Donnelly Brian: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Donnelly Brian: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:11542] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 In speaking to the Budget Policy Statement I want to make the point that Governments have a responsibility to ensure that the taxes extracted from its citizens are used wisely efficiently and effectively. New Zealanders do not so much mind being taxed but they hate to see their taxes wasted and going down the gurgler for no good purpose. That is what New Zealanders hate. Therefore it is the ultimate irony that the Associate Minister of Revenue Trevor Mallard has joint responsibility with Michael Cullen to ensure there is no wastage in Government expenditure. It is Trevor Mallard who in his other portfolio as Minister of Education has squandered literally hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars through sheer mismanagement. 
Let us just take industrial relations. In 1997 and 1998 the National - New Zealand First team had long drawn-out negotiations—reasonably bitter—with the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute yet not one day’s learning was lost through strike action relating to those negotiations. I have to ask this House: how many days were lost when Trevor Mallard negotiated with a Labour-leaning Post Primary Teachers Association? 
But here is the rub. The situation was handled so badly that when those teachers went on strike many of them still got paid. I kid you not! The Minister now has to bring special legislation forward to ensure that this will not happen again this year. 
But what was the result? The Government ended up by paying secondary teachers a whole lot more than they were claiming in the first place and far far more than they were prepared to settle for. It reminds one of the ASB Goldstein advertisement where he ends up paying more than the sales girl was asking and still claiming: “I’m the man.” Members should watch that advertisement and think: “Trevor Mallard”. Over the years that fiasco will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and we have ended up with an industrial mess over qualifications of monumental proportions. It is so bad that the Minister anticipates industrial action from both primary and secondary teachers in the salary rounds that take place this year—hence the rush for the legislation. 
What about his handling of the school network reviews? In order to curry favour with the unions before the 1999 elections he offered gold-plated staffing schedules for small primary schools. In doing so he clearly put them in the sights of Treasury because of their disproportionate per-pupil costs—hence the mad rush to close down as many schools as possible in the earliest possible time frame. 
But Trevor Mallard does not do anything by halves. If he is going to stuff up then he will stuff up big time. Not content to look at areas where there were smaller schools with unsustainable rolls Trevor Mallard decided to hit provincial towns and cities. He wanted to consult with parents eyeball-to-eyeball as I did in Oamaru in 1998. But when I came away from the anger that existed because parents felt predetermined decisions had been made that anger had been quelled. In Trevor Mallard’s case all he did was to stir things up wherever he went. Between 1996 and 1999 95 schools were shut. There was not one march on Parliament yet in these particular rounds we have already seen two marches on Parliament—one from south Taranaki and one from the Upper Hutt communities—on two separate occasions. 
Trevor Mallard bit off more than he could chew or the system could accommodate. It took some time for reality to sink in but finally he realised he was going too far too fast. I will give him credit for that. He announced he would back up a bit and slow the process down. That was the wise thing to do. Some fine-tuning of the current review decisions could have been made but then what did he do? He announced a moratorium. What happened to all his fine speeches about eradicating wastage? Suddenly wastage of taxpayers’ money became all right because of two unfavourable polls but worse he set up an expectation from schools that had been through the process that they had been given a stay of execution. After all the enormously expensive work through the network process what has he done? He has actually set the process backwards so that most of those schools now hope for a reversal. 
If his decisions were the right ones 2 weeks ago why are they not the right ones now? The Minister has got himself into a real mess but—and this is the unfortunate situation—like the secondary schools teacher situation he will spend whatever is necessary to extricate himself from that mess.