Copeland Gordon: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — In Committee 
Copeland Gordon: Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17946] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to cover a few points that the member Deborah Coddington mentioned during her contribution on the title clause of the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill. Firstly I think there are a number of different issues in relation to tertiary education. We need to face the reality that unless a tertiary education facility is privately owned then the only other option is that it be publicly owned. If it is publicly owned then obviously the Crown accounts which capture on a consolidated basis all assets and liabilities of the Crown must record the assets and liabilities of our various universities and tertiary institutions. One of the submissions the Finance and Expenditure Committee received from the tertiary sector basically suggested that that should not happen. But the select committee explored that suggestion in some depth and found that it has no factual basis. Therefore the assets and liabilities of tertiary institutions obviously must go into the Crown accounts. There is no doubt about that at all. 
To link that to the question of academic freedom is therefore purely a nonsense. Just because the Crown incorporates in its accounts the assets and liabilities of those institutions it does not ipso facto follow that the Crown is interfering with academic freedom. [ 
Interruption 
] I have read the whole bill and I was also at the select committee when we heard the submissions. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Read the Education Act. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: The member suggests that I read the Education Act. I was just about to say that the relationship between the institutions and the Government is of course set out in that Act. As far as I am aware—and members may correct me if I am wrong—nothing in that Act suggests in any way that the Government has the ability to interfere with the academic freedom of our universities. That is the very point I was making. 
The third point concerns accountability. Here I find myself in strong agreement with Deborah Coddington and Bill English. It is a major concern that when taxpayers’ funds are paid across to tertiary education institutions—Christchurch Polytechnic included—there ought to be proper accountability. Looking at outcomes really goes to the very heart of what this legislation is about. What outcome at the end of the day has the taxpayer received from Christchurch Polytechnic for the money that has been put in? The answer is: a lemon. That was a rotten deal for taxpayers. Therefore they are quite legitimately saying that the legislation is in place but the next step is to make sure that we implement it properly and use a bit of common sense in terms of not putting money into dopey ideas for programmes that are run by dopey people and have dopey outcomes. That is really an absolute no-brainer. 
The other issue Deborah Coddington touched on that I thought was quite interesting is whether this legislation should make reference to certain other things. One of those things is what should happen when the Crown collects more revenue from taxpayers than it needs for its budgeted expenditure. In the state of Colorado in the United States the equivalent legislation has a clause stating—I have not actually read it but it goes something like this—that if the state collects more tax revenue than it had budgeted at the beginning of the Budget cycle to spend it can use that revenue in only one way: to compensate for shortfalls from prior years. The law then states that once that condition is satisfied any surplus must be given back to taxpayers by way of a tax cut. 
Would that not be a great idea for New Zealand? The ACT party should fully support that proposition because it is a low-tax party. How would we ever get there? In Colorado they got there through a citizens initiated referendum. That is a cause some party might like to take up: a citizens initiated referendum in this country about legally stipulating—and this would go way beyond even Ruth Richardson’s legacy—that the Crown should set its Budget at the beginning of the year and live within it; that the Crown has the right to collect the revenue necessary to satisfy the Budget but that if there is something over as has been the case in previous years it should give it back to the hard-working taxpayer.