Burns Brendon: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Burns Brendon: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:659;Page:8529] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am delighted to follow the Minister for Tertiary Education’s intervention in the debate on the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill. She has exited from her Madame Defarge - like act of writing the Christmas cards as we drop the guillotine upon the polytechnic councils of this country. Finally she has come to life and suggested that the previous Labour Government threw money at the polytechnic sector. Well I tell her that I joined the polytechnic council of Nelson Polytechnic later renamed Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in February 1999. Who was in Government at that time? What was the first act that that council had to grapple with? The institution had to take hold of and try to sort out a nearly $2 million deficit. So she cannot tell us that Labour ran polytechnics into the ground. Polytechnics have often been regarded as the poor cousin of the tertiary sector and this bill enshrines that boots and all. This legislation will make them the powerless poor cousins. 
I wonder who the Christmas cards are being written to. She could be writing to the former members of polytechnic councils to say farewell to thank them very much and to tell them to get stuffed because she does not want to have community representation on polytechnics from hereon in. She could be saying to them that she wants to run them like a business and that she will make sure that whoever runs the councils will act to her and to her agenda. Labour has some suspicions about what that agenda will mean. We have had some signals of that I think. 
The question that has to be asked is why simply polytechnics? Why not wananga? Why not university councils? Well maybe because the Minister has now realised that the chancellor is not actually a German president and that university councils are a tougher act to take on than polytechnic councils. They have the political clout that polytechnics do not have so they are probably safe for a time. But their time will come soon. 
I acknowledge that Te Ururoa Flavell from the Maori Party managed to get the Minister’s attention briefly while he was speaking before. That was a credit to him because it is the only attention the Maori Party has had on this issue along with its Supplementary Order Paper which effectively tries to replicate what is already in place and what is being abolished by this bill which is the representative model that allows iwi in the case of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology council to have three representatives. That council works extraordinarily well. I suggest that the Maori Party members are trying to extract a little bit of dignity from this issue with this Supplementary Order Paper. I wish them good luck on that! But really all it would do is reinstate what is being abolished by this bill. 
I ask some of the members of the Government opposite to stand up and talk on this bill rather more than for instance Colin King the member for Kaikoura has. He took two short calls in previous debates on this bill. I want him to explain how this bill works for his electorate of Kaikoura. How will the Marlborough community which is where he is resident be represented in future on the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology council? If as is logical the council selects the chief executive a staff member a student and maybe a Nelson iwi representative then where will the Marlborough community representative be? Where will that voice be heard? Where will Marlborough iwi be heard on that council? Where will Marlborough employers or union representatives be heard? 
The council of that institution has included many strong voices for the Marlborough community. I am thinking of people such as the former mayor of Marlborough Leo McKendry and Fran Jessep a Marlborough businesswoman and past member of the Canterbury Community Trust board. They were very strong advocates for Marlborough on that council. Their advocacy helped the Blenheim campus of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology to gain The Marlborough Wine Research Centre for the nation with millions and millions of dollars of research funding brought to that campus as a result of that advocacy which was strongly put to the council by Marlborough representatives. That will not happen any more under this bill. It is a very very sad day. 
I will comment on the idea that polytechnic councils have all had 20 members. They have not. Most have had much less than that. The Labour Party has signalled very clearly that we are prepared to see a reduction— 
Hon Member 
: Fewer! 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Thank you—fewer representatives than twenty. But there is no case to gut it back to eight members with four chosen by the Minister effectively giving her the control. I think this really underscores this Government’s attitude to the education sector.