Reti ShaneEDUCATION (VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING REFORM) AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Substantive amendments to principal ActDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you Mr Chairman. Today we are opposing the reform of vocational education bill as we believe it will irreparably damage the sector and it is not the solution to the challenges that we acknowledge in the sector. The committee of the whole House is the one opportunity many polytechnics will have to place their views on record in this House. The effects of reforms are unique to each polytechnic and to each region. Today we will place on record how the reforms will impact every polytechnic and every region. Every polytechnic made a submission to the reforms or nearly every one and we will draw on that information to show that unique impact.I'm looking forward to hearing from Maureen Pugh at Tai Poutini on the West Coast. I'm looking forward to hearing from Jonathan Young—the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki in New Plymouth; from Lawrence Yule—the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hastings; and from Hamish Walker in the deep South—the Southern Institute of Technology Invercargill. I want to hear their views. Their constituents their people legitimately and rightly would like to have their views recorded in the House.I want to turn now to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name SOP 436 an SOP seeking for NorthTec to be exempted from the reforms. Today we are fighting for NorthTec to be able to decide what they will teach where they will teach and how they will teach it. Today we are fighting for local decision-making to remain with NorthTec and not with the mega polytechnic or even further removed with the workforce development councils. NorthTec is particularly good at forestry. If NorthTec decides that they are able to teach a forestry course in Kaikohe maybe with blended learning then that should be their decision. Matt King is fighting for NorthTec in Kaikohe. Matt King is fighting for NorthTec in the Far North. He's fighting for learning across all of the Far North because he believes Northland knows best which drives to some of the crux of this bill and why we are arguing against it.NorthTec told the Education and Workforce Committee that the bill is flawed. Their representative view of the region is that the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology is a creature of the [Ministry] of Education."—that's a direct quote from NorthTec. They're of a view and they're concerned that there are possibilities in this bill for political interference in tertiary education and they raised that by saying the way the bill overturns the limitation in the Education Act that the Minister may not identify a specified organisation to which funding may be provided or denied runs the risk of significant political interference. NorthTec has assets of about $13 million. These have been hard accrued. It is also fair to say they've been running a deficit of several million dollars and I believe and have faith in their plan to correct that and redress it over a strategic plan over the next two to three years. I've seen that plan. I know the staff. I have faith in them. These reforms will completely turn upside down the ability for NorthTec to redress those concerns and to reach a balanced budget.So today we fight for the survival of NorthTec. We fight for their students; we actually also fight for their staff and this SOP in my name seeks an exemption for NorthTec from this bill so that we can decide what is best for Northland. I come to the point—and I'm sure other regions will say the same that their regions are the best at fighting for their regions at deciding what the tertiary sector offering in their regions should be and that's what I'm expecting to hear. I'm indicating to you that we hold ourselves as being quite good at forestry and I think NorthTec would be well accepted as being good in that space. We must be able surely to decide where when and how we're going to teach forestry. That must be local decision-making. We know that is best.So we've put on the Table an SOP in my name that seeks to exempt NorthTec from the reforms and I'm looking to the wide and varied discussion of the impact across all of New Zealand. The Office of the Auditor-General said this was the widest range of public reforms of public entities in the past 30 years. That shows the potential disruption that this could be. We have great concerns for that. Again we respect and honour the privilege that is the committee of the whole House that for the first time and maybe the only time will give those regions a voice. So we're concerned. We respect this privilege and we'll honour it and I'm looking forward to my colleagues informing me informing the House informing Hansard and all those who are watching as to what the impact of these reforms will be in their regions. I stand by the SOP in my name in the committee. Thank you Mr Chair."