Clendon David: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Clendon David: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17592] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou. I am pleased to take a call on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. It is legislation the Greens have opposed and will continue to oppose. I have seen it described recently as an ideological solution in search of a real-world problem and I think that basically sums it up. 
Clause 6 contains the gist of the bill. It is the essence of the bill. New section 229A in clause 6 states that a student may not be obliged to be a member of an association. That provision brings to me an immediate issue—a problem—and it is reinforced in new section 229CA which I call the free-rider provision. It states that students who are not members of an association may not be obliged to pay for services that are provided generally to the student body of the institution. That is a free-rider clause. It states that where services are provided to everybody and where people cannot be excluded from access to those services non-members—people who are not paying their way—will be able to enjoy them. 
Like many other New Zealanders and indeed other members in this House I am a member of the Automobile Association. In the event that on a wet morning my car fails to start I can phone for a nice man in a van to come and get me mobile. It would be odd if my neighbour who happened not to be a member of the Automobile Association could ring and get that same service for free. That is essentially the situation being set up here. Many services provided by students associations are not exclusive. They are available to all student members in the form of facilities cafes and orientation week activities. Any student may use those services. I would love to hear from the proponents of this bill an explanation of how it is fair that some students will pay while other students who choose not to pay will also be able to enjoy those benefits. That is not fair. It is unjust and the students associations will be weakened. 
Many students confronted with very high fees that are increasing year by year the cost of study inadequate resourcing inadequate funding for texts and so on will be confronted with a rather difficult ethical dilemma of whether they pay their students association fee to rightly and reasonably get access to that range of services or whether they choose a free ride on the back of their fellow students. Sadly we know that a number of students either through ignorance or perhaps an undeveloped or immature ethical basis for their actions will choose the latter course the free-rider course. That is unacceptable and it will undermine the strength and integrity of the associations over time. It will mean they are unable to continue to maintain the level of service. They will not have a surplus to invest in increasing the services available. Any of us who has ever been to a university as students teachers or casual observers can see the value of the associations which has been well proven over time. 
I am also very intrigued by new section 229B which states that no one may exert undue influence on a student or prospective student to join an association to cease to be a member of an association or to choose not to be a member of an association. I am really interested to know what the test for undue influence is. How does one measure or determine what undue influence is? I suspect that the students associations will work very very hard at the beginning of each academic year to capture students to encourage and persuade them to pay the money to become fully paid-up legitimate members and to enjoy the services with a clear conscience. I would love to hear an explanation from the drafter of the bill about what constitutes undue influence. 
Students can be very activist shall we say and very persuasive. They can use a wide range of means and inducements to encourage people to join particularly people who are at the beginning of their first year. I suspect that if a student is captured at the beginning of their first year they will very quickly discover the value of membership and will continue to be members of the association throughout their time as a student. What would be a reasonable limit to inducements persuasive techniques or attractions that a student body might offer to prospective members? Similarly what would be undue influence in terms of those remaining few on campus who choose not to go down that road? Kia ora.