Labour joins students to protest changes to university governance

Labour tertiary education spokesman Grant Robertson speaks at a protest outside the University of...
Labour tertiary education spokesman Grant Robertson speaks at a protest outside the University of Otago yesterday. Photo by Craig Baxter.
Grant Robertson making a speech 20 years ago to a ''raucous'' protest. Photo from ODT files.
Grant Robertson making a speech 20 years ago to a ''raucous'' protest. Photo from ODT files.
Former OUSA president Logan Edgar (left) and current president Francisco Hernandez carry a mock...
Former OUSA president Logan Edgar (left) and current president Francisco Hernandez carry a mock coffin representing the death of ''democratic university governance'' as part of yesterday's protest to planned university council changes. Photo by Craig...

Labour would overturn any Government changes to the make-up of university ruling bodies if elected, the party's tertiary education spokesman Grant Robertson said in Dunedin yesterday.

Mr Robertson made the promise at a protest outside the University of Otago registry building, with his speech coming 20 years after he, as Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) president, and other students occupied the very same building to protest fee rises.

The OUSA and Tertiary Education Union-organised protest comes after Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce announced plans to cut the maximum size of university and wananga governing councils from 20 members to 12.

Mr Robertson slammed the proposed changes as yet another attempt by the National Government to silence dissent.

''I can tell you that if the Labour Party is in government next year, we will reverse these changes, we will return a representative model to university councils,'' he said.

He agreed with comments made by OUSA president Francisco Hernandez that the proposals represented an attack on democracy.

''It will reduce the say of individual staff and students, by removing the legislative provision for student and staff representation,'' Mr Hernandez said.

Mr Joyce, who was visiting Dunedin yesterday, said the changes were part of an effort to keep New Zealand universities ahead in an increasingly competitive sector.

''People that are open-minded and not politically blinkered, if I may say so respectfully to my friend Mr Robertson, are prepared to look at options, because they know the world is changing and we have got to keep innovating,'' Mr Joyce said.

The proposed changes would not see an end to representation on student councils, instead giving universities the right to choose on the issue.

''I would fully expect most, if not all universities, to adopt constitutions which would have some representation.''

About 80 people turned up to yesterday's protest, compared with

about 1000 who took part in 1993.

Mr Robertson noted students were more political in his day.

-vaughan.elder@odt.co.nz

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