English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:624;Page:19037] 
4.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Was he the Minister in charge of Vote Education during the period 2000 to 2003 in which spending on bottom end sub-degree courses doubled; if so did he obtain Cabinet approval for funding these courses? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes I was the Minister in charge of Vote Education during that period. No I did not obtain Cabinet approval because I was not a Minister at the time the decision to have this policy was taken. However because I have seen the outrageous waste resulting from Bill English’s decision I and my colleague Steve Maharey have capped private training establishment funding put in place caps for managing growth in tertiary education institutes and reduced classification 5.1 community education funding—and members have not seen anything yet. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Minister’s answer raises quite an interesting question because when I look at the way the question is drafted I see that it asks whether the Minister was in charge of the vote and it does not appear to me that it is really appropriate for the Minister to get up and say: “Well at the time the decision was taken I wasn’t in charge of the vote.” Indeed if the Minister is able to get away with saying that all that this Government needs to do in order to be completely unaccountable for the last 5 years is to have a shuffle of portfolios. It would seem to me that as the Minister took over the role of Minister of Education 5 years ago he really does have an obligation for what the ministry has been doing in the last 5 years especially when the question is actually drafted as “the Minister in charge of Vote Education” and names the year. He cannot get up and say: “Well I wasn’t the Minister in those years but I can give you some other interesting bits of abuse that you might like to hear.” 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am sorry if I was not clear. I do want to clarify for the House that I was Minister in charge of Vote Education when Parliament approved the funding in all of those years. The approval for the policy change that allowed that funding to happen was done when Bill English was in Cabinet. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Ruling on the point of order I say that the answer did address the question. Whether it was appropriate however is a matter for political debate. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister who has been regarded as one of the key Ministers in the Government now saying that he was not present at any of the Budget round meetings Cabinet committee meetings or Cabinet meetings where the Government agreed to fund $1.75 billion for tertiary courses between the years 2000 and 2003 that students did not complete; if he was not present or responsible for that huge waste of public money who was? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think I was certainly present for a lot of Budget meetings and a lot of Budget bilaterals as that member was during the period of the last National Government when $5.5 billion was wasted on uncompleted courses. Using that member’s calculation methods—shared with us—$5.5 billion was wasted in that time. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Will sub-degree courses that are taught face to face be differentiated price-wise from the packaged distance programmes delivered by the likes of Te Wananga o Aotearoa on a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:60 or greater? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The Government has not taken that decision yet but I am pretty sure that it will. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Has the Minister seen any reports on the impact the crackdown on classification of 5.1 community education funding is having? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes. I have seen a report that the Southern Institute of Technology is trying to claim around $2.5 million over and above its capped entitlement for delivering 5.1 courses. Those are the courses that Bill English complained about substantially and now I see him quoted in the paper as saying that the institute should get its money. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: Is the Minister aware of the comment by the Southern Institute of Technology Chief Executive Penny Simmonds that it has no choice but to run low-cost sub-degree courses that make a profit in order to cross-subsidise the underfunded trade courses that run at a loss; if so does he take any responsibility for this perverse outcome and the trade skills shortages that the country faces at present? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The Southern Institute of Technology has chosen to go to Christchurch to charge nil for its trades courses in Christchurch to undermine the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology trades courses there to take nothing from the students and then to complain when it makes a loss. I have no sympathy for it. 
Hon Bill English 
: How does the Minister feel about his decisions to spend millions of dollars on radio singalong courses and computer courses that do not exist when he gets letters from parents of children with special needs like this one about John aged 8 who cannot read write or speak but who has had all his special-education support cut; or like this one from a mother who now has to cut back her working week by 15 hours because her severely disabled 18-year-old daughter who goes to school three afternoons a week has had all her teaching-aide hours cut? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: This Government has significantly increased the funding to special education and we will continue to increase it significantly. There are questions around priorities of spending on education and I might say that the decisions that that member took when he was Minister of Finance around the prioritising of education funding as part of the 1998 and 1999 Budgets are something that we are taking some time to reverse—too long in some cases. But I say that rip-offs that were set up under his rules are being closed down. 
Hon Bill English 
: How does the Minister feel then about letters from this decile 8 school which last year had to raise $35000 to make its budget balance and which has been told by the Ministry of Education that the increase in its operations grant from his pre-Christmas package to offset that $35000 is $298? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Under this Government that school has had a significant increase in its operations grant funding—much much more than it had under the previous Government except for the period when the Hon Brian Donnelly had some control of the purse.