6. Question No. 6—EducationHon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 6—Education6. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by all her statements and actions?Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education (Partnership Schools)) on behalf of the Minister of Education: Yes and I'm particularly pleased by this Government's rapid response to the state of school property by the announcement of a ministerial inquiry. I was dismayed to hear of the mould situation of Sommerville School and of projects up and down the country that have not been delivered in a timely manner for schools. I read recently in media that Macleans College in Auckland had funded and built five new classrooms in nine months after being advised by the Ministry of Education that it would take three years to deliver the same learning spaces. They did it for $2.5 million and the ministry then commented they were surprised it could be done so cost-effectively thinking it should have cost over twice that. This Government is committed to improving the delivery of school property for the benefit of teachers and learners up and down the country and an inquiry into how it went so wrong is the first step in that. Hon Jan Tinetti: Does she stand by her guarantee of 27 February that there will be no cuts to school property capital expenditure; if not why not? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Minister yes absolutely she stands by that statement. I think the Opposition is going to have a real problem here in that they have confused spending money with delivering results because if spending $100 billion of borrowed money on every problem actually worked this country wouldn't have any problems after the last Government. That's why this Government is conducting a review: not to ensure that we spend a huge amount of money but to ensure that the kids and the teachers get the classrooms they need to do the learning this country needs.Hon Nicola Willis: Has the Minister heard an interview between one Mike Hosking and the outgoing Minister of Education Jan Tinetti in which she claimed that if more funding was needed for education you simply appropriated it because—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me that's out of order. The question is out of order. The Minister has no responsibility.Hon Jan Tinetti: Does her guarantee include the Ministry of Education's school property team given that the Secretary for Education has said that we wouldn't have built the thousands of classrooms that we have if we didn't have it? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Minister I'm in possession of correspondence from well-respected Auckland property engineering firms who say that you could easily get rid of 75 percent of the Auckland Ministry of Education staff and be better off. However this Government takes a much more benign view of the role of public servants and we will be ensuring that those people who are productive and useful for delivering outcomes for the teachers the kids and the parents are well employed and properly guided to do the job properly which may initially be a surprise to them after the last six years of Chris Hipkins and Jan Tinetti but I think they're up for it.Hon Jan Tinetti: Will she guarantee that the requested 7.5 percent cuts to the education budget will have no impact on kids and their learning and if not why not?Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes absolutely and it might be worth putting a little bit of historical context here. Madam Speaker I'm mindful of your ruling that questions cannot be used to attack the Opposition but what do you do when the Opposition asks a question that invites an attack on the Opposition? Because we have seen the number of bureaucrats employed at the Ministry of Education increase in the past six years from 2500 to 4400 and yet fewer kids are going to school fewer—Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have a point of order from the Hon Kieran McAnulty. I'm going to anticipate but I'm going to let you ask the question—[Interruption] Silence! Points of order will be taken in silence.Hon Kieran McAnulty: I mean the clue was in I'm mindful of your ruling … but" and everything after that was in direct contradiction to the ruling you gave the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah look I get that but there's also—at times some of the questions actually are encouraging of a bit of feedback as well. So I ask the Minister was the Minister—have you completed your answer?Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Not even close Madam Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: No keep it short but complete what you need to say.Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well the question is a good one: will the fiscal pressure this Government finds itself under with its fiscal inheritance affect teaching and learning for students? And the answer I can unequivocally say is absolutely not. The reason that's possible is that there has been so much waste in the past six years that you can reduce expenditure by 6.5 percent very easily—hell some of our coalition partners in this Government would go a lot further. Hon Nicola Willis: In taking this course of action in which the Government works to drive more value from every dollar it invests in the education system so as to improve achievement has he considered an alternative approach in which the Government simply appropriates money from the magic money tree at the end of the garden?Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Minister—Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. I would rarely rise to my feet but that's the second occasion that that member has flaunted the rules of this House and it's grossly disorderly.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a moment. I'm just going to ask for a piece of advice on that question please. Yeah the question is not in order and we'll move on to the next question.Ingrid Leary: How is it value for taxpayers' money for Andersons Bay School in Dunedin to sink five years and $750000 into plans for four new classrooms only to have the Minister suddenly cut that to two new classrooms—in other words cut in half?Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I hope that the students at Andersons Bay primary go on to learn economics better than that member has. You see there's a thing called the sunk cost fallacy and just because money has been spent on something in the past does not mean that continuing to waste money is a good idea. Andersons Bay primary will have its property needs catered to by this Government and it will be done in a much more responsible and prudent way than they might have expected over the last six years."