Cunliffe David: Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8488. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I move That the Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Education and Science Committee. In 2015 the current National Government amended the Education Act 1989 and repealed the requirement for democratic elections and student representatives on tertiary institution councils. Removing democratic representation from university councils is plainly wrong. It undermines the integrity of our public institutions and it sends the wrong signal to the next generation of Kiwi leaders and the many thousands of hard-working academic and general university staff.The Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill would ensure mandatory staff and student representation on university councils and would limit ministerial appointees to four. It has the widespread support of the tertiary education sector with key stakeholders such as the New Zealand University Students’ Association the Tertiary Education Union and Universities New Zealand on record as calling on all parties to find a workable solution forward and thus to allow this bill to the select committee for a fair and robust debate.The first reading of this bill comes at a time when the need for good governance in our tertiary institutions has never been more apparent. The National Government’s mismanagement of the sector is plain for all to see. Instead of treating education as an essential public good which it is Minister Joyce treats it as nothing more than a factory or a cash cow for private tertiary providers to milk dry the international student market.On Budget day Minister Joyce announced phantom funding that was exposed by Labour to be yet another year of real cuts another National Government vanishing act and another brick in the wall of unfulfilled promises. The National Government has been underfunding tertiary education for years. Just ask the lecturers the administrators and the cleaners at our tertiary institutions who are being asked to do more with less—and we know that that means more work for less pay.New Zealand now ranks near the bottom of the OECD on tertiary education spending per student—behind Australia Canada Denmark Ireland Finland France Germany and Israel—and well below the OECD average. Under the National Government total spending has fallen from around $3.2 billion a year to only $3 billion today. It is an embarrassment that New Zealand is going backwards.It is no wonder that our university rankings are on the slide. Victoria University dropped by at least 50 places and Canterbury and Waikato both plummeted more than 100 places in global rankings this year. To make matters worse for university researchers New Zealand invests only half the average of research and development of the OECD countries. The result is a wave of mergers and cuts and an increasing reliance on foreign students. That is the context of this bill.At the same time as he has been effectively starving the tertiary sector and selling short our children’s future Minister Joyce has been hard at work stifling the democratic voice of students. The National Government’s 2011 voluntary student membership legislation was an ideological diatribe that scrapped students’ universal association membership limiting student associations and leaving them dependent upon the institutions that they were supposed to robustly represent the interests of their members to. Student associations are on such thin ice that the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations has been in danger of folding with just 10 members left after major institutions such as Canterbury and Waikato pulled out several years ago.Chris Bishop: Why do you think they left?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Because they could not afford it Mr Bishop. Unless turned around this could force that students association to fold after 86 years.Worse in the polytech sector many institutions lack any student body at all like at Aoraki Polytechnic. Some student bodies like at Waiariki Institute of Technology where Mr Tabuteau once worked are under such pressure that their voice is routinely and systematically stifled. A strong campaign by staff and students saw democracy restored to Victoria University with two members on the university council. That is essentially what this bill seeks to do nationwide.While all of this has been going on Minister Joyce and the National Government have been building up a private tertiary fiefdom that is akin to the wild west with loose standards and weak oversight being the order of the day. As the Government doubles down on bad governance and chases the international student dollar it is effectively a free for all—a free for all where numbers are inflated tutors are enrolled in courses and some $50 million has been overpaid to institutions in the last year.On the substance of this bill the silencing of students and staff on university councils directly undermines their role as a critic and conscience in society. They are crucial and legitimate stakeholders in how universities and other tertiary institutions work and their voices deserve to be heard.Including their voices in law on every council also assists the institution. Information can flow both ways and feedback and opinion can be properly channelled. It creates value for both sides. This is the modern networked world in the information age. Sharing information aligning interests and building a positive community of support works well for the institutions well for the students and well for the staff.That is why it is time in this bill to move beyond ideology. It is time to find a workable compromise and a new way forward—one that engages students staff unions management and of course the Crown. It should be one that ensures both good governance and strong representation and thus creates shared value for all stakeholders rather than getting lost in a war of words or an outdated market ideology that treats higher learning institutions as factories staff as machines and students as commodities.To conclude it is apparent that the integrity of our public institutions has been under constant attack by this Government and in particular by the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment who seems to relate it to an outdated business with no respect for staff or students. This bill will provide a pathway through a select committee process that will reverse the Government’s attempts to stifle democracy at universities and will allow for a wider debate about the commercialisation of education by the current Government.Proper representation also matters to the critic and conscience role of universities and other tertiary institutions. Principles of good governance demand representation of all parties—of students of staff and of governors. Supporting this bill would allow all the issues to be aired and new solutions found at our public institutions.I want to signal that the Labour Party is open to extending the scope of the bill to include wānanga and polytechnics as well as universities. The draft has been cleared by both the Office of the Clerk and the Bill of Rights Act vet to allow that amendment to happen at the select committee.Also the Labour Party wishes to signal its willingness to cooperate with the Government and with all parties around the House to amend the bill significantly if necessary to find an enduring positive and relatively apolitical way forward where the Government’s partial aim—to give it some credit perhaps—to ensure business-like governance is matched by the legitimate need to have democratic representation on university polytech and wānanga councils.We are keen to work with all parties. We ask the House to send this bill to a select committee so that the views of the sector and core stakeholders can be properly heard. If the Government across the aisle has nothing to be afraid of from allowing that process to go on I hope that it too will support this opportunity for a refresh of the current law.In the end ideas cannot be supressed by law. Democracy will flourish despite the jackboot of the temporarily powerful. Progressive ideals will continue to inform this beautiful but fragile country of ours.