Douglas Roger: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Douglas Roger: Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) 
: 
 The Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill is or at least it should be all about students. It should be about which governance structure is most likely to deliver a quality product for the student: the subject and the skills that they require. But if we listen today to the Greens to Labour members and to the Maori Party we would think it is all about representation on the board. Labour wants representation for the sake of it whether or not the person is qualified. If we listened to the Labour Party we would hear that we simply have to have a student on the board whether or not the student is up to it. We have to have a staff member on the board—forget the conflict of interest. We have to have a union representative we have to have a businessman on the board and we have to have Maori representation. Nothing whatsoever is mentioned about a quality product for the student yet I always thought that polytechs were there for the students. Labour members do not ask themselves what will deliver a quality product but rather they talk about the tokenism of having students or unionists. When Labour’s previous leader Helen Clark was Prime Minister she sent out a letter at election time about education. She mentioned public schools 12 times in the letter but never once mentioned students. We have heard that again today. 
This sector needs to have a quality board at every polytech throughout the country. The fact is that we will have a quality board if the Minister appoints a quality chairperson and a quality deputy chairperson. If we get a quality chairperson and a quality deputy chairperson they will ensure that a quality chief executive officer is appointed. If we have this in place the system will work. 
The first question any quality board will ask is what the needs of the people who live in this area are. It will ask what the potential students’ needs are and which subjects and skills they need. We are talking about having to have a student on the board—one student picked at random. What about the 1000 or 2000 students who actually attend the polytech? They would rather have a polytech that meets their needs. They would rather have a board that understands their needs and is able to deliver quality governance. But no! Labour would prefer to have a student or a staff member or a union representative on the board. It does not care about the quality of the product; it simply cares about representation. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Is that right? The staff members don’t care? 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS 
: I am not saying they do not care. The first point is that it is not good governance to have a staff member on the board in my view. It is not good governance to have a student representative on the board. Any board worth its salt will meet regularly with the staff representatives and with student representatives. There is one key thing that will mean this sector goes ahead and that is the whole issue of the appointment of the chair and the deputy. If we can get that right if the Minister selects those people right then they will ensure we have a good chief executive and the whole thing will move forward. 
Without that frankly we will have the shambles that the previous Labour Government created and left. It left the shambles of having 20 people on a board. It left the shambles of having every interest group on the board and those groups did not go there with the view of looking at the governance of the institution as a whole but rather went there with the narrow interest of what was good for the student what was good for the staff what was good for the union or what was good for whomever they were representing on the board. Any board functions only when the seven or eight members are looking after the overall governance and the interests of the institution. If we have that we will move ahead and we will not have the shambles that Labour left us.