Hipkins Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4548. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
11. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Did she send any of her responses to correspondence she received expressing concern about the Government’s plan to increase class sizes to the correspondents’ employers; if so why? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Yes. It is my practice when I receive a letter from a professional on behalf of a school that I reply to the leadership and governance of that school as well as to the person who wrote the letter representing it. Boards and principals are responsible for their schools and for the representation of their schools’ views. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Did she send any replies to a school board of trustees where the individual writing to her had identified themselves as a teacher but not identified the school they were employed by? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Hon—I beg your pardon did the Minister not hear the question? I would ask the member please to repeat the question. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Did she send any replies to a school board of trustees where the individual writing to her had identified themselves as a teacher but not identified the school they were employed by? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: No. 
Chris Hipkins 
: I seek leave to table a letter from a teacher in Tauranga dated 5 April 2012 headed up “Proposed teacher staffing cuts”. I have removed their home address and their name but all other details remain there and the school is not identified in the letter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that letter. Is there any objection? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Leave is sought to table that document and then I will hear the Minister’s point of order. Leave is sought to table the document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. Does the Minister wish to raise a point of order? 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understood the question to be asking me whether I had written to their board. I clearly wrote to them at their home—he is tabling one that has a home address. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not strictly a point of order. I realise the Minister is trying to be helpful though. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Did the Minister write to this correspondent whose letter I have just tabled at their home address and not send a letter to that school’s board of trustees? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: In the absence of prescience as to whom that letter is from I am unable to answer that. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Did any of the people involved in preparing her replies to the letters she received from teachers expressing concern about her Government’s plan to increase class sizes access any Government database or records system to identify the school that the teacher worked at? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: No. I do not have access to private information about teachers and their schools nor have I asked for such information from my office staff or from staff at the ministry. I have absolute confidence that none of my staff or staff from the ministry would have accessed such information of their own accord. It is distressing to them for the member to assert otherwise. 
Chris Hipkins 
: If a parent sends her a letter about their child’s education using a work email account does she send the response to that correspondent’s employer; if not how does she make a distinction between them and a teacher? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I make it on the basis of representation. When a teacher writes to me above their position and their school address I respond accordingly. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Can the Minister confirm for the House that in no instance where a teacher wrote from a private email address or using their private home address did she send the response to that letter to the school board of trustees that employs that teacher? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I reiterate: I do not have access to private information about teachers and their schools. I have not sought that information. I have written back to the person in their official capacity to the address from which they have sent the letter. If they have written in a private capacity and written from a private address they have been responded to accordingly.