Prasad Rajen: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Prasad Rajen: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20310] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I also want to— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: Could be sanctimonious. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Would the member like to say that again loudly so I can respond to him? Was it worth responding to? 
Hon Member 
: No he’s too gutless to. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Well come on say it I say to the member if he has the guts to say it. What was it? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will be seated. [ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. A member must never challenge a member’s courage. That is a personal reflection and it is out of order. The member will stand and withdraw. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I withdraw. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. The member will now continue. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I am pleased to take a call about students association membership fees. Clause 8 does not provide for students coming on to a campus to have access to information about students associations so I ask what else a student will not have access to. It bears some thinking about. The member in the chair the Hon Heather Roy might like to take a call—I do not think she has taken one so far—to explain what students will not have access to. Anybody in this Chamber who has spent any time in a university will know what it is that a students association provides. It is so much a central part of university life: learning participation fun debates and everything else. If that is being taken away from students under the guise of this principle of choice I say to the member in the chair that sometimes it is possible to take a good principle to its illogical conclusion which is exactly what the ACT Party is trying to do with its minority share of the vote in New Zealand. It is taking a principle to its illogical extent by saying that we must now apply that principle to everything. 
What else will the member apply this principle to in terms of choice—to everything else in New Zealand society? In universities students through their participation in students associations—and that is about a lot of people participating—learn so much about life. They learn so much about learning and how to learn and they contribute enormously to the development of the academic life of the university. Are there many developments in a university many improvements that have taken place in teaching and assessing and indeed in the way that semesters are organised that have not started with student unions and students associations? Students have come together and reflected on their total experience then gone to their lecturers departments faculties and universities and made changes that have made the learning teaching and research experience as well as the contribution that a university makes to our society that much better. That is what this bill takes away and I cannot understand why the bill is necessary. It reflects such an amazing contempt for universities and an amazing lack of awareness of an important aspect of universities. That is what students associations do for students in a university. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Clause 8—“Information withdrawals and refunds”. Clause 8. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I will resist responding Mr Chairman in case you ask me to apologise again for responding to some comment that is so puerile it is not even worth— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Clause 8. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to the member that clause 8 is fundamental. If we do not provide students with an awareness that there is a students association fee then what are we taking away from that student? It is the ability to know at all about students associations. Let the member take a call herself and say that in her call. This is really about something fundamentally important but the provision is so illogical. 
I do not know whether Mr Tau Henare has ever been to a university and participated in student life at university. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What a snob. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Yes I am a snob; I am proud to be a snob. I have spent enough time at a university. There are many people who through that experience have learnt to be better graduates and to make better contributions. I do not think that any one graduate sitting among members opposite who has been to a university and has participated meaningfully in student life will support these particular provisions because they come from somewhere and from someone who has little appreciation of that life. 
Let us take health services: where did health services in a university come from? Why were they developed and who advocated for health services in universities? It was the students themselves when they began to identify their own needs and bring together those things that would make services better. They also advocated for many of the facilities at universities; more latterly in the last 10 and 15 years it has been that focus on how to learn such as student support services. Through these kinds of services students have become better students better graduates and better researchers. Many of the childcare facilities at universities are there because of the advocacy of students associations.