Robertson Grant: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:21089] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It will take somewhat longer than 5 minutes to read it but I am sure an extension of time will be granted by the Committee which will no doubt be enthralled by it. It was a dissertation; I should not overstate what it was. I am sure it has been one of the highest interloans the University of Otago library has ever had! 
I will talk about two additional clauses that are being proposed by Labour. In particular I want to talk about an amendment to clause 10 in the name of Trevor Mallard. It was an issue that was raised numerous times during the select committee process and was around the question— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Clause 9. We cannot talk about clause 10; we are not on it. We are on clause 9. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I will return to clause 10 in the future I hope. 
Sue Moroney 
: You don’t want to rush through it. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That is right. The other matter I want to raise is about clause 9 and it is about the question of the timing of the transitional provisions. I note that there has been a wide-ranging debate on clause 9 which is a good thing because the act of transitioning to this proposed new regime is a significant act and it impacts on everything students associations do. One of the things it impacts on is the ability of students associations to communicate with their members and to get across to members what services are provided and what additional services could be provided in the future if students associations were allowed to carry on. Unfortunately because of the unwillingness of both the member in the chair the Hon Heather Roy and National to actually consider bringing in this bill in an orderly fashion students associations—as I mentioned before like at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology—are now faced with a situation where the enrolment forms for students have already been printed and are about to be sent out. They have on them the fees that students have to pay. What will happen now to those institutions? 
The polytechnic students associations play a very important role in their institutions. Part of the nature of students associations in universities is that people will perhaps take 2 to 3 years of time on a students association contributing—they are often at the institution for 3 to 4 years. There is some institutional memory and some continuity. In polytechnics people are often there for quite a short period of time on courses of perhaps only 6 months or even less or maybe a year or 2 years. One of the things that polytechnic students associations do is to establish themselves in a way that they can provide some continuity for members. That continuity is at risk with the absence of a decent transitional provision in this bill because those associations have as I said in an earlier call constitutional arrangements. They mean that the students associations need to make changes to be able to continue to operate as they do now. I think the institutions themselves as we know from the submissions they made really will struggle to be able to put in place those services for students immediately upon the passing of this bill if that is what happens. 
Clause 9 is inadequate. It does not allow for the different nature of students associations which has been a feature I might say of this bill. It really does cut to the heart of the fact that this is an ideological crusade. It is an ideological crusade against university students associations on behalf of those who have issues with some of the political stances that have been taken by students associations. That is what this boils down to and it really does ignore in many ways the role of polytechnic students associations many of which will not be able to negotiate the service agreements that some of the university students associations will. 
Fundamentally the absence of a proper transitional clause re-emphasises the ideological nature of this bill. It re-emphasises the taking away of student decision-making rights in what will be provided for students in the future. So it is a real shame—and I know I have exhausted my calls on clause 9 in this debate—that in debating clause 9 we have not heard a single peep out of National members to justify their support for this bill. Not a single peep— 
Simon Bridges 
: Peep! 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: There we go—Simon Bridges has given the best contribution of the year: the word “peep”. That is it. We have not heard a single thing from National members to justify their support for this bill other than Mr Henare’s interjections and they are not actually justifications; they are sounds—they may be words; they are certainly sounds. That is all we have heard from National members. We have not heard from them an actual justification for this bill because they know from the submissions they heard in the Education and Science Committee that this bill should not pass. 
Louise Upston 
: You obviously haven’t been listening Grant. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I have been listening. Louise Upston says I have not been listening. I have been listening to a lot of speeches in this debate. They have come from members on this side of the Chamber and occasionally from Heather Roy but they certainly have not come from National members to justify why they are passing a bill that will destroy students associations. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to the heading to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to omit the heading and substitute “ 
Two classes of students provisions 
”.