At university, there are certain services, like Satellite magazine, that are bought to you by your students’ association. The Albany Students’ Association, your student union, funds a whole heap of cool stuff like Orientation and the ball as well as some more serious services like advocacy and environmentally friendly car-pooling. However, these services are currently under threat, with some legislation in the works that would effectively wipe all funding from these services.

Each issue, Satellite Magazine will be exploring the various issues surrounding the Voluntary Student Membership debate. This issue, Analiese Jackson sat down with Leader of the Labour Party, the Honourable Phil Goff who, by his own confession, “talks far too much”, to discuss his fond memories of  university life as well as the Voluntary Student Membership debate.

You’ve been the leader of the opposition for just over a year now. How are you finding that role?

Being the Leader of the Opposition has been a real privilege. It’s a step change, when you become Leader of the Party. I thought as a cabinet minister that I had a pretty heavy workload, when I was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Justice for example, and then later, a whole series of portfolios; Trade, Defence, Corrections and Disarmament and Arms control, I was working an 80 hour week and I thought: “well, that pretty heavy”. Now I’m probably doing a 95 hour week.

Opposition by its very nature is frustrating because, as a Minister, you’re taking a problem, you’re analysing it and you’re finding a solution to it, you’re working with people and it’s hard, but it’s also positive and constructive. In opposition you can fall into the trap of being unrelentingly negative, and I don’t want to fall into that role, so it’s how you can be positive and pulling up the alternatives but also raising the negatives and holding the government to account…It’s demanding…sometimes it’s described as the worst job in the world to be Leader of the Opposition, but I’m enjoying the challenge of it.

 

Tell us about your university days…

Well, I looked a little different in those days. I had my last haircut when I left school in what was then the seventh form and then I got another haircut about seven years later. It saved me a fortune in haircuts, but I really enjoyed my time at university and if I knew that life would pass me by so quickly I probably would have enjoyed it even more.

 It was a stimulating time to be at university, I’d left home when I was still at school so it was challenge because we didn’t have student loans in those days, but student fees weren’t so high, which I guess was a compensating factor. The stimulation at university and the causes you went out and campaigned for was great. Summers you lost entirely; I spent seven years in the freezing works, pretty constantly from the day I finished my exams to the day that we had orientation, but that was part of your education in life as well. Looking back on that, I regard it as one of the best parts of my life. You do get sick of living on an absolutely stretched budget. I often remember if the washing machine in the flat broke down, then how the hell were you gonna fix it? I mean, you didn’t just have the budget to go out and repair it.

I had a car and motorbike. It was a really old car. It broke down in the first year and I could never afford to fix it so I stuck with the motorbike and the car sort of moulded away in the carport. So every student knows that it’s tough to make ends meet financially, but you also have that opportunity to be in a stimulating environment with a lot of other young people that you work hard and play hard with and if you don’t do that, then you’ve wasted it

Do you think that sense of student activism and fighting for a cause has been lost at University to some extent?

I was at university when that sort of activity was at its peak. That’s not to say that every student was an activist; most were there to study and learn, but we had the big issues of the day. We had the Vietnam War, the issues in South Africa; the military coup in Chile; the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and the Nuclear Free issues. They were big issues and it was kind of part of your life to go out and say…I suppose it’s one of the lovely things as you start out your life, I was absolutely convinced that we could change the world like that. I still want to change to world but I release now that it might take a little longer that I initially anticipated but we were fighting for things that we believe in and campus was very active in those days. We had our troops in Vietnam, we didn’t think they should be there, people were being killed on both sides of the conflict and we thought it was wrong; we knew apartheid was wrong and it was something to go out there…I mean, this was in the days where we had National Ministers talking about our kith and kin, the white south Africans, and we didn’t worry too much about the fact that if the colour of your skin was wrong, you didn’t have any rights. So we had causes to fight against that were very clear cut and I think that was a more dominant factor on campus than it is now.

So was University where your interest in politics was initially fostered?

No, much earlier than that actually. I met one with one of my old school mates recently and she said “Oh, I remember you saying you wanted to get into politics when you were in fourth form” I didn’t remember that.

I grew up in a family which knew what side of the political fence they were on. My grandmother had been widowed in the great depression. They lost their home because she was widowed, my dad was 12 at the time and Michael Joseph Savage, Saint Michael, came in and gave them a lift. From the point of view of that family, they never forgot, when times were tough, a government that came in with their interests at heart. My grandmother wouldn’t have let me into the house if I’d been anything but Labour. I had that family attachment to a sense of social fairness, that’s always been part of my life.

When I went flatting, I went flatting with a guy named Mike Moore, who later became Prime Minister and Word Trade Director General and at university I studied politics. So all of those things coming together meant that I was on a political track. People would say to me: “Oh, what are you studying?” and I’d say: “Politics,” and they’d say: “well, how are you going to find a job with that?” but, as it happened, it worked out.

It was those international issues but it was also a sense of social fairness, and I suppose I never forgot working at the freezing works the guys working alongside me who were doing production line jobs that were utterly soul destroying, their taxes were paying for me to go to Uni so I thought to myself well, you’ve taken, you’ve got to give something back,. I was the first kid in my family to go to university and I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t of free for free education and a chance for working class kids to get ahead. So whatever you take you’ve gotta give something back, and politics was the way to do it.

I was at the archives in AUSA House and saw an old Orientation Craccum that listed you and Helen Clark as the key players of the Young Labour group on Auckland campus. Did you always suspect that you two would go on to be leaders of the Labour Party?

Helen was a couple of years ahead of me, and she came from a very different background. She’d come up against some of the same issues as I had, we both studied politics, did our postgraduate degrees in politics, and taught in politics. We, particularly on international issues, always thought quite alike. Did she think she was going to become Prime Minister? It’s had to say, she always had the talent and ability to do so, I think both of us had had a long career in politics and held the top jobs for some time…

…so there was never some sort of underlying plan?

No, no. I never planned it…I’ve never planned my life at all, actually. Opportunities arise and you say: “well, do I make that decision or that decision”. In fact, the minute I was selected into this seat in 1981, I’d came back from overseas, done my big OE and I hadn’t particularly planned that I was going to become an MP until the local Labour member here, Arthur Faulkner, said quite late “I think I’ve done enough, I’m going to stand down” and a few people encouraged me. There was an opportunity, it was something I thought I could do and do reasonably well, so I thought: “Let’s give it a go”. If I hadn’t of done that I could have enjoyed a few more years of not living in a goldfish bowl but that happened and things went on from there, really. I don’t think it was a grand plan.

Moving into the 80s, As Minister for Education, you were the first politician to add student fees for tertiary students…

…Ah, yes , but if you also look at what I did at that time, I increased student allowances by an unprecedented amount, and the money spent on increasing student allowances were more than what the cost of fees were. Why did I do that? Because I had a very hard decision to make in…I think it was ’89. It was either cap entry of students, because student numbers were growing so quickly, or try finding a contributory source of funding to continue to vastly expand student places.  Probably politically, it was the wrong decision, but ethically, I thought I’d rather have a few more students studying, even if the have to pay a little more, and the fees in those days were pretty small compared to what they are now. And, as I say, we did a big boost to the student allowances because, with the background that I had, I didn’t want to block entry on the basis of finances to anybody but I thought, well, if everybody gives a little bit, it’ll give me the opportunity to expand. Plus, the student politicians thought I was terrible until Lockwood Smith came along and said he was going to abolish student fees and then didn’t …

…NZUSA still have the pledge sitting in their offices…

..they should take it out and wave it around again! So, it was a hard decision. I remember thinking deeply about it and debating it before we went down that track.

Retrospectively, was it a good idea?

In retrospect, if I hadn’t increased allowances, I probably could have kept student fees off, but student allowances were of more help to those who were in low income backgrounds wanting to study, so I did what I thought was right. Politically, it wasn’t a good decision as it gave students a reason to vote out Labour: “Labour’s increased student fees, we’ll vote against them,” but they didn’t look at the other side on the ledger, increasing student numbers and decreasing student allowances.

The spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Maryan Street, released a list of what she perceived to be the five priorities for tertiary education, and kindly suggested how Steven Joyce could improve on the tertiary sector.  Voluntary student membership was not one of those priorities. Are Labour committed to supporting students associations in attempting to retain the status quo and how will they do so?

Yeah, we’re absolutely happy with the status quo, and we left the status quo during our nine years of government which says that if 10% of students’ petition, a student referendum will be held. In most areas, they voted quite sensibly and said: “Our Students’ Association is of great value, as they provide us with advocacy services, they provide us with representation. We get counselling assistance; legal assistance; financial assistance; we run orientation, run the clubs…these services are really valuable to us. Why would we give these away and why would some of us have to meet the costs of these services if everyone was going to enjoy them?” You can opt out if it’s a conscientious objection and you just nominate a charity you money goes to. We thought “Oh, look, that’s fine”. Now Roger Douglas is coming out and saying “It doesn’t matter that they’ve got the right to make that decision, we’re going to abolish membership.” We’re happy to leave that decision in the hands of students and there really isn’t a good argument against that, so we’ll be voting against the bill. We know that National will vote for it to go to the select committee. What will they do then? Who knows with National.

I think it’s really important…it’s not about money in a sense either for the Students’ Association. If the students association fails to provide some of those services, either they’ll disappear completely or the University will provide them and they’ll want to recover the costs of providing those services in fees. Better that you have students working for students and to be accountable than relying on the University to do it and not having any say over what the university does.

So, hypothetically, what would your strategy be if you were a student fighting VSM?

I’d argue the case pretty much the same way I’ve said it already. Say: “We already have the right, if we want voluntary membership, to do that. That’s in our hands, why take it out of our hands like Roger Douglas wants to do? He talks about rights, but actually he’s imposing his views on us. We’ve already got the opportunity to make that decision for ourselves. We’re adults; we’re intelligent adults, so keep your nose out of it, Roger.” [laughs]

Another big student issue is Universal Student Allowances, which was an election promise by Labour in 2008. Will it be a policy that Labour will stand by in the upcoming election?

Yeah. How will we bring it in? I think it’s really important, when you’re in opposition, to not over promise and under deliver. I’d rather under promise and over deliver, which is what we did last time. We did some really good things for students. I think the interest free student loan made a huge difference to students to a whole lot of people. Don Brash is still crusading against it and the National Party have bitterly opposed it. They’ve said that they wont go back on student loans but then they also said they weren’t going to raise GST .

If I can just touch on it, GST imposes a cost on all students, disproportionate to the money spent just to survive. Raising GST is a lose /lose situation for students and the broken promise on GST should lead you to examine how safe interest free student loans really are under the National government. Obviously they’ve abolished plans to extend student allowances, which is still an ideal as far as we’re concerned. We’ll have to add it to our list of priorities as far as our election manifesto, and what we’ll do in that manifesto is say basically we cant do everything so here are our key priorities. I don’t know yet what those priorities will be yet.

Well I was going to ask you about GST…

…yeah, I think we’re done on that one, though you should have seen the look on  Key’s face in the House. I mean, there he was, on the DVD, staring down the barrel of the camera saying “National will not increase GST”. It’s almost like a President I remember saying “I did not have sex with that woman,” and he faulted on his word. He should have just fronted up and said “I just changed my mind. I know I promised that. I have broken my promise but here are the reasons for it”. Instead he tried to pretend he hadn’t promised not to raise GST. Even the Herald, good old granny herald, had a headline saying “Credibility Gap”. I think it’s the wrong thing to do. If you lose your credibility as a political leader, you’ve got real worries. GST will hit some section of the community hard. You’re hurting those at the bottom of the heap to reward those at the top of the heap and it doesn’t seem right to me. 

Mr Key has indicated that there will be significant changes to the tertiary sector as the National government will “take a careful look at the policy settings around student support”. What those changes were, he kind of left up in the air. What do you predict?

I think they’ll lift the cap on fees, I don’t quite know how they’ll go about it but that’ll be one of the things they’ll be contemplating. I think they may well examine the things around who gets allowances. That’ll probably be to the detriment of students.  I think they will also target tertiary spending. Those are some if the issues they’ll be contemplating. After the strength of opposition to Key breaking his promise on GST, I don’t think he’ll have the fortitude to consider breaking his promise on student loans but I think that’ll be on the agenda if they’re re-elected. It’s up to student s not to allow that to happen, but in a second term I think that it’ll be on the agenda to do away with interest free student loans.

What kind of impact do you think Steven Joyce will have on tertiary education?

You’ve got to worry about the man who negotiated all the funding from the Exclusive Brethren during the 2005 election campaign, don’t you [laughs]? I suppose in one sense its good not to have a minister that didn’t know what a Vice Chancellor was. Anne Tolley wasn’t up to the job, everybody knows that, she’s not up to doing the job of Education that she’s been left with. Steven Joyce is brighter but he’s also more ideological so it might not work to the advantage of students to have a stronger Minister if the stronger minister will do the wrong things. I think that the student associations will be examining that and watching that pretty carefully, as they should. It’s in their interests.