Donnelly Brian: Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 In John Key’s speech on an earlier bill he mentioned that this Government has brought in 19 extra levies and taxes since it became the Government in 1999. After this bill is passed all the way through there will be 20. Basically this is a new tax. It is a tax on the inefficiency and incapability of Government agencies. The private training establishments that are performing well doing well and doing everything properly will pay that tax. 
This is the third shot that the Minister of Education has had at trying to get in place an export education levy and he has not got it right once. The first time was in the Education Standards Act if members recall. There was going to be a levy on all institutions to ensure monitoring of the code of practice for international students. We supported that; we thought that it was good that it was well done. Then there was the other rush of blood to the head: the day before we went into deliberation on the Tertiary Education Reform Bill—the legislation that was the bus passing by; it was Steve Maharey’s little baby—the Minister Trevor Mallard threw an export education levy into it. What happened with that? It went to a select committee for analysis and every institution that came along criticised it. Was Simon Power there? 
Simon Power 
: I was there. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: He was there. I have never seen legislation that everybody who came along said was inadequate would not work and was shonky and they had not been consulted on it. Yet it was pushed through on the basis that the Government would not increase the levy would not put it up—that it was a levy to do just this thing and that thing and the Government would not put it up. Even at that particular time we were being told what that levy would be for. 
What has occurred is that one or two of these private training establishments have not been monitored adequately by the State agencies. Bill English got it right: the problem is the State agencies and the lack of quality assurance systems—they have fallen over. The systems that are being demanded are good systems if they are followed through—for example not just having money put in a bank to make sure there is cover but also checking the bank account to see whether the money is actually there. Not doing that is a pretty fundamental monitoring error. As a result of that fundamental monitoring error the Ministry of Education one way or the other had to come up with $700000. Part of it is administration costs and part of it is direct costs. The Minister then said we will recover it and the way we will recover it is by banging up the export education levy. 
Pansy Wong 
: Who pays? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: The people who are going to pay are the people who are running private training establishments that are working well doing things properly setting high standards and following the rules. Now they are going to be penalised by this Minister because the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has not done its job properly. When we look at Carich—although the circumstances are not quite the same—we see it went down as a result of some of this Government’s policies. Now the private training establishments that have been able to work within those pretty draconian policies to operate well are going to be penalised even further. 
The percentage component of the levy on private training establishments—not polytechs or universities and schools have been exempted already—is going to be increased from 0.45 percent to 0.7 percent. So that the people who are listening can understand the significance of this measure I point out that the increase will apply despite the promulgation of the Education (Export Education Levy) Regulations 2003. So we are going to throw out a regulation that has been promulgated and we will do so purely and simply to put through a piece of legislation as a stopgap measure because one of the Government agencies has not done its job properly. 
Bill English is saying that collecting all this money may not be necessary. But the money has already been spent and the Minister is trying to extract it back. It is one of the problems of having a Minister of Education who is also Associate Minister of Revenue—a Minister who wears both those hats. In this particular case it has led to unjust legislation. If for example—and Mr English once again made this point—a polytech got itself into trouble over the very same sort of thing would the Minister require all the other polytechs to bail it out? If Victoria University or Otago University got itself into some difficulties as a result of the export education market would the Minister expect all the other universities to cough up extra to bail it out? The fact is that no the Minister would not. Unfortunately the part of the sector that the Minister is penalising is the part that is actually achieving. These institutions are doing the very things that he wants them to do—in other words to operate soundly and to provide good-quality export education. Yet now they are going to be penalised. 
There is another downside to this. Who is going to end up paying this bill? 
Simon Power 
: The students. 
Pansy Wong 
: The students. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: It will be the students. I have to say to Mr Mallard that there is a real drop-off in the number of students who are coming here—in fact by two-thirds. Members should consider this: the New Zealand dollar is making export education even more expensive for overseas students. Now it is going to get worse. So what will happen? The Minister takes whole departments over to China to try to promulgate export education here. Can anyone explain to me why he took the chief executive officer of the Education Review Office over to China to say how good our English-language teaching is? That did not make any sense to me. Nevertheless the Minister went over there to try to do a job to try to fix up the mess he has created and now he is creating even more of a mess back here in New Zealand. 
So New Zealand First—I think the Minister probably has got this point—is not going to support this legislation because it is unjust unfair and shonky. The Minister should put his energies into making sure the New Zealand Qualification Authority gets its systems right rather than putting through legislation that is going to penalise quality education providers.