Where we’ve been, where we’re going.

Hau Taki Haere | Tertiary Update Vol 29, No 22

By Daniel Benson‑Guiu, Te Pou Ahurei Takirua – Ahumahi | Assistant National Secretary – Industrial

In this, the last substantive edition of Hau Taki Haere | Tertiary Update for 2025, I thought it would be useful to share my thoughts on the year in review, as well as give you a taste of things to come in 2026.

A couple of months ago, when I was visiting one of our Polytechnics that will become standalone as a consequence of the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga, there was a line of ākonga queuing for the Student Services desk.

Our members were doing an admirable job, but a few months ago the area had been reviewed in the obsessive focus on ‘sustainability’ imposed by the Minister for Vocational Education, Penny Simmonds. There simply weren’t enough staff anymore.

While staff numbers were reduced, student demand has gone in the opposite direction. Our members knew this would happen. The ‘financial sustainability’ sought by employers in the sector is focused on quick reductions in expenditure and not on the medium or long-term trends of increasing student numbers, domestically and internationally.

At another campus, we have been fighting a reduction in academic staff, and the Union has successfully pulled out the timelines for the review period – keeping members employed for six months longer so far and actively working to reduce the total number of disestablishments. The proposal both aimed to reduce academic staff – by a third – and had goals of increasing student numbers – by a third. The rationale for the proposal was a reduction in student numbers, yet the expected outcome was forecasted to significantly increase them.

And elsewhere, at a university where we are negotiating, the numbers of students in 2025 are the highest they have been in the institution’s history, yet the staff numbers are the lowest they have ever been.

I don’t need to say where the three examples are from – it is a story you have seen at your campus too.

Despite the challenges, the Union, through our Organisers and active members, has successfully saved jobs, challenged proposals through legal channels, negotiated increased collective pay offers, joined forces with other unions on a judicial review of the gutting of the Equal Pay legislation by this Government, and advocated for members through personal cases…

Our national conference this year was not stymied by the legislative and funding attacks of this Government. It was a goals Conference that inspired us as a Union to look towards the next four years with a new focus for the TEU and the tertiary education sector:

1. We will further integrate the intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in everything we do.
2. We will continue fighting for quality, accessible tertiary education that is publicly funded and accountable to the public, in order that all in Aotearoa can thrive.
3. We will be a strong organising union, inclusive and accessible, and where all members can play an active part in union activity.
4. We will make significant progress on ethnic and gender pay equity and pay parity in the tertiary education sector.

If this year was anything to go by, next year will be just as challenging, but we have trained over 350 delegates across the motu, branches have completed their General Meetings to select their committees, and we will be bringing together our collective agreement negotiation campaigns and our election campaign.

In 2026 we will be initiating negotiations across seven out of eight universities (with the eighth currently in negotiations), for all our members in Te Pūkenga, across two Wānanga and in some of our branches in the private or research sectors. For the first time, the Union’s four sectors will be negotiating at the same time.

Our goals are in common with other unions in the public sector that have been campaigning the last few months to ‘Save our Services’: funding cuts have meant staff cuts, the cost of living is increasing, and we have an opportunity next year to campaign across the TEU and in coordination with the union movement as we continue to fight for quality, accessible and public tertiary education provision.

Between February and May, depending on when your collective agreements expire, we will be holding branch hui to decide on the claims that we bring to the table to negotiate on. Next year, is a year to get active, join our hui and participate.

Each time we meet, negotiate or rally there are 12,000 of us joining in to support your kaupapa.

Also in this update:

Parting words from Dr Julie Douglas

“Save Our Polytechs” – Francisco Hernandez, Greens

Changes to MBIE Intellectual Property Management Policy

Unions, educators, and health leaders demand urgent review into asbestos failures

Other stories

Economic turmoil plays 'big part' in high rate of apprentices dropping out – Newstalk ZB

Penny Simmonds concerned less than 50 percent of trainees completing apprenticeships – RNZ

IP shake-up puts researchers first as universities face equity stakes caps – Newsroom

‘An easy target’: Pushback on proposal to cut art and design at Timaru’s Ara – The Press