Sharples Pita: Urgent Debates — Te Wananga o Aotearoa—Auditor-General’s Report 
Sharples Pita: Urgent Debates — Te Wananga o Aotearoa—Auditor-General’s Report 
[Volume:628;Page:550] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Just before we came into the House today Dr Cullen issued a press release stating: “I believe it would be in the best interests of the wananga if Rongo Wetere listened to some of those closest to him and stood aside as chief executive.” Such a statement is hardly surprising when we turn to the report of the Controller and Auditor-General which focuses heavily on Rongo Wetere and members of the whanau while acknowledging that they were not solely responsible for governing and managing Te Wananga o Aotearoa. We are not here to make judgments on either Mr Wetere or his whanau. Our role is not to usurp the role of the judiciary the police the Auditor-General or any other statutory body that takes on this role but we are here on behalf of our constituency to ask questions about the basic standards of justice and fair treatment before the law.  
Despite the reservation that governance and management did not reside solely with Mr Wetere the report suggests that it was not necessary to name the other individuals whom it states “play important roles in its governance and management”. The report stated further that although the council and senior management of Te Wananga have been so heavily involved: “Rongo Wetere has not had adequate help and advice from those around him”. On 9 May this year the Minister of Education described Te Wananga o Aotearoa as being in a very very serious financial governance and managerial situation. So began the unprecedented pursuit of one man and his family. The question we have always asked is why the focus was not put on those for whom oversight of those activities was their responsibility. A serious financial governance and managerial situation is surely something that needs a comprehensive analysis of all factors including the Crown watchdogs—the nature of the support made available by Crown resources and its early warning systems.  
Can anyone in this House recollect a situation when an organisation a flagship of Aotearoa was losing over $1 million a day as a result of poor decision-making practices for significant expenditure? Indeed this organisation has experienced the biggest financial loss in New Zealand’s corporate history. So severe was the loss that the Minister of Finance Michael Cullen handed over a taxpayer loan of $550 million at commercial rates conditional upon a satisfactory outcome of due diligence. The $550 million was not enough; another $300 million was required from Brierley’s and Singapore Airlines to get this flagship into a situation of profit again. We are not talking about Te Wananga o Aotearoa here; this is Air New Zealand the so-called national symbol of the country’s airlines with many of the top commercial brains in the country.  
Four years ago Dr Cullen was happy to bail out this flagship with taxpayer money without an inquiry such as the one Te Wananga o Aotearoa has had to endure. If further action needs to be taken now then we would encourage the Government to take it. If crimes have been committed then we would support natural justice following its course. The $20 million suspensory loan that has been represented as being a generous offer by the Government should have been made available last year. Moreover it should have been a capital grant not a loan. If this were done the shortfall between the wananga’s capital funding and that of other tertiary institutions would still be substantial.  
I want to raise one further issue at this point of inquiry. The settlement agreement was made not to exclude students but to allow for the growth of Maori numbers in tertiary education. That growth has exceeded all expectations. Ministry of Education statistics reveal that Maori participation in tertiary education almost doubled from 1999 to 2003 from 32825 to 62574 students. But so too has the growth of non-Maori participation. Why then would any thinking Minister want to inhibit such healthy racial interactions as those provided at the wananga? This country’s largest tertiary educational institution Te Wananga o Aotearoa has single-handedly created a Maori tertiary education market. In 3 or 4 years it has achieved what successive Governments have promised decade after decade but have failed to deliver. The Maori Party wonders therefore whether the real agenda by exposing Te Wananga o Aotearoa to successive inquiry upon inquiry is because of the Government’s own inability to adequately monitor and give advice to all tertiary institutions including polytechnics and universities. All those organisations have difficulty with managing budgets which is why they regularly increase their fees to their students. Indeed the Government has had to bail out some of those organisations—just as it should. Tertiary education is after all very important for this country in going forward.  
What Te Wananga o Aotearoa has to offer students many of whom are experiencing tertiary education for the first time is also important for this country in going forward. To undermine the wananga’s existence would be a blight on our society.