Mallard Trevor: Motions — Hon Steven Joyce—Conferral of Degree 
Mallard Trevor: Motions — Hon Steven Joyce—Conferral of Degree 
[Volume:661;Page:9682] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I seek leave to move without notice a motion of congratulations for persistence to Steven Joyce for having his degree conferred 21 years after he started it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I move  
That the House congratulate Hon Steven Joyce for having his degree conferred 21 years after he started it 
. I think this is a very good example of the House taking the chance to debate something that is very very important Government policy. The fact that we will now have an open debate on this matter one that will go down to the closure in Government time is absolutely brilliant. I thank the Leader of the House for his acceptance of this invitation to have a debate on this matter. I am very serious; I think that people who have their degrees conferred 21 years after they start is a sign of persistence. 
Mr Joyce was slow about getting it conferred. I think he had hoped over a period of time to do a little bit better—[ 
Interruption 
] He completed it in 3 years. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect some of us are very interested in Mr Mallard’s comments and we are struggling to hear with the hubbub down the back. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think it is quite a robust debate and members can expect a degree of noise. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I worked in rural education and with adults and I know the importance of having an ability to have a long period during which people can complete their education. I think that Steven Joyce as the Minister for Tertiary Education is absolutely wonderful in welcoming a debate on this particular topic at this particular point in time. He is sitting in Anne Tolley’s seat already and he is showing that maybe there is a problem with the seat. [ 
Interruption 
] There is a certain sense of difficulty with the Minister of Education at the moment and I will not become involved in that one. Mr Joyce is sitting in her seat and I wonder whether there is some sort of infection in the seat that causes general incompetence. I wonder what that problem could be. 
We are seeing a Government in disarray with a very grumpy Leader of the House. He is drumming his fingers already. Government whips were caught totally—well shoddy I think is the word— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This has to be a very narrow debate. It is to congratulate Mr Joyce on his academic achievements. I would have thought that the person who is speaking to the motion is straying well off the motion’s topic. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member makes a perfectly fair point of order. Certainly there are no grounds to comment on the Leader of the House in this debate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Certainly not on academic achievement. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member should not be commenting on my ruling. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I was not commenting on Mr Brownlee’s academic achievements; I was saying to the Minister for Tertiary Education that I think it is good that he decided to have his degree conferred in the way that he did. Although he is considerably younger than I am he is part of the generation that did not think that having a degree conferred was quite as important at the time and did not bother doing it—and in some cases that was done quite deliberately rather than by accident. But later on he chose to have his degree conferred. 
I think he has highlighted that people learn in different ways. That is clear from his academic record. He seemed to learn fairly fast at the beginning of his tertiary education but he did not learn very much at the end. “Did Not Complete” or “DNC” is the expression that is used fairly frequently on his academic record. It means that a little bit as he is now he was focused on the front end—on the early optics—but in the end was not focused on the substance. 
All around the university system vice-chancellors are waiting for him to put back as far as policy is concerned some of the learning that he received when he was a student. There has been only one weak speech which was made at Te Papa and frankly when one listened to it one thing became very clear. It had a lot of his own work in it. [ 
Interruption 
] I am not sure where the delivery was. His one speech on tertiary education that I have read showed clearly that he had thought about the speech carefully. There were a lot of his own words in it. He may have learnt those words during his limited tertiary career or he may have learnt them afterwards. 
I thank him because I now have a copy of his academic transcript in front of me. A Bachelor of Science in zoology is a very good qualification for working in the National Cabinet—I think it is fair to say that there are a range of animals there—although clearly his experience was not as good as someone else who used to have responsibility in the tertiary education area and who had a good understanding of the way that cows’ guts worked. I am sure he applied his knowledge within the National Party. Well he would have if he was in that Cabinet; he would have been able to work it in there. 
But in this particular case when we look at the subject of labour economics we see that Mr Joyce could not even pass it. I want to know when he was ever Labour enough to study labour economics. On the subject of monetary economics we see that the pretender to the throne of the Minister of Finance could not complete the paper— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As I said before this is a very very tight motion. It is to congratulate Mr Joyce on his academic career. It seems to me completely inappropriate that the speaker on his feet should dissect the academic record in such disparaging terms. This is a tight debate and speakers should be held to the tight bounds of the motion. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not think we need to hear any more on this. I think the member was certainly speaking to the academic record and I think he is entitled to do so. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is notable that Mr Joyce has tabled only two of the four pages. I am not sure whether that complies with the Speaker’s requirements as to full tabling. 
It is really interesting that the only A I can find on page 3 or 4 is for the subject of energy and environment. I want to know what Gerry Brownlee thinks about that; although I must say that having a course on energy and environment within a Diploma in Social Sciences is somewhat unusual. Oh I see that it is from Massey University. Now I am beginning to understand. This member could not even succeed in Massey University postgraduate work. I do not want to say anything about the biggest polytechnic in the country which I have visited. Do not tell me your PhD is from Massey University Mr Speaker. I am pleased to learn that it is not. I knew you had a quality PhD and I am sure that Steve Maharey to whom I was speaking yesterday—[ 
Interruption 
] Oh the phone is going already. Mr Maharey is tweeting me or trying to do something like that at the moment. 
Mr Joyce also has a B+ in the economics of trade legislation. The transcript states Trade Legis but I presume it means legislation. I think he should be doing Tim Groser’s job. As I was saying before one of the areas that was a “Did Not Complete” was in the area of monetary economics. I ask the member whether it is his intention to do something like what Dr Cullen did before he became Minister of Finance. 
Hon Member 
: What was that? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He went to the United States and did a pretty intensive short economics course which brought him up to date with a modern understanding of economics. 
This transcript looks a bit like mine—pretty marginal. There are some reasonable grades mixed in with some shockers. Some things are complete and some are incomplete. If the member is the pretender to the role of Minister of Finance he will have to improve. He will have to do Economics 101 and he will have to get a level of understanding that is well beyond that indicated by this transcript. 
I do not know whether Geoffrey Palmer still lectures across the road whether his son does or whether someone else is taking the subject on the constitutional area of the way that Parliament runs. It is like it is in a lot of other places; when one is in Government one has to be very very careful about saying “Yes.” at the wrong time. That is what that member has done today. He said “Yes.” at the wrong time to the invitation to have this debate and it is something that he will regret going forward.