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Tim Shadbolt's fight against the Government over tertiary education funding might not be over, despite his claims of victory over a funding boost to Southland Institute of Technology.
Yesterday, the Invercargill Mayor declared a victory after the Tertiary Education Commission gave SIT $6.3 million as a one-off grant to spend on specific projects on top of its annual funding.
Mr Shadbolt had vowed to campaign to "bring down the Government" and threatened to break the new Electoral Finance Act after new tertiary funding rules led to a $6.2 million cut to SIT's funding.
Despite the extra funding, Mr Shadbolt warned his campaign might not be over - saying SIT's ongoing annual funding and the future of its Christchurch course and the remote-learning SIT2LRN course were yet to be resolved.
Mr Shadbolt said he would ask his corporate backers whether he should continue with his hard-hitting campaign - which has included full-page advertisements in newspapers.
He admitted some backers were "a bit nervous" about his highly political tactics, but pointed to the TEC grant as an example of how effective it had been.
"A lot of people feel it's impossible to attack a Government. In this case, I think even though we are David and the Government is Goliath, we had the advantage of it being an election year."
He said the funding "might only be enough for a couple of yards of Auckland motorway", but it would go a long way in Invercargill.
Tertiary Education Commission chair David Shand denied it had buckled under Mr Shadbolt's campaign in giving the funding.
He said it had given out $169 million to 20 polytechnics and 23 wananga since the fund was set up to help polytechnics in 2005.
"It's surely an indication of Mayor Shadbolt's campaign of misinformation that he didn't know it was coming, because it's been in the pipeline for a year.
"This was always going to come. It is nothing to do with the dispute in other areas of funding between SIT and the TEC."
Mr Shand said TEC would meet with Southland Institute of Technology "to clear the air" by mid-year and expected to make a decision on future funding and the courses which were the subject of Mr Shadbolt's protest.
Mr Shadbolt has backing from companies including Talley's, the Richardson Group, Southport, ILT and Comalco - although not all have donated money.
Mr Shadbolt has come under fire in his own region with opinions split on his hard stance.
His council passed a resolution preventing council resources being used for the fight and among his backers, Andrew Talley, of Talley's Fisheries which has a subsidiary company in Southland, has distanced the company from Mr Shadbolt's overt political stance, telling the Herald the company had given no financial support to Mr Shadbolt and was not taking a political stance.
Mr Shadbolt took full-page advertisements in major newspapers in December criticising the Government for the policy. However, since January 1, when the Electoral Finance Act became applicable, his only action has been a $500 ad in a local paper last week "polling" people on a series of questions, including whether they agreed with his actions.
* A man who shut down his anti-Labour website after a warning from the Electoral Commission will relaunch it as a blog to try to evade election rules.
Andy Moore, 21, closed down his www.dontvotelabour.org.nz website last month after a warning from the commission that it breached election advertising laws because it did not include his name and address.
Mr Moore said it would be relaunched as a blog - which are exempt from the act.
