Coddington Deborah: Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party. We have opposed this bill all the way through. We worked hard in the Education and Science Committee to at least improve on the sloppy legislation that initially came before the committee. 
For instance one of the changes for the better that has been made is to the provision that the levy could be used to refund students in courses that were not even accredited by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority which would have meant that any fly-by-night operator could set up take the fees from students and flee and the taxpayer or the levy-payer would be left to pick up the charges. The other change that has been made by the select committee is the removal of the retrospective charges which is also a positive thing. But it is still bad legislation. 
It will allow the Minister of Education to tax private training establishments for the cost of refunding students for any pre-paid fees when a private training establishment cannot offer the course to the student. As we have heard from Pansy Wong that is because of the Modern Age Institute of Learning and Carich Training Centre which both collapsed. When Modern Age collapsed the Minister announced on 8 September 2003 without even consulting the industry that he would bail out the institution to the cost of $400000 despite the fact that students already had insurance and other members of the sector voluntarily took those students under their wings. All the 500 students were put into classes within 2 weeks. The English language students went into classes within a week. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Nowhere to live and nothing to eat. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: The Minister knows that. He can sit there and have a little tanty as much as he likes but he knows what the facts of the case are. 
This legislation will tax responsible providers which have absolutely no control over who enters the industry—that control is exerted by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Ministry of Education—to cover the cost of the irresponsible providers. 
Why did the New Zealand Qualifications Authority not check more thoroughly that Modern Age’s money was in fact in a safe bond? Why did it just take Modern Age’s word for it? The New Zealand Qualifications Authority has proved its incompetence on a whole range of fronts and it will continue to be incompetent. The Minister will not have to take any responsibility for that because he just loves to beat up any sort of private provider in the education sector. 
The Government has bailed out public polytechs to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Irresponsible polytechs have been bailed out by the Government but it has never required other polytechs to cover the cost of those bail-outs. Where is the levy on public polytechs? What levy under the export education levy do they have to pay? The Minister has not levied public institutions and he knows it. He calls “consultation” going to the industry after he has already made the decision that he will bail them out. The Association of Private Providers of English Language had offered to discuss it with the Minister but he did not take that up. 
This is very bad sloppy legislation. It allows for double-dipping. For instance the students who will be bailed out in the future will not have to register as creditors to the Government which means that they could well be bailed out again and again. The other bad message that this legislation will send is that it will remove all responsibility to be good responsible institutions from private providers who come into the industry. What is the point of being responsible when all the other institutions through Government legislation will be forced to pick up the tab if an institution lets its students down? The levy releases all those future shonky private training establishments from their responsibilities. As I said the bill’s provisions mean that private providers will be paying the cost of failed businesses and they will have absolutely no control over which institutions will come into the industry. 
It is ideological legislation that has come about because this Government is vehemently opposed to any form of private provider in the education sector. The Minister has already proven that with early childhood education when he unfairly slanted the fees against private providers in favour of community-owned providers. It was the Minister who called private early childhood educators “Kentucky Fried Childcare”. Why is he not honest and call tertiary institutions “Kentucky Fried Education” too? He is more concerned about what happens when he goes to China and his reputation over there than how private education institutions in the tertiary sector will manage here. He wants to encourage growth in the New Zealand industry but he is going the wrong way about it. 
We oppose the bill.