Hipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9658. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement that “we do need to review the way we fund schools and focus more on outcomes rather than blunt proxy”?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker; yes.Chris Hipkins: Will she rule out funding increasing or decreasing based on student achievement data; if not why not?Hon HEKIA PARATA: No; because we are at the very early stages of the process so I do not want to predetermine outcomes.Chris Hipkins: If she will not rule that out how can such a system work without either punishing schools whose results improve or rewarding schools whose results get worse?Hon HEKIA PARATA: We are at the very early stages of the review. We want to explore what our options are. We want to do that with the sector and we will take the necessary time to do it.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a very specific question about how the system would work without punishing or rewarding schools.Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am going to invite—[Interruption] Order! I am going to invite the question to be asked again but one of the difficulties I have is I could not hear all of the question and I could not hear the answer because of the interjecting particularly from my right-hand side. It has to cease.Chris Hipkins: If she will not rule out—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just a minute. To the Hon Paula Bennett that is your final warning for question time today.Chris Hipkins: If she will not rule that out how can such a system work without either punishing schools whose results improve or rewarding schools whose results get worse?Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member’s question is predicated on a view he already has regardless of my answer. I have said that we are not ruling anything in or out at this stage because we are at such an early stage so to then go on and answer a question he has made on the basis of a different answer would be to obviate the original answer I gave.Chris Hipkins: Supplementary question Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will just wait for a bit of silence.Chris Hipkins: How will she ensure that any move to shift funding from deciles to the risk profiles of individual children does not result in the stigma associated with deciles shifting from the schools to the individual children?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Again the member’s question is based on his view about where money will shift from and to. No decisions have been made in that regard at this point.Hon Member: It’s in the newspaper Hekia.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Oh the newspaper might say that but I am saying what I am saying.Chris Hipkins: Why is the Government considering basing school funding on Treasury’s risk profiling model when Treasury’s own analysis found that up to half the children who experience poor outcomes have none of those risk factors in their lives while a third of those who are deemed to be at risk do not have poor outcomes?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am really pleased that the member has taken the time to acquaint himself with the detailed work that we are doing. Of course we will take advantage of all the rich material we have to consider the options that might present themselves that may result in a change at some time in the future but we are not yet at that place.Chris Hipkins: How will the Government establish the qualification levels of parents if they decide to incorporate that into the school funding system as proposed in the paper this morning which she was quoted in; will parents have to bring their CVs along when they enrol their kids at school?Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member might like to reflect on the time he spent as adviser to a former Minister of Education when the decile system was introduced and where the qualifications of the family are included in the meshblock that the census uses—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a very poor reflection on the Hon Dr—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just—[Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. He knows the rules better than most. If he wants to raise a point of order he should do so.Chris Hipkins: Why should New Zealanders have confidence in her ability to introduce a new funding system when she has botched other similar projects like Novopay and has allowed the level of donations collected from parents to increase by over 30 percent since National came to office?Hon HEKIA PARATA: For every hundred dollars that the taxpayer pays to fund our education system parents pay $1.80. That makes up a very small part of our education vote and that is a choice that parents make. Moreover earlier in the House today we heard that all achievement in schools particularly in National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 but also including participation in early childhood education has gone up under this Government.