28 March 2001

Select Committee requested to defer consideration of Bill

Representatives of the Association of University Staff (AUS) told the Education and Science Select Committee in Wellington today that the Education Amendment (No.2) Bill posed the greatest threat to the distinctive role of universities since the tertiary education reforms of 1989-90.

AUS Executive Director, Rob Crozier, noted that the tertiary sector section of the Bill was heavily preoccupied with financial ‘risk’, yet ‘risk’ was nowhere defined.

“The proposed legislation gives the Minister of Education the right to dissolve a University Council and replace it with a Commissioner,” said Mr Crozier.

“The concept of having one person running a university with total responsibility for all academic matters in addition to financial is mind-boggling.

“The recently-completed report of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission, Shaping the System 7.3.01) was released subsequent to the Bill’s introduction. This report calls for …a substantive review…of the tertiary education provisions of the Education Act 1989…with the object of improving the coherence and comprehensibility of these provisions.

“AUS therefore urges the Select Committee to defer consideration of those clauses of the Bill that have the potential to allow for political interference in the administration of universities pending a full and comprehensive review later this year or next,” said Mr Crozier.

Rob Crozier
Executive Director

Contact: 021 375 661

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>