We will update this page over the next few days with TEU’s analysis and comment on Budget 2012, as well as links to coverage of tertiary education-related and employment-related Budget news.

TEU Commentary

Budget 2012 preview

Finance minister Bill English will unveil an austere ‘zero’ 2012 budget next week. The zero, budget (meaning there will be no overall increase in spending, even to account for inflation) is being preceded by several pre-budget announcements highlighting some areas that will see increased spending as well as preparing voters for some of the less popular cuts. [Read more]

No more money in budget, just shuffling and cuts

The prime minister, John Key, and the minister of tertiary education skills and employment, Steven Joyce, this week foreshadowed several tertiary education budget initiatives. Mr Joyce told Radio New Zealand that he would be shifting funding away from humanities and commerce towards maths, science, engineering and technology. [Read more]

Govt signals another austerity budget

The minister of finance, Bill English, announced this week that he will spend $800 million less in this year’s budget than the Prime Minister John Key was forecasting only six weeks ago. That could be ominous for tertiary education come next month’s budget warns TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey. [Read more]

Media coverage

Inside, the US has chopped the already minimalist ‘stakeholder presentations’. The US Trade Representative (the Trade Minister), a former Dallas Mayor, turned receipt of a petition of 24,000 people demanding release of the TPPA text into evidence of their openness to ‘stakeholders’ views’! He dismissed a letter from 30 law professors demanding an end to the secrecy, saying there has been an unprecedented level of openness.

Critics registered as stakeholders are using the limited space to  challenge the agressive demands on the table, mainly from the US, and provide increasingly wary negotiators with analyses and proposals to help them to resist these demands. The rally was streamed live into the room of ‘stakeholder’ tables and onto a big screen!

Open Letter from Lawyers says ‘No Investor- Enforcement in TPP’

More than 100 jurists from NZ and other countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, including eminent judges Sir Ted Thomas and Sir Owen Woodhouse, and former Speaker of the House Margaret Wilson, sent an open letter to the negotiators calling for the right of investors to sue governments directly to be excluded from the TPP.  Lawyers can still sign on. A specialist website has been created with background information. There was lots of media, including Bryan Gould in the NZ Herald, Jane Kelsey on TV3 and, with Bill Rosenberg, on Court Report. The Herald followed with a bizarre editorial. The mainstream media debate has begun!

Hikoi, Asset Sales and TPPA

The Aotearoa Not for Sale Hikoi stopped in Johnsonville on 3 May to visit the electorate office of Peter Dunne, who holds the key vote on the energy asset sales bill. The Ohariu-Belmont group is keeping the pressure on him, but he doesn’t seem inclined to bow to this. The next day the hikoi was joined by a crowd of over 5000 as they marched to Parliament. After representatives from Labour, NZ First, Green and Mana parties spoke to the crowd, a series of women spoke very eloquently, including Francie, a previously silent immigrant of 20 years, who has been galvanised by the Johnsonville campaign.

Protests Continue in Wellington

Zombies danced outside the Wellington Stock Exchange on Thursday May 10 drawing attention to privatisations, asset sales and the TPP. A very long anti-TPP banner imitated the rolling stock exchange neon information that circles the building endlessly.

Asset Sales Petition

The petition against asset sales is available everywhere. Links were clearly made to the TPPA at the launch at Turnbull House, Wellington on 10 May. Make sure you sign. You could volunteer to help with signatures.

SOE Minister Guarantees no Investor-State disputes in TPPA

In a Radio NZ interview Tony Ryall said “you can be quite sure that the government is not going to agree to provisions that mean any foreign company can come and litigate everyday governing decisions by the New Zealand government to the detriment of the people of New Zealand. Why would you agree to that?”. So we now expect him to join the campaign to against investor-state disputes in the TPPA and all other FTAs …

TPPA on Intellectual Property threatens Sovereignty

A blog by Susan Chalmers of Internet NZ, from the TPPA negotiations in Dallas, took issue with the trade-off John Key outlined at the NZ-US Council: if NZ gets better access to US dairy and meat markets, the US gets to change NZ’s intellectual property laws to suit, namely, the film and music industries. NZ is then effectively stripped of its sovereignty when it comes to shaping aspects of its own IP policy.

NZ-US Council Conference Downplays Prospects for TPPA

The NZ-US Council’s 10^th anniversary conference at the Sky City Casino was dominated by the TPP negotiations – not surprising, as it was formed to push for a NZ-US FTA. A report that the TPPA would boost the NZ economy by $2 billion wasn’t taken seriously. An American business lobbyist gave a sober assessment of progress in the TPP talks, citing a ”chasm” between leaders’ ambitions and their negotiators’ positions and asking ”How can any product, service or core rule be excluded from the final package by one or more countries without the house of cards falling? We do not believe it can.” John Key talked down the supposed benefits and timeline. Former Labour Trade Minister Phil Goff was still pushing his old pro-FTA line. Seems a bit out of touch.

What next? – Lots of people are asking what they can do to spread awareness and  mobilise more people. That is great! We know people need information and resources, but we also want to encourage people to think about what they and their networks can do and how we can support them.

Please share TPP activities or good articles: contact Mary Ellen oconstance@gmail.com (the bulletin) and/or Hannah tppwatch@gmail.com (the website); Facebook page, Stop Stealing New Zealand and websites www.tppwatch.org and tppdigest.org

Thanks! Mary-Ellen O’Connor and Jane Kelsey on behalf of TPPWatch

–
TPP Watch
www.tppwatch.org

The prime minister, John Key, and the minister of tertiary education skills and employment, Steven Joyce, this week foreshadowed several tertiary education budget initiatives.

Mr Joyce told Radio New Zealand that he would be shifting funding away from humanities and commerce towards maths, science, engineering and technology.

“We pay a higher subsidy for humanities and commerce than the Australians do, we pay a lower subsidy for science and engineering.”

“That tends to mean that universities are a bit more biased towards those other subjects because we end up paying, probably, a little bit more than they need to encourage those subjects and not enough for the science, technology and engineering subjects,” Mr Joyce said.

His statements follow a Tertiary Education Commission edict to tertiary institutions to increase enrolments next year in science, technology, engineering and maths and, if necessary, to cut other courses to do that.

Meanwhile Mr Key told business leaders it would be another zero budget, and, to help achieve that, people with student loans, who currently pay back 10 cents for each dollar they earn, will have to pay them back faster.  Then Mr Joyce said that the government would cut allowance costs by ensuring allowances are targeted at those in the early years of study and to those that can least afford it.

NZUSA president Pete Hodkinson said that any cuts to allowances would reduce access, denying New Zealanders an opportunity to improve their lives, and would lead to greater debt.

At the time of Ms Turia’s appointment, the prime minister John Key said her delegated responsibilities in this portfolio would specifically relate to the employment area. Prior to her appointment TEU noted that the Māori Party’s other MPs had significant practical experience and involvement in tertiary education prior to their election as MPs, and that the kāwanatanga  policy that the party campaigned on during the election had significant implications for tertiary education.

For instance, the party’s kāwanatanga policy proposes making education more accessible for all by introducing a fee reduction policy to reduce fees to a nominal level over time. It would also increase access to student allowances, by reintroducing a universal student allowance – which will be set at the level of the unemployment benefit.

Since signing its coalition agreement however the Māori Party has been a silent partner, at least publicly, on all issues relating to tertiary education while the minister Steven Joyce and his officials have proposed significant changes for the sector.

That could be ominous for tertiary education come next month’s budget warns TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey.

“Before this austerity announcement Treasury was already forecasting the government to spend $80 million less on tertiary education next year and to fund nearly 2,000 fewer students,” said Dr Grey. “If tertiary education bears its portion of this $800 million cut that could amount to further cuts of about $30 million – potentially the salaries of hundreds of staff helping to educate thousands of students.”

CTU economist Bill Rosenberg says the government is pursuing its budget surplus target for 2014/15 at all costs.

“There is nothing in the February accounts that justifies this major turnaround since the Prime Minister’s statement barely six weeks ago that the May Budget would include an $800 million allowance for new spending unless ‘we really saw a catastrophic meltdown in Europe’. There has been no catastrophic meltdown.”
Radio NZ News clip
“The February accounts are slightly better than January, but still show the government’s strategy of cutting taxes on high incomes and raising GST has not paid off. Income tax and GST revenue are still $825 million below even revised lower forecasts because people’s incomes are not rising as fast as expected by the government,” said Dr Rosenberg.

“The cuts in government expenditure are acting as further brakes on the economy which is stagnating as a result of weak demand. Further cuts will simply prolong the time before a real recovery takes place. The Christchurch rebuild has been repeatedly delayed and may not assist the rest of the economy sufficiently to reduce unemployment and stimulate activity outside a few construction-related industries and Canterbury itself. It’s time for a change in strategy,” Dr Rosenberg said.

Prime Minister John Key told Radio New Zealand’sFocus on Politics show last week that the commission is a crown entity “so effectively that crown entity will be managed by that new ministry in the same way that occurs with NZTE. It doesn’t get formally merged in because these are [only] government departments that get merged.”

Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, Steven Joyce told Focus on Politics the challenge with tertiary is it fits both within the economic and education space.

“We are fortunate, if you like that we have a crown entity that is able to move between those two spaces. What we will probably see is a more formal relationship between the economic agency, the ministry of education and TEC. That will be helpful in terms of getting those dual benefits, both on the economics side and the educationeducation side.”

Joyce said the justification for the merger was that he wanted one coherent source of advice rather than several views from different departments.

“At the moment we have significant churn between officials and agencies, and, as somebody who has been given a range of portfolios by the prime minister, we have ranges of officials coming with different views on a number of areas. So… in the skills area we have the Department of Labour, their view, the MED view, the TEC view, and so on and so forth.”

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey said the commission’s funding advice needs to remain focused on high quality tertiary education.

“The danger is that the commission, under the purview of a ministry focused primarily on economic development, will make decisions against business and economic development criteria rather than quality education and research criteria,” said Dr Grey.

TV3 says the merger will mean further job cuts.

Mr Joyce is currently in charge of all the ministries except the Department of Labour. He told TV3 “There is an advantage as a minister looking across portfolios and seeing the different elements and the different parts working together.”

“It’s the drive in a particular direction that is important,” he said.

TEU national vice-president Ken Laraman said that the sector needed to be aware of the implications of such a merger.

“The commission’s main job is funding tertiary education. That funding policy needs to have regard for labour requirements, science, economic development and innovation. However, it also needs to have regard for a whole lot of other education values that could be crowded out if the minister allows his focus to become too narrow.”

“I’m convinced that further job losses at the commission would be damaging for the wider sector. The commission, either on its own, or as a wing of a broader super-ministry, needs the capacity to engage with issues across the entire tertiary education sector and resist the pressure to make short-term narrow funding decisions. It can’t do that without enough people to examine the evidence,” said Mr Laraman.

The Labour Party’s tertiary education spokesperson Grant Robertson told the New Zealand Herald Mr Key’s comments showed changes on the horizon.

“They’ve already made restrictions around age, around completion of courses around the length of time that you can do your courses. The next step would seem to be, well okay there are some courses we are not going to fund. That’s a very dangerous road to go down.”

Mr Robertson said he would be concerned if there was arestriction on the amount students could borrow, based on the courses they took and the employment prospects they had.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce replied saying the Government was “not necessarily” looking at linking loan accessibility to particular courses.

“But we want to as much as possible give an indication to people when they make their decision on their tertiary education that they understand what they’re likely to earn coming out the other end, based on what people who get that degree or diploma are actually doing.”

“From next year, five per cent of tertiary providers’ tuition funding will be at risk based on their performance against a clear set of achievement indicators. This will incentivise institutions to perform and will drive value for money.”

Mr Joyce also said a re-elected government would collect and publish employment data for graduates of each qualification, and investigate, as the focus on quality and outcomes improves performance, the possibility of “relaxing funding caps for high quality providers and allowing them more flexibility to adjust their offerings and grow their institutions.”

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey criticised the policy saying that financially punishing institutions that take on the hardest-to-teach students, that focus on foundation studies and second-chance learning would defeat the purpose of education.

“Education must be measured on more than just how much money you earn at the ‘end’ of learning.”

However, Prime Minister John Key continued to imply that the current tertiary education system was not providing enough value for students and tax payers and that this policy would provide more value.

“Tertiary education is a passport to higher skills, higher wages, higher productivity and higher growth for our economy,” says Mr Key.

Mr Joyce noted:

“We’ve funded more places at universities, polytechs and private training providers without big budget increases.”

The government also intends to “improve the governance and operations of publicly-owned tertiary institutions, and to continue to remove differences in funding treatment between public and private providers.

It will limit Level 1 and 2 tertiary provision to those who haven’t previously achieved Level 1 and 2 qualifications at school or at tertiary level – with the exception of ESOL and Māori language courses.

It’s election year – Who cares?

Sandra Grey, President Tertiary Education Union

Commentators are lamenting the fact that with the world cup rugby on, that’s where all attention is diverted. This means no one cares about the election at the moment.

But there is deeper problem and that is the number of people who are not enrolled or don’t vote if they are enrolled.

• 71% of 18-24 year olds NOT enrolled
• About 10% of whole population are not enrolled.
• In terms of our membership, around 10 per cent of members details do not match information held by the electoral agencies – so may not be enrolled correctly or at all.
• Also there are 650,000 enrolled voters who did not vote last election

This disengagement from politics threatened legitimacy of system and immediately impacts on outcome of elections. So how do we get people interested, enrolled, and voting?

The only way to make people care about politics and election is to make it real for them. People want to talk about how politics has impacted upon them, their families, their friends, and their communities. For our members and the students we teach this means talking about a range of political decisions that have impacted upon our daily lives inside universities. Firstly, we need to talk to our members about the cuts in real funding which we’ve seen under the John Key government. And the news from Treasury figures just gets worse if you look out to the next election in 2014.

What is the impact of this type of under-funding? Most staff see its effects on a daily basis – an increase in workloads, rising stress, overcrowded classes, job losses, and cuts to core services. Certainly we can see very clearly in Tertiary Education Commission figures that there has been rise in the student:staff ratio. This has real impacts on staff and students in our tertiary education sector.

But it’s just not in terms of financial investment that the National-led government has let down New Zealand’s universities, polytechnics, and waananga. There have been changes to the way decision-making is carried out that is detrimental to the tertiary sector. First of all the government changed the composition of the Councils of polytechnics, stripping out staff and student representation. Why does this matter? Because our professional expertise and knowledge should be acknowledged and incorporated into decision-making.

But more recently the John Key government passed the Voluntary Student Membership Act which will effectively collapse student associations around NZ. And who will have to pick up the extra work generated because there is no longer a sound student-run volunteer base for dealing with a range of issues faced by students – staff. This will add a burden to already overworked staff.

So we need to make all staff and students to speak up for education. We also need to convince our families and friends to be passionate about public tertiary education. We need them to know the tertiary education sector is in crisis and this has implications for them and for. There is no doubt that poorly devised government policy is impacting upon our sector and this has resulted in concerted attacks on the tertiary education sector. As a result the conditions of work in the tertiary education sector, crucial conditions that make the sector function, are being attacked by employers in order to meet the government’s drive for greater productivity and economic efficiency.

What can help you to speak up for public tertiary education this election? We have a public tertiary education policy for the TEU which covers the broad philosophical ideals that can be used to defend public education. You can find lots of examples in Tertiary Update of attacks on our conditions of work and the job losses that have come about through underfunding which you can share with people. You can take time to point out that our conditions of work are the students’ conditions of learning. When the government fundamentally changes the staffing levels and conditions of staff, this impacts on the quality of learning that can occur. The only thing that holds New Zealand’s tertiary sector together at the moment is good will of staff who passionately defend quality education and go beyond the call of duty to deliver. And you can stress to all voter that the social and economic advancement means NZ should invest in good quality public education.

And what sorts of actions are needed in the lead up to the election. We need TEU members to take a little bit of time to increase awareness of the difficulties facing staff and students in the tertiary sector. This could mean simply putting up a poster (say the illustrations above) on a noticeboard in your institution, showing just what effect underfunding has. You could perhaps take the time to talk with colleagues about the impact of government policies. And most of all spend a little bit of time talking with friends and families about what it means for tertiary education to be under such strain – what it means for them. If you’re are feeling energetic, what about popping along to a candidate forum and political parties what they plan to do for education as a whole, and tertiary education in particular.

Just take some time between now and November 26 to speak up for tertiary education.