Hughes Gareth: Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8496. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. This bill is not dopey. This is a good practical common-sense positive bill. What it does is it reverses Steven Joyce’s wrong answer in search of a problem when he rammed through the Education Amendment Bill that reduced the mandatory student and staff appointees to university councils. It is not dopey as we have heard suggested by other members to have students and staff represented on those councils. I think it is a frankly ridiculous argument the last speaker saying that he supported student and staff representatives and he thought it was “a bloody good idea” but it should not be mandatory. You could apply exactly the same logic to ministerial appointments. They are a good idea possibly a bloody good idea but why make them mandatory? You make them mandatory because you want to see those voices around that table.When Steven Joyce made those massively unpopular changes to the university wānanga and polytech councils there was massive opposition. I remember when on the select committee the response. Of the 1037 written submissions there were five—only five—that supported the Government’s change. What we saw was the unions the universities the vice-chancellors and the mayors coming out opposing this change. I want to congratulate the member the Hon David Cunliffe on putting this bill in the ballot and having it drawn. It is a good bill which goes back to making sure that we have student and staff voices around the table.This Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill is a good bill and I hope it can pass. What we know is that when you remove those student and staff voices you reduce the institutional and academic freedom you remove the protection that those voices around the table bring to the role of universities as the critic and the conscience of our society. They ensure diversity. They ensure that those voices which are critical—you know you may just see them as customers. But it is crucial to have those customers’ perspectives around the table or you risk getting bushwhacked as the previous speaker put it.I called it Steven Joyce’s “wrong answer in search of a problem” because there was no problem. There was no evidence presented from any of the Government members at the time as to why we had to massively scale back membership of these councils from 20 to eight to 12. There was no reason why we had to remove the student and staff positions. What we have replaced them with of course is appointed positions. I believe in democracy. I believe that those positions should be elected by their peers. That is not what we have seen in all those cases. What we saw was an ideological solution in search of a problem because they presented no evidence. In fact they ignored all the evidence. When you look at some of the top-performing universities which I am sure the Government members would like to see us following—Massachusetts Institute of Technology. How many members has it got? Not 12 but 70. Cambridge University—how many has it got? It is not 12; it is 30.When you look at the data of corporates in New Zealand and Australia in fact it is larger boards that are bringing a bigger dividend and better financial success than smaller boards. What Steven Joyce ended up doing was somehow confusing and conflating good management practices with good governance practices. These councils are governance bodies that hear from everyone—incorporating some of those strategic decisions.Secondly what this good bill does is reverse more “Joyce meddling” in our tertiary education sector. We used to hear a lot about nanny State in New Zealand. Nanny State to me is Steven Joyce deciding how to spend the students’ levy. Nanny State for me is Steven Joyce deciding who is going to be on all those university councils with those ministerial appointments. I support students and I support staff and their voices being elected by their peers around those councils and ultimately that is how we are going to get better decision-making and a better higher-quality tertiary education sector.Lastly I want to touch on the track record of the Minister who has been making those ministerial appointments—rather than the staff and rather than the students electing them. I remember speaking in previous debates looking at Minister Joyce’s poor track record. This comes out of the New Zealand University Students’ Association submission. Of all the appointments—there were 30—only five were women. Of those 30 only one was Māori; none were Pasifika; two-thirds were chief executive officers company directors and accountants. What we have not been seeing is those students the staff the Māori the Pasifika the community voices around the university council tables and that is why the Green Party is proud to support this bill.