Cunliffe David: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 18 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:9155. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]11.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: Does he have full confidence in the Tertiary Education Commission’s oversight of tertiary education funding?Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Associate Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment) on behalf of theMinister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: Overall yes. I have confidence in the system’s ability to monitor over $2 billion of funding to over 730 tertiary education providers which delivered 163045 qualifications in 2014 up over 31000 on 2008 including 29390 Bachelor’s degrees up from 4460 in 2008. I am also confident that the Tertiary Education Commission will thoroughly investigate any funding concerns and indeed is doing so in a more robust manner than at any time in the Tertiary Education Commission’s history.Hon David Cunliffe: How can the Minister have confidence in the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority when a Deloitte review said that coordination between the two is inadequate when there are now five Serious Fraud Office probes into the sector and 35 providers have “widespread or serious” education delivery issues 27 of which the names are still being kept secret?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The report that that member has referred to has found that the broad approach to monitoring tertiary education organisations has the principal elements expected of a comprehensive framework. It also went on to make some additional recommendations to improve monitoring including the increased use of data analytics—more extensively used both in risk assessment and also in identifying specific issues for review and investigation—as well as improved reporting between both the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a copy of the Deloitte report which says that the system lacks—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just want an assurance that the report is not freely available to members if they want to go back and search for it.Hon David Cunliffe: It is not freely available. It is a public document but it has not been tabled in this House.Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular Deloitte report. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table for the first time an Official Information Act response from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority which declares 35 cases of serious or widespread misappropriation but redacts the names of 27 of them.Mr SPEAKER: And the date?Hon David Cunliffe: The date of that is 15 December 2015.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular response to an Official Information Act request. Any objection? There is none; it can be tabled.Report by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon David Cunliffe: Why did the Minister support the Tertiary Education Commission’s decision not to pursue targeted compliance reviews of six institutions now that at least one of those Quantum Education Group has since been referred to the Serious Fraud Office?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Of the six organisations reviewed in the first round only five were found to have no issues at all. It was therefore decided that it would be more cost-effective to undertake the Deloitte review that the member mentioned in an earlier supplementary question. This review found that the monitoring practices are designed well and made a number of additional recommendations to improve and enhance monitoring further. The Tertiary Education Commission will continue to monitor organisations it funds. It is using a regular auditing programme as well as additional tools like pattern-recognition software to identify any concerns and I add as I said in my first answer this is the most robust monitoring by the Tertiary Education Commission of the over 730 providers than ever before.Hon David Cunliffe: I again seek leave to table the report that the Minister has just quoted from given that it is not a freely distributed document and a member of her own caucus—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No the member sought leave before. It was denied by the House.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your advice. I sought leave to table a document. It is a document that the Minister’s answers themselves have relied upon. Leave was declined by a member of the House—in fact the Leader—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do not need to hear any more than that. That is the issue. I decide whether it is suitable for the leave to be put. Leave is put to the House; any member has a right to object. If that is the end of the matter the member cannot continue to then contest the decision of this House; it has been made.Hon David Cunliffe: How can the Minister have confidence in the Tertiary Education Commission when Audit New Zealand has recently audited a heavily qualified audit opinion that says that its accounts are so imprecise it cannot properly or robustly account for $2.8 billion of public expenditure each year?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I think it is important to put on record the exact issue that that member is referring to because it is very wide of the comments that he has just made. The qualified audit opinion is a result of the Tertiary Education Commission not applying the requirements of new highly technical accounting standards in relation to grant expenditure and financial statements in its 2014-15 annual report. The new standard needs to be applied consistently by the Ministry of Education the tertiary education institutions themselves and the Tertiary Education Commission as it relates to the time at which revenue and expenditure is recognised by the various organisations in the funding chain. From the Crown’s perspective these transactions should eliminate on consolidation. So with extensive consultation that has been under way the Tertiary Education Commission decided it was better to partially implement the standards and get it right for the next time.Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a copy of the opinion from Audit New Zealand where it says the commission has not applied the requirements of the new public—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Was this information presented to the member at a select committee?Hon David Cunliffe: The material was indeed presented—Mr SPEAKER: Yes so then it is again available to all members if they want it.Hon David Cunliffe: What action is the Minister taking to protect whistle-blowers to the Tertiary Education Commission following allegations conveyed to him in a letter dated 14 February 2016 that the Western Institute of Technology is using taxpayers’ funds to pursue a legal vendetta against both former and current staff members who have properly raised substantiated probity issues to the Tertiary Education Commission?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I cannot comment on that specific example. But what I will say is that in the first step where there is a whistle-blower they are responsible to the institution that they have declared an issue with. It is for that institution to respond to that complaint. Outside of that the broader issue around whistle-blowers is a matter for the State Services Commission.Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table a letter to the Hon Steven Joyce dated 14 February which details a series of allegations against the Western Institute of Technology. It has been appropriately redacted so that it can be publicly released.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Mr SPEAKER: I put the leave; the member had an opportunity to object. We were not told where it was from because it was redacted but it was a letter to Mr Joyce. [Interruption] I will hear from the Hon David Cunliffe.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. All identifying particulars names and titles have been redacted from the letter on the advice of the Clerk of the House.Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave again. Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is objection.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think we are in a difficult position where you had already indicated that the document could be tabled. You cannot go back to a decision that you have already made. The leave was put the leave was accepted and you made the ruling. We cannot then go back and relitigate that. You have indicated that members cannot relitigate when a document is not tabled. They cannot relitigate when one is.Mr SPEAKER: I think on this occasion finally the member makes a very good point. I put the leave I waited there was no objection at the time. Subsequent to my saying that it can be tabled there was a reasonable question asked about whether it had been signed. Mr Cunliffe took the opportunity to clarify that it had been redacted for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. If members want to object they need to object at the time I seek leave of the House. It was not done at the time; it has been tabled. I thank Mr Hipkins for his assistance.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: No I have made a decision.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I accept your ruling.Mr SPEAKER: If the member accepts my ruling—a further point of order.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I think that sometimes the problem is—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Gerry Brownlee: Sometimes the problem is that members seek to make a political point and therefore say too much about the document or use the document to make their point and that can be difficult. In this case the member was pretty succinct but I was sitting here thinking: “Hello—got a letter. Who’s it from and what is the situation? Where may that lead the House in a legal sense if there were redactions?”. But I accept your ruling.Mr SPEAKER: I think that in future if the member is thinking “Well hello.” he needs to act a little more quickly to help the House.