Wong Pansy: Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Wong Pansy: Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:14583] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 The best this incompetent Minister of Education can do is to blame Pansy Wong for undermining export education. This bill has been gutted down to three pages but it should never have been introduced. If this bill is passed it will set a very bad and seriously flawed precedent. It holds private training providers financially responsible for the failure of their competitors yet they have no say in the entry and monitoring of competitors in the export education sector. 
This bill was brought to Parliament at the end of 2003 as a knee-jerk reaction to the collapse of both the Modern Age Institute of Learning and Carich New Zealand. Both of those institutions were registered and accredited by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to enrol international students. No institution can enrol international students without being registered and accredited by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Some Labour MPs persist in using the argument that this bill will establish a separate pool of funds similar to those established previously by motor vehicle dealers accountants or lawyers in the form of fidelity funds. The truth is far from it. Motor vehicle dealers accountants and lawyers themselves have the right to decide the criteria for membership of their organisations. Therefore they are prepared to set up a fund to compensate clients for the misconduct of their members. But in the export education sector only the New Zealand Qualifications Authority a Government entity can decide which institutions are allowed to enrol international students. 
When a Government entity makes the decision as to who is allowed to enrol international students why should other private education providers then be made to pay for its decision? If private training providers have to pay the extra levy then they should be allowed to have a say as to who can enrol international students. But this bill does not provide for that either. 
National will not support the progress of this bill. National’s minority view makes it clear that the passage of this bill is totally unacceptable because firstly it simply sends the wrong message which will encourage the wrong type of institution to join the export education sector. It will further excuse the New Zealand Qualifications Authority from being accountable for its decisions and non-performance. At present for the privilege of being part of the export education sector a fixed fee as well as a percentage of international students’ fees is already collected by all institutions as a levy that is paid to the Ministry of Education. For the 6 months to 30 June 2003 the levy collected was $1.3 million. It was meant to be used for the development promotion and quality assurance of the export education system—but what quality assurance? 
Let me share with the public answers to written questions asked through the select committee process. We asked the New Zealand Qualifications Authority whether it was satisfied with its own performance in monitoring the Modern Age Institute of Learning’s trust accounts. It answered that it employed the appropriate procedures in order to gain the necessary assurances of compliance. Those assurances were very much dependent upon the integrity of those operating the accounts and on statements made by those individuals to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. It meant that when the trustees of those trust accounts told the New Zealand Qualifications Authority that all was well the authority had done its job. Imagine if highway patrol police officers simply accepted every motorist’s assurance that he or she did not drive over the speed limit. This was further reinforced by information obtained under the Official Information Act. Apparently the Hon Trevor Mallard’s office requested it under urgency from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority on 9 September 2003 because the media and Opposition parties were asking hard questions on the collapse of the Modern Age Institute of Learning. Why did the New Zealand Qualifications Authority not find out about the missing funds from the Modern Age Institute of Learning’s trust accounts? 
 Apparently the New Zealand Qualifications Authority conducted two audits within 6 months. It did not find out the problem that the money in the Modern Age Institute of Learning trust account belonging to the students was not there. According to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority that was because its audit was one of quality management. They were not financial audits and the authority relied on statements made by the accountants with regard to the solvency of private training providers. What a trusting organisation! 
The select committee received about 30 submissions with half of those coming from private providers. The others came from the tertiary sector organisations that were not affected by the bill. Nonetheless all of them opposed the bill. There were common themes from the opposition—from all the submitters—that there was a lack of consultation that it was inequitable that one part of the sector should compensate for the fault of another part and that the responsibility for the collapses of the Modern Age Institute of Learning and Carich should be shared by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Government. It is simply inequitable to proceed with this bill. 
The Minister of Education might think that his by now famous and frequent U-turns to remove the retrospective nature of this bill should appease all concerned. The problem is none of us is convinced. The inherent problem in the export education sector is that the gatekeeper the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Ministry of Education do not have the capability to carry out that task. Some might think that the Modern Age Institute of Learning and Carich were just a two-off event that happened in 2003 but this year we learnt of another collapse—that of the Paramount Institute. A $1 million trust fund went missing and once again the New Zealand Qualifications Authority was not very quick off its feet even when former staff wrote to it with specific complaints. It was reported in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 that documents had been obtained showing that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority received repeated requests for help from staff at the Paramount Institute concerned at the way the owners handled student money. They complained that they did not get any response from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. 
It would be totally irresponsible for this bill to be passed to punish private training providers who with others have built up this export education sector to be one of the top five export earners. The decent thing for the Labour Government to do is to withdraw this bill and conduct an inquiry that would focus on the legislative adequacy of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and related agencies to carry out their roles levels of resourcing competence and robustness in registration accreditation monitoring auditing and follow-up systems and procedures. Without this the export education sector will continue to suffer. I can assure the House that no amount of bullying and insults from the Minister of Education to me personally will get him off from me demanding answers. This Minister’s incompetence is not covered up by him personally insulting me.