Mackey Moana: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mackey Moana: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a brief call in the first reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. I think most of the issues have been canvassed very very well and repeated often during this debate. Certainly I think members in this House are very aware that this is incredibly significant legislation. An awful lot of work has gone into preparing this bill. The tertiary sector is a sector that of course covers many many varying types of organisations that have different interests. I am sure that it has not been easy throughout the process of working with them on this bill to come up with a model that provides for all the types of institutions that we are talking about and does not treat them unfairly. 
I look forward to this bill coming to the Education and Science Committee which I am on. I am sure it will have much robust debate and I am sure we will get many many submissions. Knowing the way our select committee works I can say there will be a genuine will on the part of the committee to make the bill better in any way we can and to ensure that we can get as much support for it in this House as possible. 
On that point there does appear to be genuine consensus in the House even from parties not supporting the bill that changes need to be made. Some concerns have been raised that will need to be picked up by the select committee around some of the aspects of the bill in terms of the powers of the Tertiary Education Commission in disagreements. That appears to be a point of concern amongst parties in the House and I think it will be a point that the select committee will look at. There does seem to be genuine consensus that something needs to be done in this sector though obviously there is some slight disagreement over whether this bill is the vehicle to do that. 
I believe that this bill will go a long way towards addressing many of those concerns and towards ensuring that taxpayer investment in the tertiary education sector is providing outputs of quality and not simply of quantity in terms of students. It is important to acknowledge that we have a lot more students going into the tertiary education sector now. That has had its good and bad points. Students are also now coming out of tertiary study with big debts which have provided other challenges the Government has had to address in terms of the way we look at student support funding and of course interest-free student loans. It has had a lot of spin-offs. I believe this bill will go a long way towards addressing some of those issues as well. 
One of the comments I hear most often from people who come in to discuss tertiary education issues is their concern over the amount of money that appears to be spent by institutions on advertising and on competing with each other which we have seen in the past in order to get the students—the bums on seats. If that money was not being spent on advertising and if we had far better understanding and cooperation within the sector where could that money go? Could it go towards reducing the cost to students of tertiary study towards salaries for the staff who work in the institutions or towards more research and development work in some of those institutions as well? 
 We have had an attempt at a market model for a long time in our tertiary education sector and I guess the problem has been that the right drivers have not been there. Any Government would hope that the drivers in the tertiary education market would be those of economic development of responding to industry needs and of responding to the needs and priorities of the Government in terms of growing the economy and providing a skilled workforce. 
Unfortunately I think that in many areas of the tertiary education sector the short-term focus on simply keeping one’s head above water has taken precedence over a long-term focus about what is best in each region and for each regional institution polytech or private tertiary education provider in terms of its strategic vision. The long-term has simply not been the focus and that is why we have seen the proliferation of courses that are cheaper to run that grab an awful lot of students but that do not provide the quality for money that taxpayers expect from their investment in the tertiary education sector. After all we need the right mix of skilled graduates to transform our economy and at the moment the sector simply is not responsive enough to those needs. We hear that message from employers and from business and industry groups who tell us they need a tertiary education system that is far more responsive to the needs of the sector and far less focused on simply putting bums on seats and bringing in the equivalent full-time student funding that provides the money for the institution to keep going. 
This is certainly something we have seen in our regional polytechs. When I have spoken with regional polytechs they have been quite candid about the fact that a lot of times they have been focused on their short-term survival. They have had some very good years when they have offered some questionable courses—many of which have been raised in this House. In those years they did very very well financially. When there is that kind of incentive driving the strategies in the tertiary education sector it is clear that the model we have is not working. 
This bill introduces a law that is needed to give effect to these reforms and I believe that it will provide the tertiary education sector and organisations with a simpler and more streamlined relationship with Government. I do not believe that anyone would disagree with the need to streamline that relationship. The relationship has developed over time grown a life of its own and had add-ons here and there. This complete relooking at the sector is a good thing particularly for the taxpayers as well as for the stakeholders in the sector itself. 
The bill streamlines the system it provides a much more simplified set of steering instruments—which I am sure the sector will welcome—and it also provides the Tertiary Education Commission with a broader range of options for guiding the contribution of tertiary education organisations and monitoring their performance. That is something we have had difficulty with in the past. The bill also clarifies the accountability of the tertiary education organisations for the expenditure of public funds. It is only fair to them that we are quite clear at the beginning when they are doing their 3-year plans as to what is expected so they can then have not only the funding security but the security of knowing that what they are doing is feeding into the overall vision of the Government and safeguarding the Crown’s interests in such organisations—which as previous members have indicated is not insignificant. 
One of the other issues we have seen in some of these institutions is the propensity to move to much cheaper courses. For example we need a lot more scientists in our workplaces but of course science courses are very expensive to run because for each student that goes into a science course there are significant costs. If we look at some of the other courses such as humanities courses—and we do not want to constantly pick on the humanities—we see that the same costs can cover hundreds and hundreds of students. It does not matter how many students are brought in; the cost of the overall course remains the same because we are not dealing with things like labs and all the costs that come with the equipment the reagents and everything else that is needed. So we have seen a propensity sometimes to move away from areas like science which is in fact one area where we need a lot more investment and a lot more focus in terms of the needs of our economy over probably the next few decades. 
The reforms in the bill introduce a new investment system and as the previous speaker from United Future said planning funding and monitoring will be aligned to ensure that the system delivers for all stakeholders. At the end of the day that is what the bill does. 
As I said before I am sure we will have a very robust debate on this bill in the Education and Science Committee. It is almost hard to stand up and give a speech on the bill now because I am sure there will be much debate and many changes mooted in the select committee. I look forward to that process. Certainly we want to encourage anyone to make a submission on this bill. It is of incredible significance. In terms of the economy and economic development in New Zealand it is probably one of the more important bills to go through. We want to ensure that all areas of the tertiary education sector are able to have their say that this bill advantages as many as possible and that we are not adversely disadvantaging any areas of the sector. It is a diverse sector and it is a complex sector and it is not easy writing legislation that covers all of it. This is a very very good bill a very very good first step and I look forward to the select committee process working on improving it further.