Hipkins Chris: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:21074] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am happy to take a brief call on clause 9 of this bill. It is the last clause to be debated in the Committee stage before the bill is up for its third reading presumably on the next sitting day. Clause 9 is a transitional provision. In the view of the Opposition it raises questions around the date that this legislation will come into force. 
When we first debated the commencement clause of this bill some months ago it was quite conceivable had it been passed at that time that the bill could be implemented without causing any difficulty to the institutions involved. We are now into September. Many of the institutions will have set their tuition fees for the coming year and will have begun to enrol students. Many more students will be covered by this transition clause than would have been had this bill passed earlier in the year. Many many more students will be in programmes that will be ongoing past the commencement date of this bill than would have been had it been passed when we debated the commencement clause. Therefore it is actually quite legitimate I think to ask whether the commencement of this bill should be delayed. 
As I said many of the institutions will already have set their tuition fees and begun enrolling students for next year and we think it would therefore be reasonable to delay commencement of this bill overall until the beginning of January 2013. It is a logistical nightmare for some of the institutions to try to change their procedures at this late stage in the proceedings. I accept of course that the bill has taken as long as this to get to this stage because we the Opposition have over the last few months been fully arguing this bill and other bills that have come before it on the Order Paper. 
It looks like this bill will pass before the election. Therefore I think it is legitimate to ask whether this transition clause should be expanded or whether the Committee could potentially go back and reconsider the commencement date for the bill. This transition clause will probably be insufficient to meet the challenges that are posed by the passage of this bill at this late stage in the year when students have already begun enrolling for their studies. 
Also of course there is the question of how long it will take the institutions to put alternative systems in place. They will have to put systems in place for student representation on their governing bodies for example which is currently covered under the law by the students associations. Universities polytechnics and institutes of technology will need to put alternative systems in place for those matters from next year. And of course they are coming up to exam time and a time when many students will not be in the institutions. Is it therefore feasible for them to put those things in place in time for a commencement date of 1 January 2012? I argue quite strongly that it is not. 
Therefore the transitional provisions currently provided in the bill are insufficient if this bill is to be passed and it will be judging by the number of votes that have gone through so far. Despite National promising before the election not to vote for the bill National has in fact been voting for it all the way through. This makes it more likely that this bill will pass into law before the election despite National not having sought a mandate for it. National claims that it seeks a mandate when it changes its policies. Well it changed its policy on this matter but it does not seem to think it needs to go back to the electorate for a mandate on this particular legislation unlike some of the other things that it claims to be seeking a mandate for. That is another example of National implementing policies without seeking a mandate despite claiming that it intends to do so. Therefore I think it is quite reasonable for us to go back and consider whether this transition clause should be expanded. 
It simply will not be feasible to implement this legislation prior to 1 January next year. It will be a nightmare for the institutions to implement. It will be difficult even for the students associations to establish alternative systems for signing up students as members and making sure that many of the valuable services that they currently provide are catered for in a voluntary membership environment. 
I ask the Committee to reconsider whether this transitional clause is sufficient and whether we should go back and reconsider the commencement clause and extend the date for the commencement of this bill by a further year. We first considered the commencement clause as I said some months ago—some months ago. A lot has changed in that period of time.