Hutchison Paul: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the very important Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. The bill is very important because there is no doubt that tertiary education is pivotal to the future of New Zealand. It is pivotal to driving economic growth and to improving our productivity which is something that has been absolutely stalled under this Labour Government over the last 8 years. 
It is interesting that this Government has said that this bill is about achieving high trust low compliance relevance quality and value for money. Nobody would disagree with those sentiments but we have seen even before this bill has been implemented the very opposite. We have seen a model that has demonstrated an ever-growing creeping bureaucracy and jackboot-like central control. That is exactly what has been going on. 
Twenty-three submissions were received on this bill and the major issues arising were those of academic freedom institutional autonomy and the removal of charters and profiles—something the Hon Steve Maharey said in 2002 would be the ultimate achievement of tertiary reforms. How wrong that has proven to be because he is doing away with them and instead bringing in these so-called investment plans. 
The other important issues were procedural fairness—something that is clearly somewhat foreign to this Labour Government—the treatment of sensitive information and adult community education issues. I want to give just two examples of when this Labour Government has shown low trust and poor management and has rewarded failure and punished success. 
There could be many many more examples than the two I am going to give but I want to start firstly with the headline from the  
Independent Financial Review 
 “Foul-up costs unis millions”. The article states: “Tertiary institutes face paying millions in top-up fees next year because of an ill-timed government policy which caps funds and threatens penalties on those that grow.” So much for high trust! The article continues: “Auckland University’s vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon says it will have a short-fall of millions because of funding cuts an increase in the student achievement component and a cap on fees.” It goes on to state “the timing of TEC’s investment plan meant it came too late to limit student numbers for next year.” So much for good management! In fact this is abysmally poor management. 
Here in Wellington at Victoria University Chief Financial Officer Wayne Morgan said: “There have been threats of financial penalties from TEC if student numbers exceed the new quota.” There we see bullying and poor management. 
The second example is that of the Southern Institute of Technology which is an institute that has done remarkably well in showing lateral thinking innovation quality relevance and value for money. It is the only tertiary institution in this country that by stint of innovation and hard work provides a policy of having no student fees. But that is at risk. Why? Because the Tertiary Education Commission plans to take $8 million from this good-performing institution and with this money prop up institutions that are failing. That might help pay for the $2000 a day that is going to the Crown controller at the Western Institute of Technology or the $2600 a day going to one of the accountants who is helping there. So there is another example of where this Labour Government is punishing success and rewarding those who do not do well. 
It is almost unbelievable the way this central-control model is behaving. First of all the Government has started on the polytechs; next will it go to the universities? Who knows! Will the new Vice-Chancellor of Massey University Steve Maharey be told that the Government does not believe in regionalism and that it will remove Massey University from the North Shore of Auckland so the university will have to retreat to Palmerston North? Is that the sort of headache the Government is going to put on Steve Maharey? Let us wait and see. 
We know that the Government just does not understand the concept that quality and value for money should underlie an efficient effective system—no matter who the provider is. Even though I was prepared to help this Government and provide it with a well-thought-out Supplementary Order Paper it ignored those constructive suggestions. That makes me wonder why the new Minister for Tertiary Education the Hon Peter Hodgson failed to be present at the second reading stage of this bill a bill that he claimed in this House was critical for tertiary education. He just did not turn up. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: The Assistant Minister was there. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: The only person who turned up was the Hon Maryan Street and I must admit she made a valuable contribution. But no one else from the Labour-led Government made any contribution whatsoever. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Excuse me! I was on the select committee the entire time. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Maybe apart from a minor contribution from Marian Hobbs Labour just wanted to get on with it and ram through this bill. The succession planning to carry this bill through has been abysmal and appalling. Firstly we had the resignation of the Chair of the Tertiary Education Commission Russell Marshall; secondly the Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Commission Janice Shiner is off to the UK next year; and thirdly there is the reshuffling of the deckchairs by Helen Clark. Steve Maharey’s huge mistakes had to be fixed up so she wheeled in Dr Michael Cullen and now we have the Hon Pete Hodgson the man who presided over the $5 billion increases in funding for the health system even though we saw no increase in surgery whatsoever. 
In this third reading debate it is important to emphasise again just how arrogant and out of touch this Labour Government has become. It was the New Zealand vice-chancellors who said that in no other Western democracy has the State sought this degree of control over a university’s teaching and research. The vice-chancellors would not have made those statements without a great deal of thought. It was Dr Cullen who belittled their submission and said: “No. Universities have for at least 40 years in my personal experience been complaining that academic freedom is under threat and that they are losing autonomy.” 
So it has been with considerable relief that finally the Labour Government was shamed—absolutely shamed—into changing this bill so that academic freedom and autonomy would remain. It gives us a great degree of satisfaction because undoubtedly this shows— 
Colin King 
: It came at the eleventh hour. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It did come at the eleventh hour. It was a victory for the select committee process. It was a victory for the submitters. It was a victory for the National Party. And it was an absolute indictment on this tawdry Labour Government which has become so out of touch tired and worn out. 
The tertiary education system needs stabilising and simplifying but Labour has provided the very opposite. As Professor McCutcheon said we have moved quickly from an open system to a closed system. There is no doubt that up until now the new Minister for Tertiary Education Pete Hodgson has been too afraid to show himself. The task of the next National Government will be to sort out the mess the Labour Government has left behind.