David Seymour: ACT Leader on the University of Auckland not issuing refunds for scrapped compulsory Waipapa Taumata Rau course

Auckland University's completely ruled out refunds for its now-scrapped compulsory Treaty and Māori culture courses. 

The university's making the courses optional from next year but won't refund students who were required to complete it in the first semester of this year. 

The courses cost almost six thousand dollars for international students, and one thousand for domestic students. 

Act Leader David Seymour told Mike Hosking his party's continuing to call on the university to give the money back. 

He says they could refund students through a credit for future courses, rather than as a cash refund. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We ring Auckland University this week because it occurred to
me that no one seems to be holding them to
account for this cluster. There's their y pathatour Marta Rah course, right.
So they made it compulsory, you know the story. They
made it compulsory and ideologically driven first, as it turns out,
a complete waste of time. Given the pushback was so great,
they've now made it voluntary.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
The problem here was for your domestic student they charged
one thousand bucks with this nonsense. For the foreign student
they charged five thousand, seven hundred dollars. And it sudden
occurred to me, I thought, I wonder if you get
your money back on a waste of time like that. Anyway,
we rang them. They said there's no refund going on.
So anyway. David Seymour is AC Party Leader, Deputy Prime
Minister and Associate Education Ministries with us. Good morning, good

(00:37):
morning mate. Can they hide behind independence? So in other words,
no one can do anything about this. They can cock
it up to the level they have and that's just life.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah. Unfortunately in this case it is I think ultimately
having universities that are independents have their own counsel and
chart their own path as better. In the long run,
I wouldn't want to be more a dictatory royal country
where you know, one organization, the government, or even one
person just is this is the way it's going to be.
But clearly in this case, just like a lot of

(01:09):
other institutions that have been completely captured and hijacked, and
instead of empowering, New Zealand is to live their best life,
to be capable so that they can go out and
businesses and hire people and be hired just as Nichola
was saying a moment ago, they've gone down a rabbit
hole of trying to force a worldview on other people,

(01:30):
in this case using their own money. And I might
add the only reason it's cheaper for domestic students is
that the tax payers subsidized domestic students.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Now and that's the problem though, So you paid for it,
we paid for it. We've all paid for it. What
about the blowback for the government of the reputational damage
you're trying to get people coming into the country. Some
of them have forked out five and a half thousand
dollars for nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well, that's that's the sadness of this whole thing. And
you know, Paramjet Parma, one of A's MPs, who has
I think quite brave led the charge on has taken
a huge amount of abuse, which in itself is part
of the problem. I think the reason this stuff happens
is that it seems most people are fearful to speak up.
But she has, and she said they should refund it,

(02:14):
and they could actually just say, look, well, we're not
going to give you cash back, but we will give
you credit for another course that you actually choose because
you judge it to be useful to your future, not
because we've decided to hijack your future for our political purpose.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Is there an upside in the sense that a lesson
might have been learned by other universities They've looked at
this blow up in their face and gone, we'll never
go there again. Therefore we've learned something.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I feel like there is a change going on.
If you've cast your mind back three or four years,
a course like this being introduced, being made compulsory would
have had full acquiescence, if not vocal support from the
governments of the day. Nobody would have been courageous enough
to stand up to it. The media would have pounced

(03:01):
on anybody that did for the most part, and it
just wouldn't have changed that it actually has changed, and
I think a lot of people will be setting up
and taking notice. It's also while true that university councils
are independent, and I ultimately believe they should be, a
portion of the appointments are made by government. We actually

(03:22):
haven't made any appointments to Auckland. It's just the way
the cycle goes. But we will very soon. And that's
another way that an elected government can inject some fresh
thinking and accountability into these institutions. While they maintain the
ability to make their own decisions. We can add a
flavor to that. And you're starting to see that change.
Still a lot of frustration. There'll still be people who say,

(03:44):
you know, my council or this government department is still
doing this thing that actually doesn't make the boat go faster.
It's more about compulsion than even in Mari culture. But nonetheless,
I do think we've got to chalk up the history
curriculum that's changed for schools last week, the fact that
we are no longer putting treaty obligations on school boards,

(04:07):
and also this reversal at the University of Auckland. I'm
very proud that we are actually driving New Zealand's culture
back to an outward looking place where each person can
succeed on their own terms rather than be part of
somebody else's political projects. And cowdon to fear against picking
up against it.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Exactly well, so appreciate it very much. David Seymore, I'll
tell you what is apparent in this last decade, including COVID,
the damage done to the young people of this country
is almost incalculable, and the Auckland University ideology is a
major major part of that.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
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