Hon MARYAN STREET (Associate Minister for Tertiary Education) on behalf of the Minister for Tertiary Education: I move, That the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill gives legal effect to the Government’s reform of the system for planning, funding, and monitoring tertiary education. The objectives of the reforms are to support the Government’s focus on quality, relevance, and value for money in the tertiary education system in order to ensure that the system contributes to the country’s social, economic, and environmental needs.

The bill aims to streamline the system for funding tertiary education by providing a set of key planning instruments for steering the tertiary education system. The set of instruments includes, first, a single tertiary education strategy, setting out the long-term strategy and current to medium term priorities for tertiary education, which replaces the tertiary education strategy and the statement of tertiary education priorities; second, investment guidance published by the Tertiary Education Commission, which replaces charters and profiles; and, third, a 3-year plan prepared by tertiary education organisations in consultation with their stakeholders, which is aligned with national and regional priorities and will form the basis of funding decisions made by the Tertiary Education Commission. The new process will lead to reduced compliance costs for tertiary education organisations.

The Tertiary Education Commission will play a key role in ensuring the success of the reforms. The commission will work with tertiary education organisations to develop plans and ensure that the qualifications that are funded are relevant to students and stakeholders. Investing in a plan will ensure that the tertiary education system delivers the skilled graduates we need to secure a prosperous economic future for New Zealand.

The tertiary education sector has acknowledged that change is needed. This came through in the consultation process and in submissions to the Education and Science Committee. It is clear that the system of demand-driven funding, although contributing to increases in participation in tertiary education, is not the most appropriate way of supporting tertiary education’s contribution to national goals. Taking a strategic approach to the funding of tertiary education by funding quality over quantity will support the Government’s objectives for a broad and inclusive tertiary education system, while at the same time ensuring that the long-term needs of stakeholders are met.

The new investment system will also safeguard taxpayers’ contribution to tertiary education. This is because instead of funding tertiary education organisations simply on the basis of enrolments, the Government will be making wiser and more considered decisions on how taxpayers’ money is invested. The changes introduced by the bill will therefore lead to greater returns on the Government’s investment in tertiary education and will increase public confidence in the tertiary education system.

The investment system emphasises collaboration rather than competition through a differentiated but complementary network of provision. This means that instead of competing for enrolments, organisations will be collaborating and building on each other’s strengths as they work towards meeting national goals. They will also work in concert with industry to ensure that the needs to stakeholders are met. It is expected that taking a collaborative approach will contribute to greater outcomes from the Government’s investment in tertiary education.

Through better, more strategic, longer term, and collaborative planning involving organisations, stakeholders, and the Tertiary Education Commission this bill will be a boon to everyone involved in the tertiary education sector. The flow-on benefits of this new planning, funding, and monitoring regime will be widely felt. It will bring certainty to everyone with a stake in our tertiary education system—certainty to students about their course of study, certainty to organisations about security of funding, certainty for the public about the coherence and quality of our tertiary system, and certainty for Government in its funding and monitoring roles.

As we near the final stages of the passage of this bill, I take this opportunity to again express my own and the Minister for Tertiary Education’s appreciation to the members of the Education and Science Committee for their role in this process. I look forward to the bill passing into law to enable the reforms to be introduced on 1 January 2008. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the very important Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. The bill is very important, because there is no doubt that tertiary education is pivotal to the future of New Zealand. It is pivotal to driving economic growth and to improving our productivity, which is something that has been absolutely stalled under this Labour Government over the last 8 years.

It is interesting that this Government has said that this bill is about achieving high trust, low compliance, relevance, quality, and value for money. Nobody would disagree with those sentiments, but we have seen, even before this bill has been implemented, the very opposite. We have seen a model that has demonstrated an ever-growing, creeping bureaucracy and jackboot-like central control. That is exactly what has been going on.

Twenty-three submissions were received on this bill, and the major issues arising were those of academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and the removal of charters and profiles—something the Hon Steve Maharey said in 2002 would be the ultimate achievement of tertiary reforms. How wrong that has proven to be, because he is doing away with them and instead bringing in these so-called investment plans.

The other important issues were procedural fairness—something that is clearly somewhat foreign to this Labour Government—the treatment of sensitive information, and adult community education issues. I want to give just two examples of when this Labour Government has shown low trust and poor management and has rewarded failure and punished success.

There could be many, many more examples than the two I am going to give, but I want to start firstly with the headline from the Independent Financial Review, “Foul-up costs unis millions”. The article states: “Tertiary institutes face paying millions in top-up fees next year because of an ill-timed government policy which caps funds and threatens penalties on those that grow.” So much for high trust! The article continues: “Auckland University’s vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon says it will have a short-fall of millions because of funding cuts, an increase in the student achievement component and a cap on fees.” It goes on to state “the timing of TEC’s investment plan meant it came too late to limit student numbers for next year.” So much for good management! In fact, this is abysmally poor management.

Here in Wellington at Victoria University, Chief Financial Officer Wayne Morgan said: “There have been threats of financial penalties from TEC if student numbers exceed the new quota.” There we see bullying and poor management.

The second example is that of the Southern Institute of Technology, which is an institute that has done remarkably well in showing lateral thinking, innovation, quality, relevance, and value for money. It is the only tertiary institution in this country that, by stint of innovation and hard work, provides a policy of having no student fees. But that is at risk. Why? Because the Tertiary Education Commission plans to take $8 million from this good-performing institution and with this money prop up institutions that are failing. That might help pay for the $2,000 a day that is going to the Crown controller at the Western Institute of Technology, or the $2,600 a day going to one of the accountants who is helping there. So there is another example of where this Labour Government is punishing success and rewarding those who do not do well.

It is almost unbelievable the way this central-control model is behaving. First of all, the Government has started on the polytechs; next, will it go to the universities? Who knows! Will the new Vice-Chancellor of Massey University, Steve Maharey, be told that the Government does not believe in regionalism and that it will remove Massey University from the North Shore of Auckland, so the university will have to retreat to Palmerston North? Is that the sort of headache the Government is going to put on Steve Maharey? Let us wait and see.

We know that the Government just does not understand the concept that quality and value for money should underlie an efficient, effective system—no matter who the provider is. Even though I was prepared to help this Government and provide it with a well-thought-out Supplementary Order Paper, it ignored those constructive suggestions. That makes me wonder why the new Minister for Tertiary Education, the Hon Peter Hodgson, failed to be present at the second reading stage of this bill, a bill that he claimed in this House was critical for tertiary education. He just did not turn up.

Hon Maryan Street: The Assistant Minister was there.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: The only person who turned up was the Hon Maryan Street, and I must admit she made a valuable contribution. But no one else from the Labour-led Government made any contribution whatsoever.

Hon Marian Hobbs: Excuse me! I was on the select committee the entire time.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Maybe, apart from a minor contribution from Marian Hobbs, Labour just wanted to get on with it and ram through this bill. The succession planning to carry this bill through has been abysmal and appalling. Firstly, we had the resignation of the Chair of the Tertiary Education Commission, Russell Marshall; secondly, the Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Commission, Janice Shiner, is off to the UK next year; and, thirdly, there is the reshuffling of the deckchairs by Helen Clark. Steve Maharey’s huge mistakes had to be fixed up, so she wheeled in Dr Michael Cullen, and now we have the Hon Pete Hodgson, the man who presided over the $5 billion increases in funding for the health system, even though we saw no increase in surgery whatsoever.

In this third reading debate, it is important to emphasise again just how arrogant and out of touch this Labour Government has become. It was the New Zealand vice-chancellors who said that in no other Western democracy has the State sought this degree of control over a university’s teaching and research. The vice-chancellors would not have made those statements without a great deal of thought. It was Dr Cullen who belittled their submission and said: “No. Universities have, for at least 40 years in my personal experience, been complaining that academic freedom is under threat and that they are losing autonomy.”

So it has been with considerable relief that, finally, the Labour Government was shamed—absolutely shamed—into changing this bill so that academic freedom and autonomy would remain. It gives us a great degree of satisfaction, because, undoubtedly, this shows—

Colin King: It came at the eleventh hour.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: It did come at the eleventh hour. It was a victory for the select committee process. It was a victory for the submitters. It was a victory for the National Party. And it was an absolute indictment on this tawdry Labour Government, which has become so out of touch, tired, and worn out.

The tertiary education system needs stabilising and simplifying, but Labour has provided the very opposite. As Professor McCutcheon said, we have moved quickly from an open system to a closed system. There is no doubt that, up until now, the new Minister for Tertiary Education, Pete Hodgson, has been too afraid to show himself. The task of the next National Government will be to sort out the mess the Labour Government has left behind.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) : Sometimes when I hear the member Paul Hutchison—who has just resumed his seat—speak on tertiary education, I have the feeling that he is interested only in personalities, whether it be the chair of the Tertiary Education Commission or the wonderful Janice Shiner, who has spent 4 very productive years in New Zealand. He does not talk about policy, nor does he talk about the system, which this bill will ensure is improved and lasts regardless of the personalities of Ministers, heads of departments, or heads of commissions.

The other fallacy that that man always brings up is the fallacy around academic freedom. Academic freedom was never challenged in this legislation, for the reason that this bill is an amendment bill. It amends the Education Act 1989 and academic freedom is spelt out in a section of the Education Act. People got so nervous about this issue that we restated the definition of academic freedom in this amendment bill. It is rather tautologous; it is in the amendment bill and it is in the Act that this bill amends. It is in there twice.

I rise to support the third reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. Earlier speeches on the bill have outlined many of the improvements to the tertiary education sector that will be enacted through the legislation. In particular, we have heard that the bill initiates a set of more streamlined steering instruments than previously existed, to assist the Tertiary Education Commission to invest specifically in the Government’s and the country’s priorities, and to respond to key stakeholder interests.

Do we need more engineers? Are we short of scientists? Do we need to invest there or do we need to keep on producing lawyers for the National Party?

Sue Moroney: Not just for the National Party.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I have just realised that, I say to my colleague. I am very, very sorry. I just skipped blissfully over that. There are certain lawyers who are absolutely wonderful; there are others whom we have an abundance of.

This approach will assist tertiary education organisations to realise Government expectations for the funding they receive, while also allowing greater certainty for those organisations, due to the Government’s commitment to finding its priorities over a longer term. I will say that again. For too long, tertiary organisations have had a 1-year funding window. This bill gives 3 years. In short, the funding for, and the outcomes sought from, tertiary education will be more firmly geared towards achieving strategic benefit for all New Zealanders. As the Minister for Tertiary Education has expressed in his speech, this new approach towards investing in tertiary education provision will enable a high-performing tertiary education sector, one that is vital for our country.

In the joined-up tertiary education system we have in this country, a high-performing sector is one that meets the needs of all New Zealanders regardless of the type of education they engage in. I would suggest that the joined-up nature of the tertiary education sector is one of the sector’s major strengths. Rather than elevating particular levels or forms of study above others, we have a system that encompasses industry training, post-graduate university study, adult and community education—which is often the way people re-enter training—and other areas of study. All these areas of provision provide benefits for this country and its people, and they will be enhanced by the bill providing for more considered planning across the tertiary sector. I give members an example. I often hear people complain about how our workforce is not able to be as productive as one would like it to be. One of the reasons for that is the high level of inability in reading and in mathematics—literacy and numeracy. This factor is as much a part of this tertiary planning as the need for scientists or accountants is.

The bill will facilitate the distinctive contribution of all areas of tertiary education provisions, partly by requiring that tertiary education organisations work closely with stakeholders to ascertain their needs, and to respond to those needs through the plans proposed to, and approved by, the commission. The collaborative aspect—not a competitive one, for a change—put in place by this change will lead to a step change in the responsiveness of organisations, to those with the most interest in the kinds of teaching and research available. It is exciting to know that the link between investment plans, Government long-term strategy, and medium-term tertiary priorities will mean that each part of the tertiary sector can be confident of the role it has to play in achieving those priorities.

The move towards an outcome-focused system will also enhance the confidence of sub-sectors such as the polytechs, which play an extraordinary part and role here. They are not something to be run down and neglected, as is portrayed. They are vital. They found the demand-driven system problematic, with the competitiveness and uncertainty that came with it, which had polytechs trying to poach from other polytechs up and down the country. Instead, they are, for example, able to serve the needs of the energy industry in New Plymouth, and do not have to make up strange courses in order to get the numbers. That was a system that was put in place by the National Party. It was “bums on seats”.

Dr Paul Hutchison: It was Maharey.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: No, I am sorry. It was absolutely “bums on seats”, and it was particularly led by Lockwood Smith. I remember it very clearly, as a member of the education movement.

A statement of the Government’s long-term strategy and medium-term priorities will be essential in helping the sector plan for the future. It provides a transparency and a clarity that will let tertiary organisations see what the system as a whole needs to provide, and what role they play in the fulfilment of that whole. I am also confident that the changes proposed by the bill around quality assurance of adult and community education will solidify a far better approach to approving the course offered by these providers. I would find it very strange if the Opposition disagreed with that, given the noise it created on these issues some years ago. These changes recognise that many of these providers do not have the critical mass of established tertiary education institutions to deal with undue levels of scrutiny and compliance.

This bill is a comprehensive bill that does not improve planning just for universities, or wānanga, or industry training; it is a bill that works to improve planning across the whole tertiary education sector. It means that individual tertiary organisations can plan better, but it also means that we can plan better across the whole tertiary education sector. It is not about just making sure that Victoria University or the Southern Institute of Technology continues to meet society’s needs; it is about the whole sector. It is not about competition; it is about collaboration. In that way, it is efficient; it saves us money and resources that otherwise could be spent in a most frivolous way.

Finally, I would like to emphasise that this bill will act as a significant enabler of stakeholder-driven change, which in itself will lead to better investment of Government funding. This approach is not top-down. [Interruption] This approach is very much—as that member would know if he knew anything about the adult and community education sector—from the bottom up.

Furthermore, the explicit connection between investment and meeting Government priorities through plans reinforces the particular relevance of each sub-sector of the tertiary education system, so that all students—wherever they are—can be confident that they are entering study that is worthwhile for themselves and for New Zealand, and that they will have jobs.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) : I appreciate the opportunity to express the opposition of the National Party to the passage of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. I have been sitting here thinking about what sort of contextual framework this bill needs to be put in. It has not been lost on me that just half an hour ago I was speaking against the Electoral Finance Bill and talking about the defence of democracy in New Zealand. Now, just half an hour or so later, speaking on this bill, something is right at the forefront of my mind and it is this. Just as a socialist Government is seeking to control the democratic processes of this country and is using its numbers in this House to drive through legislation, so we have this same Government that clearly understands one thing. One of the features of all socialist society is that control of the vitally important educational establishment is paramount. This bit of legislation seeks to extend that control—Government control—over the lives of New Zealanders and our institutions.

It should not be lost on New Zealanders listening to the debate this afternoon and watching it on television that when the Associate Minister got up and spoke, the words that rolled off her tongue were “plan” and “monitor”. It took me back to the Committee stage when the Associate Minister—new as she was to her role then—was in the chair, and every second word was “plan”, “plan”. Then the word “commissariat” was thrown into the conversation. What great socialist terms they are: “commissariat”, and “control”. When those members have their private meetings and caucuses and they are talking about this sort of stuff, I wonder whether they call each other comrade and refer to themselves as the commissariat of New Zealand—not the Labour Party but the commissariat of New Zealand.

We need to reflect very, very carefully about what some of the most intelligent, well-educated people in New Zealand—the vice-chancellors of the universities—had to say to the Education and Science Committee about this proposed legislation. The Minister in her speech made a lot of the role of the Tertiary Education Commission. It seems to me that where the Government wants control, plan, control, and plan, we should really be trying to create the environment in which the tertiary education sector—in particular, the universities—can actually achieve the best for New Zealand. When I look at this legislation—

Hon Maryan Street: Ah!

ALLAN PEACHEY: Oh, the Associate Minister can sigh, but National knows that in 12 months’ time we are going to be cleaning this mess up. When one thinks about the message that the vice-chancellors gave us about academic freedom and about the autonomy of their institutions, one needs to ask oneself a couple of questions. Whatever happened to the days when tertiary education in this country was run by half a dozen men and women meeting occasionally around the table in Wellington? Now we have multimillion dollar bureaucracies. How does this legislation, this massive expansion of bureaucracy and the environment of control, plans, commissars, and commissariats, produce the world-class universities that New Zealand will need if it is to survive as a prosperous, modern, market economy in the world? How will this bureaucracy and these plans produce that? It will not. The reason it will not is that the Government is so obsessed with control that it does not understand how one creates environments to get the best out of people.

The other question I have is how this massive expansion of bureaucracy and control will produce the higher quality research-led teaching that our students need if they are going to be competitive in the world. It seems to me that they should be the two significant objectives of any legislation on tertiary education in this country. Not about control—[Interruption] Can I just say to those members opposite that if the Leader of the House wanted to come in and hear what I had to say, he would have been here to hear it. He actually does not need that member to give him a garbled version, so I suggest that member just reflect and think about some of the things I am saying. The great challenge in tertiary education in New Zealand is not how it is controlled—not which Government can create the biggest bureaucracy, expand the Tertiary Education Commission the most, and cut back on the ability of universities and polytechs to make good decisions—it is the interface between the economic development of this country, the quality of its social fabric, research and development, and learning. I do not see anything in this legislation that pulls all those things together and in any way lets us see ahead.

What I see in this legislation is an attempt by a Minister to clean up a mess foisted on this country by a previous Minister. It has to be of concern to New Zealanders that twice in 8 years this House is debating and passing this sort of legislation. This Government did not get it right the first time. If New Zealanders reflect back to the environment of 2000-01 when the Government thought it knew everything, and off it went and rushed into it, they will see we now have to clean it up. The tragedy is that this is not a clean-up; this is an extension of Government control where Government control is not needed, because nothing in this legislation strengthens the autonomy of our universities. Nothing in this legislation protects and extends academic freedom. It is about plan and control. It does not address the issues of the interface between research-led teaching and the economic development of this country.

Like so much socialist legislation that has been passed in this country, this bill, when it is passed, will have an unintended consequence. Universities, beginning with Auckland, are saying that as a result of this legislation open entry will come to an end. Now, I am one of those people who happens to believe that New Zealand needs an outstanding, restricted entry, world-class university that attracts the best intellectuals in the world to this country. I do not think it was the Government’s intention to create an environment in which entry to university will be closed off. It is interesting, is it not, that those Government members opposite may be responsible for creating an environment in which New Zealanders lose free entry to university. That stigma will stay with the Government for a long time.

KATHERINE RICH (National) : I too am glad to speak in this third reading debate on the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. It was very interesting to hear some of the speeches on this subject from members opposite, because many of them fell into the same kind of pattern—the same kind of jargon—and they basically went along the lines of “Blah, blah, stakeholder engagement. Blah, blah, transparency.” Marian Hobbs was a fine one. She talked about stakeholder-driven change and she said that this was not top down but bottom up. I sat there and thought that if anybody criticises the education sector for its own jargon and meaningless bumf, he or she should have listened to that speech, because it had all the categories and all the words but it did not actually mean anything.

One of the things we find with the whole tertiary reform debate is that there is a lot of high-level discussion, but if we distil it down, it does not make a lot of common sense. That was certainly something that Paul Hutchison and I found as we were part of a presentation about what the changes might be. After about an hour and a half of worthy and earnest questions on our part we were struggling to understand exactly what the impact would be for certain tertiary organisations. Finally my colleague Paul Hutchison said: “Look, just give us one example. What difference will this bill make to Auckland University?”. After some “ums” and “ahs” the officials with whom we were discussing this said: “Oh, actually it is not going to make terribly much difference to Auckland University.” So, after all this, there is no difference. How can that be when we saw on television last night that Auckland University is now moving away from open entry with some of its courses?

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: They have been planning this for about 5 years!

KATHERINE RICH: Dr Cullen is exercised by my bringing this up. The Labour Party, which purports to be the party of the workers, is now being accused of shutting out students from disadvantaged backgrounds and creating an elitist institution. This is one of the examples that we will see more and more of whereby some institutions say they will limit the number of people coming into their courses because they will not offer spaces for students for whom they receive no funding. These institutions will, understandably, offer courses if they are funded for them, but, if they are not, why would they bother? Why would they offer spaces for the benefit of the community if they are not funded to offer them?

Sue Moroney: What’s National’s policy?

KATHERINE RICH: As usual, Sue Moroney is chipping in with her inane little utterances. She does not have a blind clue what difference this will make to tertiary reform, but she will focus her mind when the likes of her local university says: “We’re cutting this course, that course, and we’re not going to offer spaces for courses that young people want.”

It is the same for certain sectors. We spend a lot of time talking about other aspects of education. At the moment the early childhood sector is crying out for trained early childhood teachers. This is another area where the Tertiary Education Commission will ensure that there are fewer spaces than there have been in the past.

One of the other points made by the Hon Marian Hobbs was that this legislation will move tertiary providers away from competition. Competition is not actually a bad thing. If members opposite think that students do not understand what competition is, then they do not understand the students they are hoping to improve the tertiary sector for. Students know exactly which courses are quality courses. Students will often travel to work or study with someone with a particular area of expertise, or with someone who has a PhD or has carried out research in a certain area.

Sue Moroney: And then be disappointed.

KATHERINE RICH: Sue Moroney says that students will be very disappointed if they travel to work with specific people. What kind of comment is that to make? How would it be for our hard-working professors, researchers, and people who are internationally renowned to know that some little minion on that side of the House thinks that their skills, training, and research amount to nothing and that they are interchangeable, like cans of baked beans, because they are all the same?

On this side of the House we believe that the tertiary sector is about quality. It is about having skills in a certain area, and it is about an understanding of that quality and competition. People will travel to study in certain areas, and that is one way of ensuring that we have an excellent offering in our polytechs and tertiary providers.

The Hon Marian Hobbs also said that we are moving away from a “bums on seats” mentality. I find that interesting. Which Government was it that put all the bums on the seats for the radio sing-along courses, or the bums on the seats for the pendulum swinging for beginners classes? Pendulum swinging for beginners may have been big in Sue Moroney’s area, but I would like to hear her take a call and explain how that particular course contributed to the Government’s overall goal of economic transformation, because on this side of the House we cannot see how that kind of course contributed to that goal. Neither can we see how twilight golf or some of those other shonky courses, which apparently were moving away from a “bums on seats” mentality to some other method of applying funds, contributed to that goal.

The big buzz word is, of course, “transparency”. As Dr Cullen knows, our universities in particular have a long history of transparency and quality and they do not need this particular bill to be able to offer that. Certainly when it comes to introducing a streamlined approach and less bureaucracy, I think that those who are involved in the sector will be desperately disappointed. One of the things that this bill introduces is more bureaucracy. There is a requirement to do more planning, to put together more documents, and to undertake more stakeholder engagement, whatever that means. From listening to members opposite, stakeholder engagement seems to involve hanging out with anybody, talking about anything—preferably if there is food there. But in terms of the enhancement of the process, we cannot see how that will have an impact on tertiary provision in this country.

National is looking at how we get better results out of the investment we make as a country. We still have to allow students to make the decisions they need to make to invest in themselves and to do courses that reflect their interests. We are concerned about some of the impacts of this bill and about what will change within some regional areas. We have already seen some discussions come to the surface in Southland—certainly in Otago—and last night in Auckland. We will see more of those stories. There will be more students who are not able to do the courses they want to as the rubber hits the road with this kind of reform.

Here we are 8 years down the track and the reforms are being put in place now. Eight years down the track! The Government has spent over $400 million to get this far and it has very little to show for it apart from a big stack of glossy brochures about so high, a big bill as a result of stakeholder engagement, and a number of offices that have been opened and closed as the Tertiary Education Commission decides what is fit for purpose and what kind of organisation it will be. We have certainly seen a large number of bureaucrats added to the public purse. We have gone from an organisation that had no staff to one that has well over 300, and certainly most of us are trying to work out exactly what value they add to this process.

In terms of reforms, the jury is out about whether it will make a positive difference. National thinks it will make a negative difference, as a lot of this rhetoric does not transfer into change that is good for students.

• Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : The Green Party supports this bill. We are very strongly in favour of good tertiary education. I think it is useful to point out, though, that we are very concerned about what is being done up at Auckland University, which seems to be spreading a little bit throughout the country—that is, restricting the entry of students to tertiary institutions. That is a dramatic change for New Zealand, where we have had open entry for so many years, making us a more egalitarian society. In more recent years open entry has enabled people in all age ranges to go to university, perhaps more so than in the past. People who missed going to university the first time around, for whatever reason—not having enough money, not being born of the right parents, not getting the initial encouragement they perhaps should have, or going into other jobs—have been able to go on to university. We are a bit concerned—very concerned, in fact—and we support the criticisms of various members of the community, including university staff, who said that this restriction of entry should not be allowed to happen. So with those few words, the Green Party supports this bill.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) :Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is timely indeed to be thinking of tertiary reforms, the day after the University of Auckland confirmed its decision to eliminate open entry into the university from 2009. From the communication we have had with tangata whenua associated with the university, consultation has been at a bare minimum, if at all. We learnt from the University Students Association that the proposal was rammed through in 3 short weeks without due regard either for the consultative process or for consideration of the possible impacts such a decision might have. So the decision of that university to restrict entry to core disciplines leads us to ask how, in this bill, the Government, through the Tertiary Education Commission, actively recognises its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi to protect Māori language, ways of being, and traditional and contemporary knowledge.

What mechanisms are in place in this bill to give honour to a central premise of the Treaty of Waitangi that Māori could continue to live as Māori? In Ka Hikitia, the draft Māori education strategy, Wally Penetito gives life to this aspiration, eloquently stating: “If there is an emerging educational vision among Māori, it is the desire for an education that enhances what it means to be Māori: so simple and yet so profound.”

The Māori Party brings to the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill a knowledge of the simple and profound, and an understanding of the aspirations and concepts that establish a very clear foundation for both ensuring Māori student engagement and enabling Māori student success. The ultimate question, however, is whether there is sufficient provision in this bill to ensure that both the Crown and the institutions uphold the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi through the planning, the funding, and the monitoring functions of the tertiary education system. Our analysis of the bill found it seriously lacking on two fronts. One related to the consultation and the other to the guidance for the Tertiary Education Commission.

What we learnt from the select committee process was absolutely fundamental to our concerns around Treaty justice in this bill. The Association of University Staff of New Zealand advised us that the Government had received over 400 submissions relating to the omission of the Treaty from the tertiary education strategy and the statement of tertiary education priorities. We learnt from reading over 23 submissions received on this bill that numerous concerns were raised around consultation. Specifically, there is no requirement for the Minister, the Tertiary Education Commission, or the tertiary education organisations to consult with Māori in the development and monitoring of a proposed new institutional plan document. One has to wonder, then, whether there should be any surprise about the fact that Auckland University chose the lighter end of the consultation continuum.

As a party always willing to put forward new ideas and solutions, we in the Māori Party came to the Committee stage of the bill with two useful recommendations. We as Māori Party MPs are not limited by the constraints of abiding by the party line or being subdued into silence when we identify an issue of Treaty injustice. We are proud to be a strong and independent Māori voice and to be able to raise our concerns without fear or favour. We bring the House back to section 181 of the Education Act 1989, in which institutional councils are required to acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in the performance of their functions and exercise of their powers. Councils are therefore required to acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

How is that done? Well, it is not as difficult as some of our parliamentary colleagues think it is. The system needs to support Māori aspirations and achievements, including the revitalisation of te reo Māori, ngā tikanga, and Māori knowledge. The education system needs to work in partnership with whānau, hapū, iwi, and Māori communities. The education system needs to provide opportunities for educational success, which will enable Māori to live as Māori, to have the authority over Māori knowledge, and to validate Māori ways of being and seeing the world—indeed, to enhance what it means to be Māori. So simple, yet so profound.

Yet what does this amended bill say? It states that the mandate for the Minister of Education to address the development aspirations of Māori is tied neither to the Treaty relationship nor to a requirement to consult. It is for this reason that at the Committee stage of this bill my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell introduced two amendments to sort this out once and for all. The first amendment specified consultation with local hapū, iwi, Māori staff, and students by tertiary institutions in the preparation of proposed plans. Under the bill’s current provisions an organisation can choose not to consult with Māori in the preparation of a proposed plan. We in the Māori Party therefore proposed an amendment to specify that in the preparation of a proposed plan, tertiary education organisations would be required to consult with Māori.

The other amendment sought to insert the phrase “acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” into section 159G of the Education Act, which determines the principles guiding how the Tertiary Education Commission operates. The Education Act 1989 requires in section 181(b) that a council of a tertiary education institution acknowledges the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in the performance of its function and in the exercise of its powers. However, there is no corresponding requirement on the Tertiary Education Commission to also acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in the performance of its functions. Our amendment required the commission to do so. It is all very straightforward—indeed, so simple, yet so profound.

A significant number of submissions to the select committee told us that for a Treaty relationship to be meaningful it needs to be at all levels of the tertiary education system. Our two amendments were exactly that, proposing ways of making the Treaty and the Treaty relationship visible. Instead, Labour, along with National, New Zealand First, United Future, and the Independents, chose to act in ways that clearly reflect the lack of value they place in Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the foundation document for Aotearoa.

Seventy-five years ago the very first successful Rātana candidate, ErueraTirikātene, tabled a petition here in Parliament known simply as the Rātana petition. It was a very weighty petition, literally so; it contained some 45,000 signatures and weighed 16 pounds, which is 7.25 kilograms. The petition requested that the Treaty of Waitangi be entered into the statute book in an effort to “preserve the ties of brotherhood between Māori and Pākehā for all time”.

Twenty years ago, in 1987, the Court of Appeal described the Treaty as “part of the fabric of New Zealand society”, and as “the country’s founding constitutional instrument”. This is our history: Māori and Pākehā, tangata whenua and tangata Te Tiriti, peoples united in the promise of partnership. At its very heart the Treaty is an exchange of promises between sovereign peoples, giving rise to obligations for each party. As with any partnership, the Treaty partnership is forever evolving. This bill, the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill, provided us with an excellent opportunity to honour those aspirations of our ancestors throughout our history. It offered up a chance to make right the expectations of TahupōtikiWīremuRātana, ErueraTirakātene, Matiu Rata, the New Zealand Māori Council, the Court of Appeal, and the more than 500 rangatira who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi back in 1840.

It provided a means by which Māori could continue to exercise rangatiratanga over ngā taonga, which, in the context of education, may include te reo Māori, tikanga Māori, and Māori knowledge. It gave us all a moment in time in which legislation could be consistent with the statutory requirement of institutions to acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, by which the Treaty could truly flourish.

For some unknown reason, the members of this House, other than those in the Green and Māori Parties, chose not to have the courage to let the Treaty talk. They chose not to support our amendments and, in doing so, chose to deny, shut down, and limit any practical ways of actually letting the Treaty guide this nation forward in a meaningful direction.

We in the Māori Party are profoundly disappointed that such a golden opportunity for Treaty justice was overlooked, and that the bill will proceed without allowing our practical, pragmatic proposals to be considered of value. Our vote against this bill is therefore a vote that registers our consistent opposition to any bill that fails to acknowledge and recognise the impact of the Treaty in its deliberations. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : I stand on behalf of United Future to speak in support of the third reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. When this bill was reported back, the first thing I did was to go to the commentary provided by the Education and Science Committee to read the minority view of the National Party, because I remembered very clearly, particularly in the last Parliament, that that party, especially during question time, railed against the Minister for Tertiary Education. That party highlighted courses like the twilight golf course and sing-along courses, and it was particularly scathing about, and mocking of, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and some of the other tertiary providers that were really making a genuine effort and doing some very creative things to attract back into tertiary education adults who had given up on their education and their futures. But the National Party did raise the issue of quality, and it became blatantly apparent—whether the courses that National chose to highlight were flawed has never been determined—that we were lacking quality assurance in the tertiary sector, and that the “bums on seats” policy had created some perverse outcomes.

This bill is an attempt to rectify that situation. So I was really keen to see why the National Party, having done all that, would be so concerned about the intentions of this bill and the provisions within it that that would cause it to oppose something that those in the sector—from the reading that I have done in educational publications—have been warmly supportive of. I have come to the conclusion that the National Party’s minority view reflects some of the concerns that submitters had but that it does not reflect the work that the committee then did to rectify those concerns. They were not big concerns; they were small concerns.

The first concern was around the issue of commercially sensitive information. Under this bill, of course, the Tertiary Education Commission and education providers will work more collaboratively together, and that is a great thing. They are also required to have long-term, 3-year plans, which I know the sector is thrilled about. It was sick of existing year by year, and it likes the opportunity now to develop 3-year plans. Those plans are allowed to be amended and adjusted as the situation demands. The bill also requires the commission to work in a mutually collaborative way with education providers right from the word go, as they develop their courses and the potential of their facilities. But there was some concern that during that process, commercially sensitive information would be required to be disclosed. The committee was right to look into that, but it discovered, however, that currently tertiary education institutions and the commission are obliged under the Official Information Act of 1982 to respond to any queries. So the need to disclose information is already built into the system and is an issue that providers have been addressing for some time.

The second concern was around procedural fairness. There was concern that there was a lack of procedural safeguards to protect providers from a misuse of power by the commission in regard to its new statutory powers. There was also concern that there was no right of appeal for providers, should they not agree with a ruling of the commission. I suspect we need to keep an eye on that matter. But it was made clear that providers are allowed to take a complaint to the Ombudsman or to seek a judicial review if the process that is being undertaken is unsatisfactory.

The third concern—and I think that this was the most important concern raised by submitters—was that this legislation would restrict academic freedoms and institutional autonomy. I think there was a submission from some fairly significant academics, who talked about the fact that institutions, particularly universities, have always been allowed to have an autonomous status in developing the content of courses and pursuing academic freedoms. There were some real concerns about that. However, the committee then recommended an amendment to clause 3, to make it explicit that the new functions conferred on the responsible Minister and the commission are to be exercised in accordance with the principal Act. And the principal Act makes provision for the preservation of academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Problem solved. So therein lies the problem. Those were the main concerns raised; those are the only things outlined in the National Party minority view.

I was reminiscing about the fact that some years ago I had read an interesting article—I am pretty sure it was about Singapore; I stand to be corrected if I have the wrong country—about a country that had taken some really strong steps to align both secondary and tertiary education more closely to economic development and the goals of economic development within that country.

Ron Mark: It was Singapore.

JUDY TURNER: Mr Mark has assured me that I have the right country. And there were some fantastic outcomes from that. The alignment of those two sectors meant that young people with a tertiary education were pretty much assured that they would come out into real jobs that would really advance the direction that Singapore was focused on. That is what I believe this bill is trying to do here; it is trying to make sure that any lack of quality that may have been present under the “bums on seats” policy is addressed, and that the commission starts to be much more consultative and much more collaborative with those who work in the sector.

I have had a lot of contact with private providers of tertiary education, and one of their great frustrations has been that they were constantly second-guessing the commission, and hoping that when they put in their charters for reapproval and applied for funding for the next year, somehow that would match up with standards that they were never very clear about. This bill—and this is why we welcome it—does away with all that uncertainty and makes provision for everybody involved in the tertiary education sector to talk together, to have long-term plans that are collaborative, and to be able to adjust those plans whenever that is needed and the circumstances demand it. For that reason, United Future is very happy to support the third reading of the bill.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) : In speaking on the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill I would like to address just a couple of comments the previous speaker made—that is, that, effectively, private training establishments are not protected by the Official Information Act, and that they are exposed by the request for information. It is worth my noting, at the commencement of my speech on this third reading, that the concern is with how that is perceived on the outside, as far as the declaring of sensitive information about whether research relationships will be entered into. We know that confidentiality is a very sensitive matter where there is alignment between universities and research institutions.

I will address the issues that the bill presents from the point of view that at this time, while we listen to the rhetoric of this Government, which assures us that everything will sail off swimmingly into the sunset and that we will not have any more problems with tertiary education, I can inform Government members that they are dreaming.

We have a situation whereby one of our polytechs is already unsure of its future. The Open Polytechnic has a lot to contribute, in my view, and it has a lot to contribute from the point of view of the Industry Training Federation. Yet The Open Polytechnic will have to again re-establish its quality and relevance. Most of my qualifications were done around that organisation, and, from my point of view as a member, I found its quality and relevance to be outstanding. I would be horrified if the implementation of this bill was in fact the death knell of that institution—The Open Polytechnic—which has some 32,000 people enlisted and undertaking education of a high quality, of whom two-thirds are in employment.

It is a bit rich when this Labour Government talks about itself as though it is as white as the driven snow, because we can see that it was presiding over the tertiary education sector while we witnessed the most outrageous rorts ever brought upon the sector. Come the eleventh hour of this Government, in its state of paranoia, it brings in this centralised-management, overly prescriptive model of micro-management. But when we look at it from the point of view of other areas—say, the industry training area—we find that the Government turns a blind eye.

The Government is still loading up the Modern Apprenticeships programme with no sense of discipline and no sense of management. We are finding that with this so-called flagship policy of the Labour Government now in total disarray, it is an absolute shambles. Yet the Government is still talking about increasing the funding to 14,000 places by December 2008. We see situations where Modern Apprenticeships coordinators are not being held to account. They are costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars with just one completion, or millions of dollars with a handful of completions. So I would lay the claim back at the feet of the Government. When will it rein in this outrageous behaviour around the Modern Apprenticeships programme?

On a basis of consistency, it should be holding those people to account. In fact, a number of Ministers for Tertiary Education have said that in the near future they would change and strengthen the policy, and hold those Modern Apprenticeships coordinators to account. But we do not see any result of that.

Can this Government be trusted? I do not think so. We can look back on another incident, which I will take the opportunity to have recorded in Hansard during this third reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. It is related to the commencement of a good policy in 2002 through to 2004-05—that is, the programme for enrolled nurses. But the Government butchered that as well. There were 240 students who undertook that training. They were the very best in the aged-care sector, and they took on the training to reach the qualification of enrolled nurse. However, when that last class sat their qualifications and graduated, their qualifications were taken away the day after.

It is under that sort of climate and environment that this side of the House is extremely sceptical of the Government’s way of managing the tertiary education sector. The sector has been seriously rorted all the way through. It is far too much about institutions and not enough about quality and relevance. It is an absolute shame.

We see in front of us further complexity. We have not seen any reduction in the number of staff of the Tertiary Education Commission—in actual fact, we find that it is now increasing. We are seriously concerned about the complexities that are emanating from this bill. The Tertiary Education Commission has presumptuously rolled ahead and is using the bill as if it is now law. As my colleagues on this side of the House have explained, we are already seeing the unintended consequences of the issues.

There is a lot of work to be done in the industry training situation. We still have issues around the overlapping provision—that is, where the polytechnics mimic the behaviour and training of the industry training organisations and are able to access equivalent full-time student funding. When a question of that nature was directed to the previous Minister for Tertiary Education, Michael Cullen, he said honestly—I must give him that—that the Government had not thought that one through and did not have an answer.

We are still living in a very fluid situation, which this bill does not address. When we stop to think about the situation those enrolled nurses encountered we find that it does nothing to give the public confidence that the Government will back people up on what they go into institutions to receive. For the Modern Apprenticeships programme and for those enrolled nurses, this Government should hang its head in shame. Those are just two examples of some very, very poor management of the tertiary education sector over the last 7 years.

Turning to the situation of this bill coming into law, I say that we have so much more work to do. When we look at section 195 of the Education Act, which was reviewed this year and which empowers the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit to look at the financial basis of tertiary educations—basically, the institutes of technology and polytechnics section—we see that only three were on their knees at this time. However, it is a very volatile situation. The institutes of technology and polytechnics effectively have got themselves into a problem whereby they are coming to Wellington about every month, begging for money. Yet the problem at the other end is that there is no quality. The report on section 195 stated that in future we should look at the quality coming out of the institutes of technology and polytechnics section, because that, along with financial viability, is hugely important to this country.

In conclusion, I would like to give an award to the Labour Government. I believe that in the last 7 years you—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

COLIN KING: —have qualified in butchery. It gives me great pleasure to award the Labour Government a Modern Apprenticeship in butchery, level 4. I award this certificate to those members on the other side—

Nathan Guy: What does it say?

COLIN KING: It states: “The Labour Government. Modern Apprenticeship in Butchery, Level 4. This is to certify that for 7 years the Labour Government has butchered the tertiary education sector. Awarded on 4 December 2007.” Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Just by way of explanation, every time the member uses the word “you” he is referring to the Chair. In future, the member must refer to a Minister or another member as “the Minister” or “that member’’—that is, in the third person.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I rise to say that the ACT Party will be opposing this bill, and to explain why. This bill means more interference with the people who are actually doing the work. It means more State direction of how our universities should function, and it means less diversity. It means more bureaucrats, and it means more taxpayers’ money being spent on collaboration, talkfests, and planning, but not on education. That is why we are opposing it.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I am very happy to take a call on the third reading of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. I say to the National Party that it cannot have it both ways. I say to the member Colin King that the certificate he held up can stay firmly where it currently is, which is with the National Party. National uncapped the numbers and left us with the mess that we are now having to clean up.

I say to National members that, year after year, Labour members have been criticised by them in question time in this House for the kinds of courses being provided by an unregulated tertiary sector with a “bums on seats” model that did not work and that promoted low-quality, low-cost courses. They said that the people who went on those courses assumed they were going on quality courses, but they were not. Now we have this complete about-face from National members, who are apparently saying they did not mean any of that, that they quite like the old system, and that they oppose this one because it means more State control.

I ask National members whether they will repeal this legislation if they become the Government. There is silence. I ask whether they have any policy in this area. No.

Christopher Finlayson: You’re speaking.

MOANA MACKEY: They say that it is my turn to speak now. Well, I say to them that they have made a number of speeches tonight, and Colin King, for example, did not mention it at all. Again, I say to National members that it is very, very easy to criticise. It is far easier to do that than to come up with a plan for the tertiary education sector that ensures that the institutions have more secure funding, that they can plan for the longer term, and that they can react far more quickly to the needs of their community and the needs of the regional, local, and national economies. This bill does that.

I was a member of the Education and Science Committee that heard the submissions. I ask National members where all the outraged opposition to this bill was when it came to the submissions. Where was it? It was not there. A number of very good points were raised during the submission process, particularly by the universities, and we took them on board and we made amendments to the bill. Certainly, most of the submissions were on the issue of academic freedom, and the select committee took them very seriously. But this bill had a surprisingly small number of submissions on it, given the incredible scope of what it is doing and how significant it is, and I believe that that was because the sector it wants more long-term security. It was ironic that, for all that the universities were going on about not wanting the Minister to be involved, a number of the universities that came along to the committee said that they wanted to keep the charters, which are signed off by the Minister. They did not want to get rid of them—and, of course, they can keep them if they want. But they wanted to put in the bill that all the tertiary institutions should have to have these charters.

Just before I sit down I want to raise one other point, which is the issue that many members have talked about tonight—that is, the decision made by Auckland University to restrict entry to its courses. Going by some of the speeches I have heard tonight, it would seem that there are no restricted courses in New Zealand at all. I would love it if anyone who wanted to go to university to become a doctor, and who could pass all the relevant standards in order to become a doctor, was able to do so, but, as we know, our universities that provide medical schools work within a budget, and what this Government will be saying is that here is the budget. Let us be clear: since 2006 we have not been restricting numbers. There has been a 19 percent increase since 2006—$1.2 billion—in the money going into this sector.

John Hayes: Foreign students.

MOANA MACKEY: Mr Hayes, who is sitting way up the back of the Chamber—he is not sitting down here with all his colleagues—says it is all going on students. Well, students are actually a very important part of the tertiary education sector. That reminds me of another point I wanted to make, which is that not only has the Labour-led Government invested in the tertiary sector, from industry training—which Mr Colin King was talking about—through to universities, but also it has made university more affordable for students, made paying off student loans more affordable, and at the same time it has increased access to student allowances. This Government cannot be accused of restricting access to universities.

I say to the provincial tertiary institutions and to our private training establishments around the country that they should step up to the challenge that Auckland University has put out there. It has said that it may not want to provide certain courses any more. Well, we have some very good tertiary institutions around the country that could step up and provide those courses to students, and those students would not have to move away from home, which they always have had to do in the past. I think one of the worst things about our tertiary sector was that 10 years ago university was considered to be the only area worth going to. If one wanted any sort of future, one went to university, even if university was not necessarily the best provider of what one wanted to study.

This bill also says that we value our polytechnics, we value our institutes of technology, and we value our private training establishments. We are saying that where there is a need that should be delivered within the tertiary sector, then it should be delivered. Again, I say to the provincial polytechnics and the private training establishments that they should step up. Auckland University has said that it may be at near capacity, and it may not want to have unrestricted access to all its courses any more. Well, that is an opportunity for other tertiary institutions to step up and say that they are willing to offer those courses, and maybe students and their families would be saved a little money because the students would not have to move to Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, or Dunedin in order to study those courses.

I believe that this bill is a very good bill. I am disappointed that the National Party is not supporting it, given how much those members have gone on about the unregulated access to money in the tertiary sector over the last 5 or 6 years.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) : I would be very happy to explain to that member why National opposes this legislation, but let me say first that when it comes to tertiary education reform, never have so many people who thought they were so smart been so wrong for so long with so much of a waste of taxpayers’ money as the Labour Government in its 8 years of tertiary education reform. This Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill is what the Labour Government said it would do in the year 2000. Here we are, in the year 2007, before this Government has got around to getting the bill in—

Nathan Guy: Under urgency.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: —under urgency, at the end of the year to apply in 2008. We did some rough calculations on what this reform has cost: $400 million. The Labour Government has spent $400 million thinking about tertiary education reform. There have been a few fundamental flaws in that thinking. One has become apparent today, and I would have expected the Government to explain its policy. Here is a simple question: does Labour believe in restricted entry to university?

Hon Marian Hobbs: To medical schools, to architecture schools, to law schools?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I ask whether Labour believes in restricted entry to all university courses, as Auckland University is proposing. Well, those members are caught on the horns of a dilemma, because the direct implication of its funding system is that all universities will restrict entry to their courses.

Hon Marian Hobbs: It’s a shame you just thought of it, Bill.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: But, of course, the Government’s supporters are against that, which is why that member is so concerned. What will Labour members say to the Māori and Pacific Island communities in Auckland? I ask how they will explain to those communities, which have the same aspirations as everyone else in New Zealand for a high level of education for their children, that entry to Auckland University courses across the board is now restricted. The big question is how it will be restricted. Well, it will be restricted according to secondary school qualifications. That is obvious.

Hon Marian Hobbs: Is it?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is, because how else could one do it? What it means is that if one did not do too well at National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at secondary school, which a lot of Māori and Pacific Island students do not, then one will never get to go to university. That is determined by the time one is 15. If there was any more of a fundamental breach of Labour’s apparent crocodile tears about equity, then that breaches it.

Hon Marian Hobbs: You got it wrong again.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Where does the member think all the new university students have come from over the last 15 years? They did not come out of a huge increase in the number of secondary school students; they came out of an increase in the number of mature students. There are more secondary school students than there were, but by far the biggest increase has been in the number of mature students. If we stand at the enrolment line at Auckland University with the mature students and ask them what they got for NCEA level 3, they will ask: “What is NCEA? I did School Certificate, and I failed it. Here I am, aged 30, realising that there is a second chance, and I am going to university.”, and many of those people succeed very well.

Labour members have found that after 8 years of tertiary education reform, $400 million worth of thinking about it, and endless damage—particularly to the polytechnic sector—they have achieved one thing. It is the one thing that most of them do not want; that is, restricted entry to university. We could argue for and against the merits of it, and we will have that discussion. But the question is whether this is what Labour wanted, and the answer is no.

I will just take members through some of the history, and my colleague Dr Lockwood Smith will agree with this. The “bums on seats” system that Labour members so roundly condemned was never as open-ended as they say it was. It had a series of controls under National. Half a dozen people sat around the desk with the Minister and they gave the institutions the opportunity to grow. But they had some fiscal control, and they certainly had plenty of flexibility. They did not have a long, complicated bill like this one that dictated all the processes. They did not have 400 bureaucrats—they had about six. Then what happened was that Steve Maharey got in. Well, what a disaster that was. He took his eye off the ball, and the tertiary institutions went crazy because while Labour was busy constructing this complex and elegant sociological model of tertiary education, the institutions were flat-out breaking all the rules, exploiting the loopholes, and running up hundreds of millions of dollars of wasted taxpayers’ money. Not all of them did that, but quite a few of them did that while Labour members faced the other way. Their whole theory about tertiary education was something they were in love with, and they had no idea what was going on in the real world.

I was pleased to be a spokesman who helped embarrass them about that: about the fact that they spent a billion dollars over 4 years on diploma-level courses that no student finished. It was the biggest single waste of public money ever that I have come across, apart from, maybe, Think Big. A billion dollars was spent on diploma courses that no student finished, and the Government did not know anything about it. So then the Government cracked down because it was such a political embarrassment. But when it cracked down, it cracked down with the most complicated system one could ever come up with: there were charters, profiles, investment managers, and 400 bureaucrats. I can recall reading a stack of documents; there used to be about a dozen different versions. I would read a stack of documents about the Government’s plans for tertiary education, and do members know the one thing it left out in all those documents?

Hon Member: Students.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Students never got mentioned. This was office-tower, middle-class, well-paid, secure, risk-averse New Zealand telling our 19 and 20-year-olds what their future was going to be. I conducted a few informal student surveys—

Hon Marian Hobbs: You really cared about students!

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member should listen to this. I conducted a few informal surveys of students and I said to some students: “Have you read the statement of tertiary education priorities, and do you know the eight principles of relevance, equity, blah-blah-blah, and all that sort of rubbish, and the strategic outlook”—

Hon member: And they all said “Yes”.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: They all said: “Yes”. And then they all used four-letter words that indicated that they did not feel that the views taken by a bunch of middle-aged bureaucrats sitting in an office tower were very relevant to their decisions.

Hon Marian Hobbs: They also used the same four-letter words about student fees.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, this is the point. Who takes the risks about making a decision for tertiary education? I will tell members who takes the risks. One example is a 19-year-old student who does not really know what he wants to do, who sees some programmes on TV that makes some occupations look attractive, and who listens to his parents who make other occupations look attractive. His friends are all going in one direction, his girlfriend is at the other end of the country, and he has to make up his mind. He does, and he manages to do it without Dr Cullen or the vet who thinks he can run the place.

Another example of someone who takes the risks is the 34-year old woman with a husband in a low-paying job, who has a couple of kids, who has capabilities that she has never really explored, and who decides she really wants to be back in the workforce. She is willing to live hard, to work hard, to look after her kids, and to do her study to get a tertiary education. In this new world that Labour has planned, she does not fit, because she will not meet the criteria for restricted entry to university. The plan that was cooked up between some 27-year-old PhD graduate and a general manager at the polytech to try to get their negotiation sorted so they could get their cash happens to stop her course from running.

So a group of people who have no idea about the real world are trying to write plans for the knowledge economy, and I just say to the House that it will not work. It is too complicated, it is too refined, it is called “strategy” but it has none of the content of strategy, and in the end it treats young New Zealanders as if they were mindless automatons willing to go shape their lives on the musings of people like those members opposite. Who would make life-changing decisions on the basis of what that rag-tag front bench says is important for New Zealand? Nobody! And that is why National is voting against his legislation.