Mallard Trevor: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1774. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
7. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education 
: What progress has he made on setting the criteria for establishing charter schools? 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Associate Minister of Education) 
: 
 We have made very good progress and this initiative is well overdue—well overdue—for the 20 percent of young people at school without any hope. We have established a working group to provide advice on the New Zealand model of charter schools including criteria for their establishment. In fact the group is meeting as we speak to discuss criteria for New Zealand. It will then make recommendations to Ministers and the first recommendations on charter schools are expected shortly. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Do the criteria for selection include availability of funding for the schools from the bidder; if so does it make any difference whether that funding is applied to the school or to the member’s political party? 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: Charter schools will encourage underperforming students to leave and keep those students’ funding as they have in the United States. The design of our policy will learn from the mistakes and successes of overseas charter schools. A wide variety of enthusiastic and promising operators have approached my office. It is critical in direct answer to this question that there will be a working group. We will establish an arm’s-length body—an arm’s-length body—to approve schools. Approving new charter schools will not be my responsibility and certainly will not be the responsibility of the Labour Party or the unions that do not believe in looking after the kids who are falling through the cracks. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Will the Minister give the House an assurance that the arm’s-length body he is referring to will not be his campaign committee which he used to launder funds in his campaign? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The supplementary question in the form that the member has given it is out of order because it asserts something that is the member’s opinion and as yet is not proved.  
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: OK. I’ll have another go if you like. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I think you have used up that supplementary question but you have other supplementary questions. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I will have another go. When he refused to talk to Kim Dotcom earlier this year did Mr Dotcom want to talk to him about charter schools and why did he say that he did not know him? 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: I have talked to a lot of people about charter schools because far too many of our young people are out of school out of work and out of luck. This Labour Opposition is staying in Opposition because 20 percent of kids up and down the country at school today need this Government and the coalition to put in place an opportunity for them their future and the dignity of work. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is it correct that he is trying to place a charter school inside the Skycity convention complex so that his cronies stop getting bad publicity about kids being left in cars? 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: I want to pick up the member’s question about laundering money and cronies. His crony the Labour Party Mayor of Auckland laundered $490000 through a secret trust into his campaign.  
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am having difficulty hearing. Please can we have some order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are you and your advisers going to sit there while that allegation is made about an act that is illegal—alleging corruption on the part of the mayor of the biggest city in this country—or are you going to do something? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: It is not up to the Speaker to judge the validity of allegations that are flying around this House. My sole role here is to try to keep some process about asking questions about ministerial responsibility. It is not my responsibility to assert whether allegations made are correct or otherwise. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I seek leave to table the electoral return of John Banks for the last general election which shows a very large payment from a trust. 
Hon Member 
: It’s already in public. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: It is some time since that was tabled; I am not sure whether it is still public. The member is seeking leave to table a document. If any member is not happy they can oppose it. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: If Skycity or Mr Dotcom had approached him with an offer to facilitate a charter school would he remember or does the poor recall he has shown of the Skycity and Dotcom donations apply? 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: Anyone approaching me to set up a charter school is referred to the working party and on to the ministry. A separate arm’s-length organisation will be in charge of choosing charter schools not the Minister and not the Government.