Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:20050] 
8.  
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education 
: Is he confident that the Government is fulfilling its obligation under the Education Act 1989 that every child is entitled to free enrolment and free education at any State school; if so why? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
 on behalf of the 
 Associate Minister of Education 
: Although there has been some confusion on the part of a principal I can now answer yes because we will continue to have a Labour-led Government and therefore members opposite will not be in a position to privatise schools. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That answer cannot be acceptable. That Minister talked about a Labour-led Government. Labour will be climbing over cut glass to get to other parties after the election. He should not be giving a hypothetical answer like that. He was asked to respond in terms of this term and this term alone. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Standing Orders do allow for hypothetical questions and hypothetical answers. I listened carefully. The Minister did address the first part of the question so the question has been addressed. Hypothetical answers are permitted under the Standing Orders as are hypothetical questions. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Madam Speaker it might be what you think is a hypothetical answer but unless you are clairvoyant you cannot come to that decision although it may be that you know something that we do not know—for example that there will be an election shortly. The Minister’s answer appeared to go beyond that and clearly that is not what this term of Parliament is about—the term for which he is responsible. He will have to have his ministerial warrant renewed after the next election if he should be so lucky. Surely he should be asked to constrain his comments to this term and this term alone. If you think any old hypothetical answer is satisfactory well I do not and I do not believe that the Standing Orders cover that at all. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The ban on hypothetical questions was removed from the Standing Orders in I think 1996—certainly it was a considerable number of years ago. If hypothetical questions are allowed there must be hypothetical answers although personally the re-election of a Labour-led Government I do not regard as hypothetical. But dealing more substantially with the point raised by the member I suggest that if a Minister cannot answer for anything that might happen after the election date this year which may be no later than 24 September that will be a very huge constraint on the kinds of questions that can be asked for the remainder of this session of Parliament. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think the member has made his point. Could we please now move on. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Minister guarantee that today’s special-needs funding announcements will provide teacher-aide support to enable every special-needs child to attend school for a full school day or will parents still have to pay up to $10000 each year to enable their child to access his or her legal entitlement to a free education in a State school? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is not appropriate for a parent to have to pay $10000 to access a State school. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Has the Minister heard of any reports or proposals to privatise any State schools? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes. I have seen a proposal effectively to privatise some schools by transferring those schools to trusts so that they will be able to enrol whomever they want to exclude the child next door to charge whatever they want to be subsidised by the Government and to be sold. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware of increasing anger among parents that they are now paying $200 million per year in fees and donations for his so-called free education and that one reason parents have to pay $200 million in fees for free State education under Labour is that for every new $1 he has given schools for operations funding he has given another $1 to bureaucrats with the result that there are 1200 more of them in the education field? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am quite willing to offer a briefing to the member so that he can better understand education accounts and stop making such mistaken comments. 
Tariana Turia 
: What response would the Minister give a teacher who rang my office concerned about the pressure placed on that teacher’s school when an Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme student was mainstreamed for 30 hours a week but funded for only 15 hours? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: A lot of Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme students in schools are funded for much fewer than 15 hours. They are funded for the amount that is appropriate. 
Metiria Turei 
: Is the Minister aware that the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme grant disproportionately affects low-decile schools because of its very narrow criteria—both the school and the parents of the child must provide extensive written applications and any educational assessments of the child must be paid for by the parent—and when will this Government change the system to enable the 2 percent of all children who have very high needs to be properly and fully supported in their legal right to education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member is not correct when she says that all assessments of children applying for the Ongoing and Reviewable Resource Scheme grant have to be paid for by the parents. That is just not true. 
Tariana Turia 
: What response would the Minister give to a parent who rang my office who had been told by a teacher at the local school that the child would be considered a drain on that school’s funding and that it would be better if that child was enrolled elsewhere? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I would invite the member to give that case to me. The person who made that comment especially if he or she were a principal of a school or a teacher at a school acted particularly unprofessionally. 
Metiria Turei 
: What is the Minister’s response to the 97 percent of schools reported in the Quality Public Education Coalition report on special education that stated last year that the bulk-funded special-education grant is inadequate to meet the needs of their children in light of today’s failed announcement there would be no increase in the said grant? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I would treat the Quality Public Education Coalition report with the respect it deserves and put it in the rubbish bin. 
Metiria Turei 
: How many special-needs children are currently being sent home at lunchtime because their schools simply cannot provide teacher-aide support for their special needs and how many will continue to be sent home at lunchtime because today’s announcement funding increase will not provide them with the funding and support they need to get the education they deserve and are legally entitled to? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Since I have become Minister of Education funding for special-needs children has increased by over $90 million the year. The latest increase of $30 million announced by my colleague David Benson-Pope will make an enormous difference in making sure that some of the most vulnerable children in our system get the support they deserve and need. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table the 1997 Budget which demonstrates that New Zealand First added another $200 million in respect of the funding that Mr Mallard talks about in half the time he boasts about. 
Document not tabled.