English Bill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
English Bill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14367] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 The Minister is about $100 million late. He could have easily fixed 5.1 by firing the so-called professionals who are running three or four of our polytechnics and who simply broke the rules in a very unethical and unprofessional manner. If he fired the councils that he appoints because they would not fire the chief executives everyone would get the message. Instead what he has done is cut millions from the funding of every regional polytechnic including most of the ones that behaved themselves admirably and did not take the opportunity. 
The other question I have for the Minister is this: where are his officials? Clearly Ministers are not taking the estimates seriously. There are no officials present so if one asks a question such as I will be asking there is no one to tell me the answer. Here is the question. The Government has funded a pretty extensive assessment project through Auckland University. The product asTTle is now out in the schools. I have been debating with the Ministry of Education and the Minister about access to the asTTle data because it now has 100000 students on it and the data has been calibrated to produce finely judged testing. That system is working in our schools right now. I asked for that data under the Official Information Act and I received a scrambled reply from the ministry that said I am allowed a briefing on it. But even though the ministry has total ownership of intellectual property in that data the letter does not say it will not release it it just does not address the issue. 
So I ask the Minister tonight whether he will give me the performance data from asTTle. I know it is there. It is called trial data but it does not matter what it is called; the ministry owns it. It is all packaged up and accessible. It is not in raw read-only form like the data from the ministry that the Minister gives to me when he is using smart-alec tactics. It is all there ready to go. One can press the button and look at it and Professor John Hattie will show it to anyone who goes to his office. So if I can see it in his office why will the Minister not give me that data under the Official Information Act? It is owned by the taxpayer paid for by the taxpayer and readily available. I am allowed a verbal briefing on it apparently and I presume some presentations on a screen but I am not allowed the trial data. I want to know from the Minister why? 
I also want him to explain why he does not have officials here to answer our questions because that is what has always happened in the 13 years almost 14 years that I have been in this Parliament. At estimates time Ministers sit in the chair with the officials nearby and answer questions. Where are they? I want to know where they are and why this Government is so arrogant that it thinks it does not have to bring officials here to answer questions about why publicly funded data is not being given to this Parliament even though the Ombudsman intervened to make sure I got some versions of it. Why is that the case? 
Where are the officials who can answer questions about the $80 million blowout and the deep-seated conflicts of interest at Christchurch Polytechnic? They are being protected because they have done their job as badly as this Minister has. There are a whole lot of questions about education spending and they just cannot answer with any integrity. There is an $80 million blowout. What could our schools have done if they had that amount to spend on information technology or their operations grant? What could have been done with $80 million to appease the Minister’s crocodile tears about student debt? He will go around half-crying to student audiences for the next 15 months about how he wished he could do something. Well he blew the money! For all his steering control and strategy he blew huge amounts of money—millions of dollars—on the least strategic least important and lowest value waste of education that could be found in any tertiary system. He blew it. So where are the officials and why are they not here to answer our questions? What is so special about the Minister and his officials that they do not have to front up? I also ask the Minister to tell me about asTTle. It is publicly funded data. I have asked for it and I am allowed a briefing. Where is the data?