Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Te Wananga o Aotearoa—Auditor-General’s Report 
Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Te Wananga o Aotearoa—Auditor-General’s Report 
[Volume:628;Page:546] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister for Tertiary Education) 
: 
 Is it not wonderful that in a 15-minute speech on the wananga Mr English in that failed leadership bid managed not once to mention Rongo Wetere or the Wetere family. It is me who took over only a few weeks ago who is the Minister responsible for what happened in 2002 2003 and 2004 not Rongo Wetere! That is not what the Auditor-General’s report says. 
What did Mr English say when he was crawling around a Maori Television programme with Willie Jackson? What did he say about the wananga on 13 June 2005? I assume it must have been a Friday as it was the 13th given the quotes. He said that what Mr Mallard needs to do now is to stop trying to run the wananga. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right. I think the speech we just heard said the exact opposite. “Apply the same kind of criteria that he is meant to apply to all the other tertiary education institutions and let them get on with the job.” Let Rongo get on with the job of making sure his family gets rich out of Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Why? Because Rongo Wetere is a paid-up member of the National Party. Rongo Wetere said that he was looking forward to the National Party getting back in office because it meant they would be looked after by Mr English and his mates. That is why when his mates all turned up outside Parliament a few weeks ago the National Party was there to meet them. My goodness me! There is a big “h” word for all of this and outside the House I will be tempted to use it on a number of occasions. 
But he said more than that. He said that as much as Labour talks about wanting to help people at the bottom it is much more interested in preserving institutions like polytechs than—listen to this—helping or letting an institution like the wananga have its head. Today of course he has demanded that we should have had their heads collectively. He has missed an important point. I told him three times during question time but Mr English does not ever listen to the answers given in question time. I do not know why Ministers even bother to address questions let alone answer them when Mr English is asking them because he never listens to the answers. I told him that in July after Mr Mallard had written to the council saying he had formed the conclusion that they should be dismissed and a commissioner sent in six members of that council resigned by resolution. The five persons left on the council have not been supportive of the Rongo Wetere regime. Indeed Mr Wetere has been on leave throughout most of that period. They have been moving to address the questions and to do what needs to be done to put the wananga on a sound financial governance and management basis because as Mr English rightly said it has courses that do have value and that do reach a lot of people. 
What should not happen here is that we throw the baby out with the bathwater and in some blind attempt to wind up the Pakeha vote we are back to the National Party’s classic bit of Maori kicking so that we can try to win some votes—except of course when one is talking to the Maori Party trying to form a Government we offer them everything. In terms of some of the things that were being offered in the talks between the National Party and the Maori Party they would have been offered a wananga on every street corner just about. 
It was the National Party that set up the wananga. Long before Dr Smith needed his pills National set up and uncapped the wananga in 1999 and ensured therefore that it could grow. It was the National Party that was cosied up to the wananga for the last 2 or 3 months and Mr Wetere made it clear that they had given—[ 
Interruption 
] Because the council which was threatened with dismissal is not the council in place now. That is the fifth time of answering for poor Mr English. If he would take the sheepskins out of his ears he might be able to hear what is being said in question time in the House. 
The report is not about the Government it is about the governance and the management of Te Wananga o Aotearoa. There was poor decision-making and practices in respect of significant expenditure. They have buildings to which they do not have title on leased land. Under common law that means the landowner can walk off with the building if he or she wants to. Who owns the land? The Aotearoa Institute. Who is connected with that institute? Rongo Wetere and the rest of the family. It is disgraceful. It is a disgraceful situation but Mr English does not condemn it at all. All he wants to do is sack a council that had sacked itself in July of this year. 
There has been inadequate identification and management of conflicts of interest—not small; we are talking $70 million between the various elements of the family. This is a small family business that has turned into a 63000-strong institution and is still behaving like a small family business. I do need to add that Mrs Susan Cullen is no relation of mine. There are only four people with my surname who are related to me and she is not one of them. But even she is telling her father that it is time to resign for the good of the wananga and to move on so that change can occur as the current council and the current Crown observer and manager are in fact planning and I have been in close contact with them. 
There were unacceptable practices in senior management. We are told of course by Mr Wetere that in fact information was not provided to the Controller and Auditor-General. That is not true. When the information was collected he was still the chief executive in 2004. So if it was not given he was the person who did not give it. That excuse on radio this morning will not do. He claimed he had no direct involvement in the conflicts of interest. There are 10 major circumstances listed in the report where Mr Wetere had direct involvement in the conflicts of interest including massive elements such as the Mahi Ora joint venture. These are not small conflicts of interest these are massive conflicts of interest that actually occurred. 
This report is not just hard; it is also sad. People talk about “the wananga” but there are two others which have been in no strife or difficulty at all. Even this wananga has performed many good things and done very very good things particularly with many Maori people who have not successfully been through their first chance in education and have been reconnected to education and skills and thereby to the workforce. 
The issue now is ensure the long-term viability of te wananga on the basis of proper governance and management. There are still legal arguments before the court. Mr Wetere has a legal argument about his employment status. There is an argument still about whether the council in fact has been acting legally since July. There is of course the Waitangi Tribunal case which is finished but has yet to be reported on in terms of its conclusions. 
There has been an attempt to argue that we misunderstand tikanga Maori in taking a hard attitude to these matters and that there has been Crown bullying. Well Mr English complained that there has been no Crown bullying. As for tikanga Maori it does not mean $70 million of contracts going out to members of one’s family without proper processes. If it is then it needs to change—but it is not. The other wananga are not engaged in these activities and the current council is dominated by Maori who do not approve of those practices and have dissociated themselves from those practices. That I say to Mr English is why I do not need to sack them. But circumstances may change. There are things that can happen— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why did you back down? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I did not back down. The council backed down by six of its members resigning leaving in place a majority that in fact supports the Government’s efforts to reform Te Wananga o Aotearoa. But of course big brave Dr Smith will take the pills charge in there and say: “We know you’re on our side but we’re going to sack you anyway because we want to show that we can beat up Maori even when they are doing it properly. We can beat them up because we’re just big tough Pakeha boys.”—and by God are they boys and they have shown that again this afternoon in this House in the way that they have behaved. It is not Crown bullying to say that an institution receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of Government funding must have proper accountability processes must have proper governance and must have proper management on behalf of the people that it is working for. At the present time we have a process in place. That process has been quietly working for months. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Years. You were told in 2002. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There is no information in this report I say to Dr Smith that—[ 
Interruption 
] There is nothing in this report about events since July 2005. All the events referred to in this report are in 2002 2003 and 2004. I say to Dr Smith that he has to add on a year to get to the present time. There is nothing in this report about what is happening at the present time and no amount of bluster from the member or from Mr English is going to change that particular fact. 
A Crown manager has been in place since March to handle the financial affairs of the wananga. The wananga is on a very tight financial leash. Its current loan has been turned over for a few weeks and expires again on 15 December. They are not going to be let on to a long financial leash for some time yet—until I am fully satisfied. 
It is possible that things may change. If for example other people come back on to the council and there is an attempt to revert to the previous practices I will have no hesitation but to move. I repeat what I said in the House this afternoon. I am ready to move at any stage and notify the council that if necessary we will appoint a commissioner. We have already in the last few weeks investigated the issue of a statutory manager and if certain things change we will be able to move on that if need be. Finally—and sorry I say to Dr Smith; he does not have one of his member’s bills ready—I have already got a bill ready to send commissioners into te wananga if necessary. If events change that bill will be activated if that seems the most desirable option. But I guarantee that if we do those adolescents on the other side of the House will once again find a reason to oppose it. They will say that it is too little too late or too much too early or too much too little too late too early or whatever other reason the National Party always finds to say no. 
National is still a party hopelessly mired in an Opposition mentality with middle-aged ex - young men facing the prospect of being elderly before they have any chance of being in Government again. They know very well that when they talk about the wananga they are simply playing the race card yet again when what needs to be done is to do exactly what we are doing—quietly working with the reconstituted council working with the Crown manager and Crown observer keeping our options open and ensuring that this institution can be reconstructed in terms of its governance and management on a sound and secure basis. But of course that is not what the National Party wants. What the National Party wants is Maori failure. The one thing National members cannot stand is Maori success because that is not part of the world view that people like Mr English and Dr Smith have though it is part of the world view of some of the new back-benchers who came into the National Party for their first term this year. We have nothing to apologise for at all but there are people out there associated with the previous governance of this institution who have a great deal to apologise for and it is time they did so and faced up to their responsibilities.