Robertson Grant: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Robertson Grant: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21537] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 This is indeed a very sad day for students. It is a sad day for students who go along to an institution like a polytechnic or a university and want to be able to make the best use of their time at the institution. We heard from Mr Peachey earlier on with his concerns about whether some people are in a state to be able to succeed at a university or a polytechnic if they need the support of a students association. What I say is that students associations over many years have provided support advocacy welfare services and health and well-being services to generations of students and have made the difference that has meant that those students have been able to complete their tertiary studies. That is how significant the work of students associations has been for many people. 
What the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill tonight does and I think we need to be very clear about this is undo the work done by Tau Henare and the previous National Government in creating a regime for the membership of students associations that put control in the hands of students. What the current law does is allow students if there are enough of them to force a referendum to have a referendum on whether membership of their students association should be compulsory or should be voluntary. The Auckland University Students Association as has already been discussed has taken the decision to go voluntary. The Waikato Student Union took a decision to go voluntary then took a decision to go back the other way and return to compulsory membership. Those students did that because their experiment with voluntary membership was a disaster. They had the ability under the current law to return to the quality of membership that they wanted. They made a decision. They had a choice. This bill removes that choice. 
There has been a lot of talk about choice about it being a motivation and a driver for the promoter of this bill and for National to support the bill. But the reality is that the choices that are now going to be put before students are not real choices because this bill basically prevents that. Certainly the Government prevented amendments being put forward that would have allowed students to have an informed choice at the start of a year. Labour members put forward amendments that would have allowed students associations to have access to contact details so that they could provide information. But the reality is that this bill is not about choice. This bill is about an ideological crusade of a very small number of students represented in this House by a party that seems to be going out of existence. On the basis of that ideological crusade the students associations will be destroyed. 
Mark my words it is not just the university students who will be affected by this. I predict that most of the university students associations will stumble on in some kind of relationship with their tertiary institution providers and I will come back to that in a minute. It is polytechnic students who will really suffer here. I do not believe that many polytechnic students associations will be able to survive this bill and as a result of that the experience of students at polytechnics will be diminished. Many of the students who arrive at polytechnics have no experience or knowledge of tertiary education they are often there for a short time and their students associations are the ones that are able to provide important services. There is a reason why all bar one of the polytechnics in this country came to the Education and Science Committee and said “Please do not pass this bill.” They know the value of the services that are provided by students associations. They are not in it for the politics as Heather Roy was trying to say that that was where the students associations had gone. Those institutions support the students associations because they know the good work that is done and they know the potential damage that will be done to their students when and if this bill passes. 
I return to the university students associations. They are now caught in a very interesting dilemma because in recent times we have seen student services levies—those levies charged by the institutions for services other than those provided by the students associations—increase dramatically. The Government rightly has been concerned about this. Legislation has been passed in this House to ensure that those student services levy increases can be limited and that in fact by  
Gazette 
 notice the Minister for Tertiary Education can control the range of services able to be funded under a student services levy. As a result if we see students associations cut back we will now see the institutions limited in the range of student services they provide. So not only are the students associations losing control of student affairs; the institutions which will now be forced to fill the gap are being limited in the services they can provide. These together mean that the quality of the student experience in our universities and our polytechnics will be significantly diminished because of an ideological crusade by the ACT Party. 
It is interesting to hear the Minister for Tertiary Education tell students to keep their heads down. That is what he said the other day—that they should keep their heads down. That kind of bullying approach from the Minister has absolutely no place and does give some indication of what the real concern might be here which is that the students associations might actually stand up to Governments—of all colours I might say; not just National Governments but Labour-led Governments as well. The students associations might just have a role in standing up to the Government and asking questions and campaigning and advocating. I believe that those are legitimate roles of students associations. It is like a ratepayer not liking some of the books bought for the library with ratepayer funds; just because one does not like some of the activities of students associations does not mean one can somehow take oneself out of society—not pay one’s rates. What we see here is an attack on students associations and the work that they do and yes some of that work has been political because it has been in the best interests of students. But taking away from students the choice they currently have about how they organise themselves and limiting what the student services levy can be collected for put together mean that students’ experience will be significantly diminished. 
Ninety-eight percent of the submissions did oppose this bill. Heather Roy can talk about form submissions and all of that but we have seen no groundswell of support for this bill. We have seen no groundswell of support among students. If student organisations like ACT on Campus and others had wanted to make changes they had that ability. They had that ability with the referendum. 
It is very sad to me that other options that were on the table for this bill were not taken up. National Party MPs sat through the submissions and I agree with Allan Peachey who said it was a good submission process. It was a genuinely good submission process. We heard from informed submitters. We heard a lot of different ideas. There were good ideas on the table. The idea of a KiwiSaver-style opt-out scheme where people were enrolled had the opportunity to withdraw and then could carry on as normal from there was a good possibility. The possibility of more regular referenda was another idea on the table. The National MPs on the select committee heard those ideas and I know that they resonated with them. But instead politics came into play. The need to prop up the ACT Party came into play. I regard that as very very sad. 
There is almost no constituency for this bill. It is not just students. It is not just institutions. It is not just the Labour Party. Today I heard that Rural Women formerly Women’s Division Federated Farmers surveyed its members and 75 percent opposed this bill. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Oh how pathetic. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I tell Ms Collins to check with them and she will find there is no support for this bill. I cannot believe that National has decided to ignore its own constituency it has decided to ignore tertiary institutions and it has decided to ignore students in order to support an ideological crusade from the ACT Party. This is a sad day for students. This is a sad day for tertiary education. But I can say on the record as Labour members did in our select committee report that we will repeal this legislation and we will return to a situation where students have advocacy services where students have welfare services and where they are supported to stay in their education. We will do that on the basis that that is what students want and that we will not bow down to ideological crusades.