O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you very much Madam Chairperson Tolley. The point I'd like to raise in the brief speech that I'll give tonight is the one I guess of equity or discrimination. We're talking about foreign students here.I reflect on my own personal experiences of being a foreign student—not in a tertiary institution but actually in a secondary one. I as a West Coaster went to Canterbury for my secondary education so I was very much a foreigner. The issue and the parallels I draw here are the differences in the way that I as a foreign student was treated compared to the domestic one. The domestic one was a student from Christchurch and I was from the West Coast and believe me they saw us in a different light. It was in fact around discipline. In fact I can recall a particular incident with my good friend and colleague. I'll mention his name: Pete Verhall who's now very unwell. Both of us got caught smoking at lunchtime. The discipline dealt to both of us was quite different—absolutely. I got five of the cane and he got nothing. So the consequences of that—because I felt very very unfairly treated—was that he went on to have some I guess challenges and I learnt that discipline was dished out fairly bluntly. It was fair I thought but in a way that was different from the domestic student. The point here is that if we are going to and we have done welcome foreign students into our country we've got to make sure that we treat them with equity and that the discipline that we are bringing here—and the question I ask of the Minister in the chair is: can he assure me that the domestic students and the foreign students will be dealt with fairly? Because in my experience as a foreign student in Canterbury I wasn't dealt to fairly I have to say. Some may blame a lot of things on that. I'm not going to pass judgment other than to say that as we move forward and learn from our own experiences I would hate to be part of a Government that passed a law that was going to discriminate unfairly against foreign students.So the question I have is: what will be in the contract of enrolment? One of the particular issues that we've referred to—and as Minister of Agriculture there are a number of foreign students who are helping out a number of our horticultural producers I have to say. If the contract of enrolment makes reference to attendance at courses then the foreign students may be unfairly disadvantaged if they're not allowed to scarper off and do a bit work but the domestic ones are.It's a legitimate question because the foreign students pay quite a lot of money to come to a school. In my experience I was paying $150 a term which wasn't a lot of money—just to pull it back to my own personal experience. But the point is that the contract of enrolment while dealing with this issue of foreign students—and I accept that they have a privilege to come to our country and learn but there will be a fine line somewhere in here that means that we've gone too far and in which case we'll be discriminating against them. Or we may be drawing the line in a fair way that says Well it's OK for a domestic student to go and get a bit of work and not turn up at a course but for a foreign student maybe they have to turn up to each and every one." Without seeing the contract in front of me I can't work out which particular areas may be problematic but knowing the Minister I think he will be doing everything he possibly can to ensure a fair regime and I applaud him for that. But the devil's always in the detail.Drawing once again on my experiences sad as they were at times—discriminated against unfairly as a West Coaster—I have to say that I'd hate to then impose that discrimination on anyone else. So it's a legitimate part of any contract. I think you do need to ensure that someone who comes here as a foreign student is going to adhere to the reasons they came to New Zealand. There has always been this option of a year's work permit along with a student permit. Whether that then complements or contradicts what we're doing—maybe the Minister can answer."