Cunliffe David: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 10 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6535. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: What is the name of the tertiary education institution he referred to in his answer to Oral Question No 9 yesterday that had its focused review “elevated to a full review” and what is the nature of the allegations that his officials are now investigating?Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the Minister my office has been advised that this answer may be longer than normal.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): The tertiary education system is under constant evaluation with the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority undertaking a range of different levels of review and investigations of tertiary education organisations at any one time. In the interests of natural justice these are not publicised until they are completed or indeed for the majority where no issues at all are found they may not be publicised at all. Six focused reviews were initiated in 2014 to look at tertiary education organisations that had some features in common with Te Whare Wanānga o Awanuiārangi and the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki. As indicated to the member yesterday five of those have been concluded completely satisfactorily with no concerns. The sixth investigation will come to a conclusion shortly. As I said to the member yesterday at an appropriate time I would be more than happy to publicise the outcome of that investigation and name the institution involved should there be a necessity to do so but I do not consider it in the public interest to do so at this time before the investigation has concluded.Hon David Cunliffe: Do the allegations against the institution currently still under an elevated review include inflated credit values for course delivery such as an 11-month course being delivered and assessed in just 7 days?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not prepared to go into the details of that at this point but as I said to the member yesterday and also announced in my primary answer the issues that we are talking about are with some similarity to what has been announced recently in relation to Te Whare Wanānga o Awanuiārangi and also Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre so there will be some similarities in terms of funding commitments that may not have been met in terms of the amount of teaching that has been provided.Hon David Cunliffe: Do the allegations against this institution include the enrolment of tutors as ghost students for more than a decade across a range of programmes?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: My answer to that is exactly the same as the answer to the previous one. The member will be aware that the Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre had some issues with some tutors being enrolled in programmes and those moneys being paid. Those are both subject to a current Serious Fraud Office investigation but also have been announced in terms of the Deloitte review. In relation to the other investigation he is referring to I am not willing to provide the details at this time but I am happy to do so once the investigation is complete.Hon David Cunliffe: In what year—in what year—was he first made aware of allegations of systemic credit and level rorting and of tutors being enrolled in courses to boost numbers and funding at Tai Poutini Polytechnic in Greymouth and why has he not acted sooner given that Search and Rescue Institute New Zealand says that as a result of this delivery lives have been put at risk?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Steven Joyce—either of those two supplementary questions.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The matters that the member raises are not for his edification the subject of any current review. I am aware of the issues that the Search and Rescue Institute raised—Dr David Clark: What year?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not have the year in front of me. They were satisfactorily resolved at the time.Hon David Cunliffe: Given that Tai Poutini Polytechnic is not the institution that his officials are still investigating can he assure the taxpayers of New Zealand that he will now immediately order a further investigation into these allegations; if not why not?Mr SPEAKER: Again either of those two supplementary questions.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The matters that the Search and Rescue Institute raised—and again any number of people raise any number of prospective issues particularly in a competitive environment of which this one is—as far as I am aware were addressed at the time. If the member has any new and recent information I would be happy for him to supply it to me and I would have a look at it.Hon David Cunliffe: How would the Minister respond to the acting general manager of the Search and Rescue Institute New Zealand who says in a letter of today’s date: “How can training that formerly occurred over 1 year now all be taught and assessed in one 7-day period? Are the students aware that as search and rescue responders their lives are being forsaken so the polytechnic can make money? How despite previous complaints to TEC to the Minister of Tertiary Education and public notification of such occurrences has this been allowed to continue for so long?”Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member may or may not be aware that that is a statement by a competitor I believe of that particular course but again I make the offer that I made in the previous answer—Grant Robertson: So it’s all right then?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No I am just making the member aware that different people make different claims about competing providers at different times but my invitation to the member is that rather than grandstanding about it if he would like to provide the information to me I would be more than happy to investigate it.