Robertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee[Sitting date: 27 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:959. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):I was waiting to see whether the Minister would respond to Tracy Martin’s question. I am sure she will at a later moment in this debate.I want to focus my first contribution on the changes to tertiary governance that are covered by clause 6 which amends sections 171 and 173 of the Education Act. This is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. There has been no evidence provided by the Government for why it is making these changes. There have been comprehensive submissions from everybody involved in the tertiary sector to say that these changes are unnecessary ill-considered and inconsistent with international norms and best practices. The submissions say that the changes will undermine the integrity of institutions and undermine the autonomy of institutions and that they will threaten the international reputation of New Zealand’s tertiary institutions. Yet Steven Joyce and Hekia Parata come to this House put this in front of us and say that it must happen. Well there is no justification.I refer to the regulatory impact statement which helpfully has a heading “Problem definition”. It is not a good start for the problem definition when it begins to compare these changes with the changes to the governance of polytechs which were put through in 2009. The regulatory impact statement says: “Changes to ITP governance in 2009 resulted from poor financial and educational performance in the ITP sector. Unlike this situation … there are no immediate issues …” with the university sector. So the first element of the problem definition actually is not there anymore.I would say as an aside that in fact after the changes were made to polytechnic governance to restrict the membership of staff and students financial performance for polytechs declined. So the very reason that was given for doing it in the first place actually turned out to make the opposite happen.But that actually is not the justification here. The justification here talks about: “Greater competitive pressures from further internationalisation of the education market through the emergence of online provision …” and the fact that students can now access courses from all over the world. Well I know what a good response to that would be. Take students off the councils! Take off the council the very people who are making these decisions that are relevant. So that is the first part of the problem definition that does not make any sense.The second part of the alleged problem is the importance of better responding to areas of high occupational demand. Well actually there is not a lot of evidence that universities are not doing that. So does it make any sense whatsoever then to remove guaranteed representation of employers from councils? That is what this bill does. So if there is an issue and a problem about whether universities are responding to the need for the skills required for occupations that are emerging would it not be better to guarantee representation from employers on it? But no the Government wants to take away guaranteed representation from employers as well.I move on to other parts of the problem definition and to the importance of universities: “Making strategic investments to enhance their attractiveness to students and emphasise their particular areas of expertise”. Again why then take away the guaranteed representation of that class of people—of students the people who are supposedly needing to be attracted into these institutions?This part of the legislation is a solution in search of a problem. This problem definition is absolutely empty. Therefore you have to look around and ask what the reasons would be. Mr Joyce has never come up with one other than an ideological commitment to smaller governance. Members on the other side of the House will be familiar with Mr Joyce’s role in this during his time as general secretary of whatever the equivalent is in the National Party when he took the board of the National Party and reduced it in size as well so that he could control it and control the National Party. That is what this is about. It is about control—unbelievably from the National Party the party that is supposedly about freedom. It is about control. This is the most controlling Government—Hon David Parker: They brought in Jason Ede.GRANT ROBERTSON: I am coming to that. This is the most controlling Government that you will ever see.The other part of Steven Joyce’s justification here is about the stifling of dissent. The organisations within the tertiary sector that have put in the most criticism of the Government’s policies are staff and students and it is staff and students whose guaranteed representation is being taken away.So there we have the desire of Steven Joyce to control more institutions that have the role in our society of being the critic and the conscience and then also to stifle dissent. Does this sound familiar to anybody? This is exactly the operation that has been run from the ninth floor of the Beehive—a smear machine to control and get rid of dissent. The vile smear machine of the ninth floor is represented here in this legislation. It is almost as if this legislation was dictated to Jason Ede and sent to Cameron Slater as well. That is what this looks like because it comes from the same principle of control of these institutions.But it is not just the Labour Party saying this. It is coming from places like Auckland University and Stuart McCutcheon—Hon Simon Bridges: The Green Party too.GRANT ROBERTSON: I do not think that Stuart McCutcheon would be a member of the Green Party Mr Bridges. I think Stuart McCutcheon’s politics might lie considerably elsewhere. But he and other vice-chancellors and other members of the tertiary sector have been absolutely clear that this will undermine their role. They look to the international examples because reducing the number of people on a council perhaps down to eight from 12 you might think was in line with international examples. But it is not—The University of Melbourne 22; Queensland University 22; Cambridge University 24; Oxford University 25; Harvard University 32. They are all ranked higher. Stanford University is 33 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 72. At the moment membership on New Zealand university councils has to be between 12 and 20. This is a number that has worked well. There is no problem here and internationally we will be out of step. A random sample of 50 of the top 200 universities in the world shows that the size of the council is irrelevant to the performance of that institution in the top 200. We want more New Zealand universities in the top 200 and instead what we have got is a Minister tinkering around and trying to take more control.If you want more evidence of that Mr Chair these proposals in this bill move the proportion of council members appointed by a Minister from 20 percent to 25 percent to 33 percent to 40 percent. So the Minister now takes control of nearly half the membership of these councils. These are institutions that are meant to be autonomous. These are institutions that are meant to be independent. They play a critical role in our society of standing up to Government and now Steven Joyce wants to control up to 40 percent of the membership. So nothing in this bill will do anything to improve the performance of universities. In fact what it will do is simply ideologically reduce the size and increase the control that the Minister thinks he can have over this.And what about the staff and students who make up institutions? Time and again people came to the select committee and said that the value added by having staff and students at the table was immeasurable. That is where the voice of the people was heard. In the case of Auckland University it talked in its submission about the 6000 staff the 40000 students and the 64000 graduates whose participation in a university council is no longer guaranteed.These measures will undermine our tertiary institutions. They will increase the control of the Government and for no reason other than an ideological wish by Steven Joyce to silence his critics. Well that is not good enough. On this side of the House we actually stand for a tertiary sector that is independent that can play its role as the critic of conscience in society and that is not beholden to Steven Joyce and his mates.It is not like this came up just the other day. This is about the history of universities going back centuries. It is about the fundamental principles of institutional autonomy academic freedom and yes of equity. And if we want to see equity as part of our tertiary sector then having the people who are affected by decisions that are made at the council table is vital. All we have been asking for in this debate is the ability for students for staff for employers and for people in communities who are affected by tertiary institutions to be given the right to have a say.Steven Joyce justified this piece of legislation on the basis that one university Canterbury University wanted to change the membership of its council. It could do exactly what it wanted to do under the current law. The current law says 12 to 20 members. It has worked well in almost every tertiary institution in this country. There is no problem here. Tertiary institutions are doing relatively well financially despite the fact that the Government has actually cut their funding over the last 5 years. There is nothing in this piece of legislation to justify the claims that Steven Joyce has made about why he wants to make a change. When and if this legislation passes it will be a shame on this country.