Moroney Sue: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Moroney Sue: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:659;Page:8479] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 That last speech was rather telling. The member who has just resumed his seat Allan Peachey is the chairperson of the Education and Science Committee whose job it is to defend to the hilt the Government’s proposal in this regard. We have all just witnessed that over half the member’s speech was dedicated to an area of the Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill that is not contentious at all. I believe that that is because the chairperson has considerable difficulty defending and justifying the very contentious parts of this bill which takes community representation and the community voice out of polytechnics. I think that speech was very telling. 
I am proud to stand and oppose this bill. Labour opposes this bill unlike the Maori Party. We have heard a speech from Te Ururoa Flavell that would lead one to assume that the Maori Party opposes this bill because there is no dedicated Maori representation any more on polytechnic councils. Mr Flavell spent almost all his time telling us why the bill is wrong and why it needs a provision for dedicated Maori representation. Then at the very end of his speech he said that the Maori Party will vote in favour of the second reading. I think that is a disgrace and I see that that is exactly what the Maori Party does out in the electorate. 
Members of the Maori Party make speeches that lead people to believe that they opposed to what the Government is doing. They strongly criticise what the Government is doing but then they come down to Wellington and vote in favour of the National Government. They uphold the things the Government is doing. The National Government is dumbing down Maori participation. The Maori Party upholds those things that the National Government is doing that are wrecking hard-working families’ lives. That is the Maori Party that we see today. It is a very sad shadow of its former self. 
The reason I and my party strongly oppose this bill is that it is built on a false premise. The false premise is that the polytechnic sector in New Zealand is in crisis. There is no crisis in the sector. I did not hear any of the Government speakers actually outline to us the problem that needs fixing. Where is the crisis in the polytechnic sector? There is no issue to fix up. 
Of course there is a bit of strife currently in the polytechnic sector. It has nothing to do with governance and it has nothing to do with the size of the councils or who is on those councils. But as we speak polytechnic staff are taking strike action some of them for the very first time. They certainly never had to do that under the previous Labour Government. Many of those staff are for the first time taking strike action because the National Government has put a wage freeze on them. It is now pitching them against their employers and their employers have no choice but to say no to a well-deserved wage increase for those staff. 
If there is any crisis at all in the polytechnic sector it is because of the decision of this Government to impose a wage freeze. It has nothing to do with bad governance and it has nothing to do with the size of the councils. It certainly has nothing to do with specifying Maori representation on those councils—which is what the Government would have us believe. The Government would have us believe that firstly the polytechnic sector is in crisis; and secondly that the reason it is in crisis is that we currently require Maori representation on those councils. That is a disgraceful link to make. I believe that the Government is absolutely wrong in doing that. 
So what is the real agenda here? It is certainly not the cost of the polytechnic councils. We asked questions at the Education and Science Committee to find out how much people on those councils get paid and it is a tiny amount particularly for the hours they put in. In fact it is almost a community service. So it is certainly not cost that is driving this change in the law. 
This bill is not about improving representation. It is certainly not about that because it actually reduces community representation. It specifically sets out to decrease community representation. The real agenda is certainly not about improving governance because as I think the last Government speaker Allan Peachey pointed out governance has nothing to do with whether polytechnics work well; it is actually about the quality of the chief executive officer. So by the Government’s own admission this bill is not about improving governance. 
The bill will considerably increase ministerial control because half the council will be appointed by the Minister of Education. The other thing the bill will do is shut down the voice of students. I think that the very strong support coming from Sir Roger Douglas is very interesting. He of course has a member’s bill—it has been drawn from the ballot—that seeks to make student union membership voluntary. The Government of course supports that bill because it will dumb down the student voice. 
Government members cannot wait to dumb down the student voice. They will do so with the bill for voluntary student union membership and insidiously they are also doing so with this bill because this bill does not allow for a seat at the table to be dedicated to student representation. Actually the bill did allow for that at the first reading stage. When the bill was referred to the Education and Science Committee it actually had a provision that allowed for student representation at the council table. But guess what? The Government members on that select committee decided to “improve” it by removing the requirement for student representation around the table. 
Viewers watching this debate need to join up the dots. This bill is about dumbing down the voice of the community. It is particularly about dumbing down the voice of Maori. It is also particularly about dumbing down the voice of students. So what exactly is the Minister afraid of? Why is it that she is so desperate to shut down the student voice? I think those are very worrying signs for the future and not just for the future of the polytechnic sector of course but for the future of the university sector as well. Everyone can wait and see—the university sector will be next. It had better start to get its arguments together now because clearly this Government is after dumbing down the student voice and community representation. 
Listening to the submissions at the select committee was very enlightening because significant themes came through particularly from the polytechnic sector itself. Those themes were these: polytechnics all argued that having the ability to have only four community representatives was not enough and that they had complex and diverse communities that needed representation. Polytechnics were asking for more representatives. The other main theme was that eight representatives were too few in total. Many of the polytechnics came forward and suggested that they could live with 12 on their councils but that eight was far too few. The third significant theme from submitters was that they did not need or want that amount of ministerial control. They were worried about the sheer amount of ministerial control that this bill will give to the Minister to control what goes on at their polytechnics yet at the same time to take away the community voice. So they were worried about more ministerial control and a dumbing down of the community voice. 
I make particular reference to the very very good submission from Wintec the polytechnic in Hamilton. The chair Gordon Chesterman made a very very good representation to the select committee and pointed out for example that Wintec’s very good deputy chairperson Clint Baddeley had been appointed to that polytechnic council as a New Zealand Council of Trade Unions representative. That is another area of representation that this bill seeks to take away; it seeks to take away industry representation. 
In my remaining minute I will raise the issue of gender. We heard from submitters that most of the representation of women on these councils has come from staff representatives and student representatives. But because of this bill they will be gone. I want to know what the Minister of Women’s Affairs is doing about that. What questions has she asked about the gender implications of decreasing the representation on polytechnic councils to eight representatives? What questions has she asked about ensuring that another Minister appoints four of those representatives and about making sure there are no dedicated positions there for staff and student representatives who actually predominate now in relation to gender issues and balance throughout the country? I think there are very serious questions to be answered on this bill and I feel proud to be from a party that has the courage to stand up and oppose it.