Foster-Bell Paul: Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8491. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. In speaking to the Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill in this first reading debate I want to begin by saying I disagree with almost every sentiment expressed by the recently dumped former tertiary education spokesperson of the Labour Party David Cunliffe. This National Government has only just this year amended the Education Act and repealed the requirement for democratic elections and student representatives on tertiary institution councils. So this bill would repeal those changes that have only just in recent months been made and restore the requirement for instance that students be represented in governance on councils. These changes have not yet even taken effect on all councils. On checking with some of our university council websites they still have councils operating under the previous council sizes so it seems to me to be quite ludicrous to be wanting to tinker with a system that has not even been allowed to go through an initial trial period.Those changes that the Government made earlier this year were among a number of reforms that are designed to ensure that our education system is equipped both in a strategic sense and also with the flexibility both to deal with the challenges and opportunities that the 21st century will provide but also most important to lift student achievement. We know that smaller skills-based councils will be able to respond much more quickly and with much greater flexibility to the challenges of modern-day tertiary education. We in the National Party want to help all students to get the qualifications they need to succeed and to be able to play their part in a growing economy and in a modern workforce. So these changes which have only just been recently made will support our priority of building a more competitive and productive economy. Universities are still able to provide for staff representation and student representation on their councils and they are doing so. This is a point I will touch on a little later in my contribution but it is a fact that seven of the university councils have one student on their council whereas the remaining institution actually has two. So there is student representation currently in New Zealand. Also seven of the eight have two staff positions on their council with the remaining institution having one staff on council.Hon David Cunliffe: Why not write that into the law?PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Student and staff are represented. I think the member is attempting to solve a problem that does not actually exist.The old governance settings were not written with the modern world in mind. I will actually make a few comparisons with where our universities came from and where they are now. I am proud to be a member of the court of convocation of the University of Otago. That was my Alma Mater—Tim Macindoe: A very fine institution.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —where I studied archaeology politics French classics and gender studies with other such fine people as the Minister of Finance Bill English and the chief whip here Tim Macindoe. Otago is New Zealand’s oldest university dating from 1869. It has an endowment that may be a tiny fraction the size of that of some of the great international institutions although it did inherit 100000 acres of farmland when it was first established. It currently has a council of 20 members and that will reduce to approximately eight to 12. The other university at which I spent some time the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom is a collegiate research university with no known date of foundation although there is some evidence dating back as far as 1096 for tertiary teaching so it has been going for around 919 years at least. It is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and it is the world’s second oldest university full stop. It enjoys an endowment of £4.5 billion which is nearly NZ$10 billion—equivalent probably to roughly the entire New Zealand annual tertiary education budget. It might surprise members opposite to know that although the council of the University of Oxford now comprises 24 members there are no student members on that council; there are three observers however. That has not stopped the University of Oxford being regularly rated among the top—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member and ask him to deliver what is obviously a very well-prepared speech rather than read it.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: The University of Oxford is regularly rated among the top four or five institutions in the world in such highly respected means of measuring university success as the Times Educational Supplement.If we look at the University of Otago and its governance arrangements there are four ministerial appointments on the board. I want to point out that those are people of very fine quality and I will refer to my notes for facts and figures as I believe that the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings allow me to do. So Mr Stephen Higgs for instance a ministerial appointment on the University of Otago Council is a partner in Polson Higgs a Dunedin accountancy and financial advice firm of great repute. He is also a director of Otago Innovation and is a trustee of the University of Otago Foundation Trust. We also have Ms Donna Matahaere-Atariki the chair of ŌtākouRūnanga and the author of many publications on Māori issues the Treaty of Waitangi education and child development who brings obviously a knowledge of tikanga but also of wider social issues in the Otago region. We have Dr Royden Somerville QC a well-known Dunedin barrister who provides the legal expertise on the board. He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1998. He also chairs the Council of Knox College and Salmond College. Knox and Salmond form just two of the wonderful colleges they have at Otago. Like Oxford Otago is a collegiate system. Then there is the chancellor Mr John F Ward a very fine chancellor but bringing to the university council significant business experience. He is the chair of the SBS bank and he is the chair of H&J Smith Holdings but also of A J Hackett Bungy Group—so there is tourism expertise.So we have appointed by the Minister of Education people with legal expertise accounting expertise business nous and the Māori perspective and a wider social conscience. These people bring valuable skills that you may not actually be able to find among the academic research staff of such a university. I think this demonstrates that unlike the view taken by members opposite university councils are not a training ground for the activists and political apparatchiks of the future. Their role their important role is to provide for a good quality education for the students who attend that institution and to make sure that their institutions are well governed legally and financially and delivering on the outcomes that we expect of them.I do want to make a few other comparisons both corporate and international. In the corporate world company boards are seldom of the size of New Zealand university councils as they formerly were under the previous system. To give you one example Apple one of the world’s leading companies—arguably the biggest based on turnover—has eight members on its board of governance.Chris Bishop: How many?PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Only eight Mr Bishop. Not 20 or 30 or 40 or however many it is that Mr Cunliffe wants to put there. Infratil which is a New Zealand leading infrastructure company part-owner in Wellington Airport for instance has seven members on its board of governance and Zespri one of our leading agricultural companies has eight members on its board. I think having many many board members is no guarantee of success. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite.If we make a few international comparisons with universities overseas—I have mentioned the University of Otago—we have the board of Harvard University which is comprised of only 12 members including the president. Like Oxford Harvard is regularly rated among the very top tertiary institutions in the world. There is Cambridge University which is not as good as Oxford of course but it has a governing council of 16 elected academic members four external members and three student members. We have the University of Edinburgh—only seven members on that particular council and guess what? No students elected there. The University of Glasgow has 11 members on its overseeing council—no students there either. The London School of Economics although it has an extravagant 19 members on its council—you would think economists would be a little bit more streamlined than that—it has no student members there. The University of St Andrews another fine institution that is regularly in the top 10—no student members on that board. Imperial College London—no student members. Yale University has 19 members on its board—no student members. Princeton University has an extravagant 23 members on the board—up to 40—and of those members no current students. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT—leaders in science technology engineering maths—includes no fewer than seven and no more than 10 members of its board and guess what? No student members.New Zealand universities are democratic there is good student representation. To be among that list of those very very fine institutions adding to the governance boards is not the right way to go about that. For that reason among the others I have discussed this is a bill that cannot be supported. I will not be supporting it to go to the committee and I will not be commending it to the House.