Quinn Paul: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Quinn Paul: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19345] 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 I start by saying that I thought the Minister for Tertiary Education gave an excellent retort to the first speaker from the Labour benches and debunked everything he said. I wanted to focus on the positive in my contribution to this debate but after listening to the tirade from Carol Beaumont and the passionless rhetoric which no doubt was produced by Labour’s research group I would say that the Labour Party’s research group is lacking in skills. It is about time it got some skilled staff in there to produce decent material for Labour members to speak on. 
I remind the previous speaker Carol Beaumont that the responsibility of the Government is to make sure it gets value for money. That is why the Tertiary Education Commission has had to recover $4.3 million from 18 industry training organisations that have been claiming funding for students who are not eligible and in fact in most cases do not exist. I say to that member that the Government’s first priority should be to get value for money. I want to speak positively about this subject because it is very serious. I myself am a product of a tertiary education— 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Not a good one. 
PAUL QUINN 
: —and was challenged that I might not be able to succeed. Just to prove my challengers wrong I say to Dr Prasad I decided to get one A. I ended up getting an A in the hardest of subjects which was econometrics. For those who do not know what econometrics is I tell them it is mathematical economics. I got a couple of Bs in economics and then I wanted to prove that I could get passing down to an art form by getting Cs for the rest of my subjects. 
Tertiary education is a very critical matter that this Government takes very seriously which is why we have a Minister of Steven Joyce’s capabilities overseeing it to make sure that this country gets value for money in terms of the limited resources that are available. Because of that we are giving significant funding increases and there has been a huge increase in student places at university for instance as the Minister explained. 
I will also talk about why I think tertiary education is critical. The one thing I could agree with in terms of Mr Shearer’s contribution to the debate is that tertiary education is an extraordinarily important area. It contributes to economic growth and enables the country to move forward as the requirements change within the economic environment and we provide people who can bring the skills to bear in those areas that are required. 
One of the things I found fascinating in terms of this matter—having people who are qualified and can lead the economic growth that this country so sadly needs; and this Government is addressing that issue—is the fact that as I think a previous member alluded to Professor Sir Paul Callaghan addressed the Labour Party conference a few weeks ago. In addressing the conference the four critical words he uttered were: “We require entrepreneurial genius.” This was in response to a Labour Government that had gone through all the catchcries and clichés about having a knowledge wave economic transformation and growth in innovation but never produced a thing. Sir Paul Callaghan says we must have entrepreneurial genius. Thank you. 
Report noted.