Rich Katherine: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Rich Katherine: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 As I rise to speak to Part 2 I would like to say that it is good to have a Minister in the chair Maryan Street who at least listens to the debate and responds to some of the concerns we raise unlike other Ministers who sit and do crosswords. 
I would like to start by commenting that here we are as late in the piece as this after nearly 8 years of a Labour Government still looking at tertiary sector reform. Every 2 years as my colleague said we are right back here looking at tertiary reform. I think out there in tertiary land a number of people are suffering from reform fatigue. They have seen it all before. A lot of tertiary providers bought into the production of their charters and their profiles. They spent a huge amount of money genuinely going through the processes only to be told that everything was going to change and we were to move to a 3-year plan. I would like to hear what Steve Maharey has to say on this. I would like him to take a call actually to tell us whether he will change his tune on tertiary reform because when he takes on his new role he will find he will be asked to plan plan and plan again. 
I draw members’ attention to some of the comments made by representatives of the Vice-Chancellors Committee which gave a very powerful submission—and I know that Minister Maharey will enjoy taking part in Vice-Chancellors Committee meetings. The vice-chancellors had some very serious things to say about the bill. They said there would be an unwarranted loss of academic freedom and autonomy. They said the bill was going to be uniformly directive and controlling and they talked about it providing the Minister with greater powers than ever before. They said they were concerned that the bill would open universities to direct ministerial intervention and they made the point that none of the world’s leading universities were subject to the degree of control proposed in this bill. So I am sure that when Steve Maharey gets out there into tertiary land he perhaps will change his tune on a lot of these things as he finds it increasingly difficult to run a university under this bill. 
This bill proposes less bureaucracy and more focus on quality and value. That is what the rhetoric says but what we have in here is something quite different. The Minister said that things will no longer be demand-led. I do not think we can ever turn our back on demand because a lot of the services provided in our tertiary sector are in increasing demand. In the early childhood education area there is a shortage of trained teachers and of course there is an increasing demand on some of the services to provide education for people who want to learn and to get them out into the market place. 
Through this bill the Tertiary Education Commission is proposing that it puts a cap on the number of seats for prospective students at a time when there is an increasing demand for those services. So there must be some flexibility there because the country does need people with the sorts of skills provided by those services and we need to ensure that we can support and train as many as we wish. On the other hand in some areas there are not as many positions available for people to go into afterwards. 
In respect of Part 2 I refer now to industry training organisations. We have heard a lot of discussion about the Modern Apprenticeships system and the Government has patted itself on its back endlessly about the number of Modern Apprentices that have been created. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell Lesley Soper that her Government does not know how many apprentices are completing their apprenticeships. It is all very well to have thousands and thousands of apprentices but we would quite like them to finish their apprenticeships and go out into the workforce. I know that when I have asked the Minister for completion rates—as have my learned colleagues—we have been told time and time again that he does not have a clue and that the Government does not have a clue how many of these young men and women are actually finishing— 
Lesley Soper 
: Go and tell all those business people about what wonderful things you did for the apprenticeship system and see what they have to say about it. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Deluded! I rest my case. That member obviously does not understand this bill. She was a useless member for the New Zealand Educational Institute in Invercargill and I think she proves the point by some of her inane utterances here in the House.