Peck Mark: Motions — Southern Institute of Technology—Ombudsman's Recommendations 
Peck Mark: Motions — Southern Institute of Technology—Ombudsman's Recommendations 
[Volume:619;Page:15085] 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That this House note that the Southern Institute of Technology has rejected the recommendations of the Ombudsman in respect of its dispute with students enrolled in a social service course; and calls on the Southern Institute of Technology to comply with the Ombudsman’s recommendations. 
 It gives me no joy to move this recommendation with regard to a tertiary institution in my electorate. Furthermore I am also acutely aware that it is an unusual practice for Parliament to allow a motion to be debated and I want to thank the House for the leave that was granted this afternoon. I see this as a very important matter indeed and one that does demand the attention of the House because of what I see as a major constitutional issue that has been thrown upon us by the Southern Institute of Technology’s steadfast refusal to do the decent thing after the work done by the House’s representative—the Ombudsman. He investigated a complaint by six students in respect of a course in which they had enrolled in Invercargill where they reasonably expected to complete a nationally recognised qualification. They found out on completion of the first year’s study that in fact the course was not to continue any further. The time and effort they had invested in their study—not to mention the money they had to pay to undertake the study—had been totally wasted. 
The issues involved in this are very clear indeed. The first is that Parliament’s man made a decision having investigated the facts. To get to see the Ombudsman in the very first instance one must have exhausted all remedies before asking him to do his work. The Ombudsman was satisfied that the students had exhausted their remedies and had nowhere else to go but to seek redress from the man we appoint by motion in this House and to ask him to have a look at the activity of this particular State institution. That is the role of the Ombudsman—to protect citizens from the excesses of State-run institutions. In 15 years of there being an Ombudsman in this country never has any institution or any officer of State refused to abide by the Ombudsman’s recommendation. 
I ask the House to consider this: a member applies to a Minister for a release of documents under the Official Information Act. That release is refused by the Minister so the member goes to the Ombudsman who says to release them. The Minister then in my view if that particular precedent is allowed to stand can say: “No. I am not giving it to you.” There is a tension between the Ombudsman and the executive—as there should be. Furthermore there should be a tension between those who are officers of the State and those who use their services when there is a dispute. It is a healthy tension; it keeps our public service honest. For the Southern Institute of Technology to thumb its nose at the recommendation of the Ombudsman is wrong in the extreme. 
Not only that but the institute was given every opportunity to comment on the Ombudsman’s recommendations before they were finalised and it chose to ignore it. I do not accept the protestations from the chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology that she had not seen the papers. 
I note that she instructed lawyers in Auckland when there were perfectly good lawyers in Invercargill who had represented the institute for a long period of time. But the galling part of that situation is that the students had to go and find out of their own meagre resources the skerricks to actually defend the matter before a Master of the High Court in the first instance. They had to do that out of their own pockets. On  
Morning Report 
 the chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology had the gall to say that it had not cost the institute one cent because its legal expenses had been met by its insurers. 
I ask members of this House to consider the power imbalance in that situation. The power imbalance is absolute. Those students who had to borrow to get the money to pay their fees in the first place faced the loss of their homes and ruination of their families to try to protect their rights. When they were told by the Master of the High Court that in a legal sense they ran a good chance of losing in the court they simply could not afford to continue. 
There were more than six students. Most of the students dropped out because they could not afford to go even the first step in taking on the Southern Institute of Technology. There was an editorial in the  
Southland Times 
—and it is not often that the  
Southland Times  
and I have found ourselves on the same side—that made the following comments about this matter: “Doing the right thing is seldom a luxury. In the long term it tends to prove a necessity for any individual or organisation reliant on holding good standing with the public. In the case of the six students who were stranded on the path towards their qualification goal because the SIT abandoned the academic programme the right thing to do is compensate them. … Now the Ombudsman has ruled that on the grounds of natural justice it should pay anyway. Ms Simmonds has declined to act on his finding. This is from a national perspective an audacious act of defiance. … If people are suddenly prepared to give the Ombudsman’s decisions the flick a law change may indeed prove necessary.” 
If a law change is necessary for the Ombudsman to be able to do his job it is on the Southern Institute of Technology’s head. I wonder whether that institution wants the ignominy of that rested upon it. It is an institution that prides itself upon being a progressive institution yet it seeks to defy the Ombudsman. Well I hope that tonight Parliament will send it a message: “If you want to defy the Ombudsman defy Parliament too.” That I think would be a very serious thing indeed. 
I have absolutely no regrets about raising this matter today. The reason that we have an honest and reliable public service and strong State institutions is that they are open and accountable through several pieces of legislation and I am not about to sit and watch a recalcitrant organisation in my electorate hold the rest of what we hold so dear in our parliamentary and constitutional processes to ransom. 
This House must send a strong unanimous resolution to the Southern Institute of Technology so that there is absolutely no misunderstanding about the abhorrence that this House holds its actions in in rejecting what the Ombudsman said should be done for six students. It was $21000 that was taken from those students—not public money as Penny Simmonds likes to protest—money taken I would say under false pretences and the only decent thing for the institute to do is to admit it was wrong to do what the Ombudsman told it to do and to give the money back.