be able to survive in terms of their students associations and their services. But for universities that provide much larger-scale services and that have more students etc. a commencement date that allowed more time for students associations to preserve those services would seem to be fair and reasonable if we wanted the preservation of those services. If we actually wanted those services to fall over so that future Governments or future legislation could not reinstate those services because they had gone and we could not get them back then a commencement date that is very soon such as the one found in this legislation would be the path we would go down. 
I ask the member in the chair Heather Roy why she will not allow students associations to have a longer time to prepare for this change a longer time to try to save some of the services. I ask why she will not agree to a commencement date of even a year further out as my colleague Grant Robertson proposed in order to make sure that if this legislation goes through these services will not be lost because of having such a short period of time in which to adapt. A commencement date at the very beginning of next year means that students associations will not have time to attempt to find alternative sources of funding for their services to set up different arrangements or to have democratic processes on campuses. Students associations could say that the Government has said they could not have compulsory membership and perhaps they could set up some other kind of student cooperative or student funding mechanism in order for their services to survive. 
This issue is apparently some kind of great philosophical problem; the biggest problem facing New Zealand which needs to be solved is that we have compulsory student membership despite the fact that of course students can opt out of that if they want to. I ask the member in the chair why she will not just give a commencement date in this legislation that allows for students associations to adapt to preserve those services and to find alternative sources of funding. I do not believe that that is an unreasonable request unless our primary goal is to have those services fall over so they can never come under the ambit of compulsory student membership again. It is no surprise that members on this side of the House feel very strongly about this issue. We feel very strongly about the preservation of those services.