Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 14 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2989. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
8. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he have any concerns about the public statements of the Secretary to the Treasury; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister of Finance) 
: Generally no because it is the job of the Secretary to the Treasury to give his best advice and the Government then considers that advice. Of course that does not mean that the Government always agrees with that advice. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can he advise the House as to what Mr Makhlouf’s academic credentials are to lead the public on education reform such as increasing class sizes? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I do not have the details of Mr Makhlouf’s credentials in the House today but I point out to the member as a longstanding observer of this House—as I am sure he has been from within the House—that Treasury secretaries all the time provide opinion second opinion and first opinion on Government advice and Governments choose as they do what to accept and what not to accept. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Was the timing of Mr Makhlouf’s public statements in support of larger class sizes a coincidence or was Mr Makhlouf acting as a mouthpiece of this Government? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I think that the Minister of Finance addressed these issues in the House the other day and in particular in relation to the timing of that speech. He was asked at the time whether the Secretary advised him of his intention to give a speech. He responded that he could not recall whether he had or not but he would have given the speech on the basis of evidence that came out of educational research. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can he not see a suspicious coincidence between Mr Makhlouf’s policy advice and the National Party’s obsession with increasing class sizes given that the previous Minister of Education touted this policy in 2009? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I am sure that member is capable of seeing conspiracies in a number of places and I would point out that Mr Makhlouf is not the only person who has proposed slight increases in class sizes— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. A conspiracy is when two or more agree to break the law. I trust that this member does not understand what the word “conspiracy” means. It had nothing to do with this question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member’s point of order is reasonably raised. In answering a question the Minister should not imply that the questioner has some conspiracy theory or otherwise. I do not think there is any great need to get too excited about this issue. The member asked a question that I accept had a bit of political loading in it but some attempt to answer it before alleging a conspiracy theory would be helpful. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would just point out that the member actually asked about conspiracy in his question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Oh I beg your pardon.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was as to whether or not he saw a suspicious coincidence between—[ 
Interruption] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order order! 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
:  
Hansard 
 will prove— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I have got the question written down here. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member will resume his seat. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Well do you want to hear the full facts? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I am not going to let this carry on. What I will do to avoid any—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! The member does not grumble away from his seat like that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I am about to invite the member to repeat his question so I suggest he have a little more confidence that the Speaker is not unreasonable. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I am so grateful for that reassurance. My supplementary question was and is now: can he not see a suspicious coincidence between Mr Makhlouf’s policy advice and the National Party’s obsession with increasing class sizes given that the previous Minister of Education touted this policy in 2009 sans the word “conspiracy”? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No I cannot see a “suspicious coincidence”. The reality is that any number of people have suggested that a small increase in class sizes is something that might be appropriate and the example I would give the member is that in fact Professor Hattie was on  
Q+A 
 just this last weekend I think saying exactly that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does it concern him that the secretary has publicly dismissed the findings of a report by the Attorney-General into his department’s mismanagement of the Crown Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme and then refused to conduct or request an inquiry into this mismanagement; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I do not know that I accept the member’s characterisation of what Mr Makhlouf has done. I think Treasury takes very seriously its role under the deposit guarantee scheme. What the member does not seem to understand is that once the rather drastic decision had been taken in late 2008 by the previous Government to have the deposit guarantee scheme— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Not the extension. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: —it was quite a fraught process. Well if the member thinks that not having an extension would have been the answer I think that probably what would have happened is that automatically a lot of finance companies would have gone bust at that time.