Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. As I indicated to the House when the bill was introduced, the purpose of this bill is to provide statutory protection to New Zealand’s international reputation as a desirable location where international students can study without educational or financial risk.

This bill is a key part of the Government’s policy to encourage the sustainable growth of the export education sector by increasing confidence in the stability and security of New Zealand education providers. As a side point, this has not been helped by one member of this House, Pansy Wong, who attempts to be widely reported in China undermining the private education sector in New Zealand. I find it very regrettable that private individuals’ businesses are being put at risk by her approach to, and deliberate undermining of, the industry internationally. Some people take a broad view of the economy and try to be supportive of business people who are working hard in New Zealand, and other people deliberately undermine them. If I were to be generous I would say they did not care, but if I were not to be generous I would say they were possibly working with ulterior motives.

This bill is needed to protect what is now a $2 billion industry. The provisions mean that the cost of any future failure of private education providers will need to be borne by the sector, not by the taxpayer, as has been the case until now. I want to make it clear that this Government has looked after those students. It has worked very hard to look after students when language schools have collapsed. The National Party has opposed Labour’s attempts to look after those students, and I regret that the National Party has indicated far and wide that it does not care about international students. It does not care about them. It would have them on the streets without accommodation. It would have them without their tuition. That is the approach Ms Pansy Wong has taken, as has been widely reported. I know that most people around the world do not think the Kuomintang party has a major reputation in New Zealand. It is one that causes some concern.

💬 Dail Jones: That’s Taiwan.

The National Party, actually. We got there. At least there is one bright member opposite—and, of course, one sitting in the middle.

The bill also, at the discretion of the Minister, allows for the reimbursement of any agency or Crown entity responsible for the administration of the levy for losses incurred as a result of the failure of private training establishments.

I would like to thank the members of the Education and Science Committee who worked on this bill. I especially thank the Hon Brian Donnelly from New Zealand First, who chaired the committee. I should place on record that Mr Donnelly and his party have indicated that they are opposed to international education. They are opposed to the number of foreign students coming to New Zealand. I thank them for being straightforward about that. Mr Donnelly chaired the committee in a way that was appropriate and neutral. He worked the business through, and that was good, as opposed to other people who indicate one way and perform the other, as the National Party has done. I thank the members of the select committee. I also thank Deborah Coddington. She is pretty straightforward. She has taken the approach that when a language school fails, international students should be just left on the street. That is an ACT approach, and that may be what they want, but it is not appropriate for this Government. This is a relatively simple little bill, and I commend it to the House.

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.

I rise to speak just briefly, because the Hon Brian Donnelly, at a greater age than when young men partake in sport, decided to take part in a sporting activity at the weekend—and is suffering somewhat at this time. With sympathy I speak on his behalf, because this call has been put upon me at short notice.

Last night I was fortunate to attend the awarding of an honorary doctorate of laws to John Hood at Auckland University. In the course of that evening there was great mention, speaker by speaker, of what an international reputation means for a university and for a higher learning institution—such as Auckland University in its achievements during John Hood’s 5½ years. That is the first matter I wish to bring before the House. There is an international reputation at stake here, not only for our public universities and tertiary institutions but also, in this case, for private providers. The second issue is that the bill is the result of a need that has developed in other places, and concerns the apparent ability of private providers in this country to meet that need in their response—learning institution by learning institution.

In the brief time that Mr Donnelly was away I sat in on the Education and Science Committee, and left with the following impressions. First, no sound Minister would wish prudent, thoughtful, private training establishment providers to be in any way responsible for those imprudent, shonky providers such as the three, and now four, that have collapsed in the last year or so—not one.

The other aspect that was so clearly demonstrated at the select committee was the apparent inability of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to make any appropriate or proper response to the situation developing at that time, particularly in the authority’s very haphazard approach to the auditing of the relevant private providers’ accounts. It was very, very sloppy, to use a common expression. There was no concern to pin down the actions that were to be taken, and the consequent result, exactly as the previous speaker, Ms Wong, has said, was that months later nothing had been done to remedy the defect known about in January of the year of the collapse—nothing.

Therefore, this bill has two issues that New Zealand First is concerned about. First, no reason at all can be advanced for why the prudent provider should be saddled with the debt of those who are not up to the game, as it were, of maintaining a high standard of teaching. That teaching, by the way, is mainly of the English language.

The second issue is that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, as the responsible agency with regard to the registration, accreditation, and monitoring of the industry, was very woeful indeed. That was the experience of those on the committee, and the answers that came from the authority to the committee in response to its questions, showed an inability to reply or a recollection that was faulty.

On behalf of the Hon Brian Donnelly, therefore, I say that New Zealand First does not give its support to this bill. We do give support to an international industry in education and learning that is industrious, and that provides a proper experience for students. In this country’s recent history, there have been many learning institutions that have been able to do just that. Contrary to what the Minister said earlier, this is nothing to do with where students come from. It is to do with the reputation—for which his ministry has been responsible—for maintaining international standards of learning. Those standards are not just for public institutions. They must be maintained also for those providers that exercise their wish to educate in a private role.

New Zealand First does not support this bill. Again, the real point of the matter is that the ministry and the Minister need to think again, and think urgently, because since this bill came to the House the problem has escalated. There is yet another agency about to go under, and the same scenario will be repeated there of a lack of attention to the detail of the provider, in its monitoring by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. We do not recommend the passing of this bill.

Having heard the submissions, and noting the changes to the bill made by the Education and Science Committee, I feel reasonably satisfied that the Greens’ initial concerns about it have been dealt with.

When the bill was introduced, we thought it contained some disturbingly draconian measures. At the time, in December, it was all a bit of a surprise. However, we have come to realise that disturbingly draconian measures in Government legislation have recently become a bit ho-hum. But I think it is very important to give some credit to the select committee, which got rid of the worst of the measures in the bill, particularly around the retrospective action of some of its provisions that would have required institutions in the industry to pay levies from 1 January this year, rather than from when the bill comes into effect.

When the export education levy was first proposed a number of years ago, my colleague Nandor Tanczos expressed considerable concern that it would be used for purposes not related to the provision of export education, and that concern remained with us during the progress of this bill. Increasingly schools are using the fees they gather from international students to pay for the education of their general population, because the Government funding is so pathetic that it completely fails to cover the basic costs for schools.

Government-forced dependence by schools on the fees from international students is a disgraceful legacy of this Government. But in the end, the bill restricts the use of the levy to those issues relating to international students only, and to their care and protection when the institutions to which they have paid their fees go bust. For that reason, the Greens will support the second reading of the bill.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party. We have opposed this bill all the way through. We worked hard in the Education and Science Committee to at least improve on the sloppy legislation that initially came before the committee.

For instance, one of the changes for the better that has been made is to the provision that the levy could be used to refund students in courses that were not even accredited by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, which would have meant that any fly-by-night operator could set up, take the fees from students, and flee, and the taxpayer or the levy-payer would be left to pick up the charges. The other change that has been made by the select committee is the removal of the retrospective charges, which is also a positive thing. But it is still bad legislation.

It will allow the Minister of Education to tax private training establishments for the cost of refunding students for any pre-paid fees when a private training establishment cannot offer the course to the student. As we have heard from Pansy Wong, that is because of the Modern Age Institute of Learning and Carich Training Centre, which both collapsed. When Modern Age collapsed, the Minister announced on 8 September 2003, without even consulting the industry, that he would bail out the institution to the cost of $400,000, despite the fact that students already had insurance and other members of the sector voluntarily took those students under their wings. All the 500 students were put into classes within 2 weeks. The English language students went into classes within a week.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Nowhere to live and nothing to eat.

The Minister knows that. He can sit there and have a little tanty as much as he likes, but he knows what the facts of the case are.

This legislation will tax responsible providers, which have absolutely no control over who enters the industry—that control is exerted by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Ministry of Education—to cover the cost of the irresponsible providers.

Why did the New Zealand Qualifications Authority not check more thoroughly that Modern Age’s money was in fact in a safe bond? Why did it just take Modern Age’s word for it? The New Zealand Qualifications Authority has proved its incompetence on a whole range of fronts, and it will continue to be incompetent. The Minister will not have to take any responsibility for that, because he just loves to beat up any sort of private provider in the education sector.

The Government has bailed out public polytechs to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Irresponsible polytechs have been bailed out by the Government, but it has never required other polytechs to cover the cost of those bail-outs. Where is the levy on public polytechs? What levy, under the export education levy, do they have to pay? The Minister has not levied public institutions, and he knows it. He calls “consultation” going to the industry after he has already made the decision that he will bail them out. The Association of Private Providers of English Language had offered to discuss it with the Minister, but he did not take that up.

This is very bad, sloppy legislation. It allows for double-dipping. For instance, the students who will be bailed out in the future will not have to register as creditors to the Government, which means that they could well be bailed out again and again. The other bad message that this legislation will send is that it will remove all responsibility to be good, responsible institutions from private providers who come into the industry. What is the point of being responsible when all the other institutions, through Government legislation, will be forced to pick up the tab if an institution lets its students down? The levy releases all those future shonky private training establishments from their responsibilities. As I said, the bill’s provisions mean that private providers will be paying the cost of failed businesses, and they will have absolutely no control over which institutions will come into the industry.

It is ideological legislation that has come about because this Government is vehemently opposed to any form of private provider in the education sector. The Minister has already proven that with early childhood education, when he unfairly slanted the fees against private providers in favour of community-owned providers. It was the Minister who called private early childhood educators “Kentucky Fried Childcare”. Why is he not honest and call tertiary institutions “Kentucky Fried Education”, too? He is more concerned about what happens when he goes to China and his reputation over there than how private education institutions in the tertiary sector will manage here. He wants to encourage growth in the New Zealand industry, but he is going the wrong way about it.

We oppose the bill.

I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on the Education (Export Education Levy) Amendment Bill. Right at the beginning, I want to say that United Future believes that there is actually no need for this bill and that therefore there is no need for it to proceed. Tonight I will touch on a couple of reasons for that view, and hopefully I will not go over the ground that others have touched on.

The legislation is based on some assumptions that could be challenged, or that are flawed, at their very bottom. The Minister has given some plausible reasons why this bill is required, yet, after the first reading, when I sat on the Education and Science Committee and listened intently to the submitters to find out what they had to say on the bill, it was pretty clear to me that not a single one of the submitters said yes to this bill coming forward in any shape or form. So I listened to the officials to see whether they had anything to say that would justify or vindicate the bill, and I am still in the same frame of mind. There is nothing that validates this bill being in our midst tonight.

In fact, I think some of the assumptions that lie behind this bill are so flawed that fixing something that flawed is really just a waste of time. It is a waste of time for all the submitters who came and offered their positions, their thoughts, and their reasons. It is a waste of time for the select committee to have gone through all that to no avail, and also in this House tonight. It could have been solved in yet another way.

One of the premises that I see in this bill is that the public sector providers are considered to be very safe whereas private providers are high risk. We in United Future promoted a minority view on this bill, because we were not at all convinced, when one took out certain clauses—clause 4(3) and clause 5, which came out under pressure, I believe, from the submitters—that there was any reason for this bill to exist. It decimated the very basis for this bill to exist and therefore we, as a party, will not be voting in favour of this particular reading.

The Government stated also that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority—which has been accused by a number of speakers tonight, and which is a gatekeeper for all private training establishments—would be put on a much stronger basis and a more rigorous set of regulations, and that it would be strengthened in the future. The Government stated that it would ensure better quality control systems, that better auditing procedures would be available, and that an approved fees protection programme would be set up to overcome the weaknesses reflected in these cases that have been the basis for this bill. So I say, and United Future says, that if in fact the New Zealand Qualifications Authority is going to be strengthened to do all of this, then why do we need the bill, because, quite honestly, once the New Zealand Qualifications Authority gets up to speed, there is no need for all this, therefore further supporting our position that we are not in favour of this bill.

Again, as others have said, why should honest and good providers be punished when they have no say as to who comes into it? In fact, the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors Committee—and I would like Parliament to understand they are not private training establishment people—stated: “It is a ludicrous suggestion that quality providers be financially responsible for less reputable providers that fail to take appropriate action to safeguard their financial viability. To suggest such a course of action in any other industry would be decried as reprehensible and going completely against the grain of good business practice.”

That was part of that committee’s submission, in a sense saying what we have been saying in this House tonight. This bill, by the way, was brought as a shock to the industry without any genuine form of consultation. The Minister and the ministry thought that they could just foist it on us and that we would all agree and go home feeling nice for agreeing. But the failure of two private training establishments, which was the basis of this panic bill, was a false premise. It reminds me very much of the adage: “One swallow does not a summer make.” One failure does not mean that all of the private training establishment sector is a failure. Therefore, there is a false premise for doing this.

I believe that the real reason the Minister panicked and the ministry forced this bill before the House tonight is simply to cover up for the incompetence, as others have made known, of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority itself. The Association of Private Providers of English Language stated in its submission: “Our opposition to the entire bill remains intact.” It says that the Paramount Institute situation, outlined in the Sunday Star-Times of June 13, raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the student fee protection policy and its enforcement by NZQA.

Now, this particular institution was not the basis for the bill, but subsequent to all the cuff and fluff about this, in June this year another organisation fell over because the New Zealand Qualifications Authority did not enforce things correctly. The submission went on to state: “We have and will continue to work with NZQA on improving an enforcement of that policy, but we do not see any way in which we can directly manage the risk of PTE closures. The Government, through NZQA, controls entry to, and exit from, the PTE sector, and our members cannot see why they should bear the risk of NZQA’s decision.” That submission underlines what a lot of others have said, which is that this bill is just a cover up for an incompetent New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and possibly, on the side, also for the tertiary education sector. For instance, no responsible action has been taken against the directors of Modern Age, and I believe that the Government was trying to cover up for that.

What are the solutions? I believe that we should abandon this bill tonight. The Minister should look at alternative arrangements such as insurance programmes, bonding regimes, something like the International Air Transport Association has for the airlines; possibly change the visa regulations and adopt the Australian measures on how to handle overseas students, tighten up the regulations for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority when private training establishments and others are trading insolvently, and stop further division and antagonism, which I believe the levies have caused every provider in this country, be they universities, polytechnics, or private training establishments. Also, the Government and the Minister should be working in a supportive manner with all providers to encourage all of them to strive for excellence in education in this country.

Is it not an indictment when Labour has to rely on the discredited Greens as the sole party that wants to support this discredited legislation? Surely the Government should take on board that the parties that sat on the select committee and heard the evidence have drawn the conclusion, and the fault lies with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

This bill really is an old-fashioned statist solution. When we run out of ideas, just impose another round of costs on the private sector. All that does is excuse a lazy and not well organised New Zealand Qualifications Authority from proper supervision. Some would say it is incompetent, and in fact there is considerable evidence of that. The Sunday Star-Times article of 15 June refers to the fact that 1 year earlier the New Zealand Qualifications Authority had been advised of problems facing an English language school, and it did nothing. When the debt reached $200,000 it knew there was a problem but it did nothing, until another $800,000 of debts had accumulated. Only then did the authority act, and apparently only on the advice of the police. The very institution that has been established by this Parliament to provide the prudential supervision failed in this particular case. It failed in respect of the Paramount Institute. This legislation reflects the lazy answer that excuses the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, and imposes costs on the private sector.

Everyone would acknowledge that there have been difficulties amongst various private institutions, and they have damaged the sector’s reputation internationally. There was a need for a solution. The solution does not lie in getting the successful institutions to bail out the bad. We heard a variety of solutions in the select committee. One solution for instance—and there were several suggestions—was compulsory insurance. We were told by the Insurance Council that such insurance is available. That is the first particular option.

Proper accreditation would have been the second step. Of course, that would have required the New Zealand Qualifications Authority—that fine august body—to perform and do the work. I guess that was not an option that the Government would look at because it would have required a serious and sharp review of the organisation. The third option was to have not just an initial accreditation but proper prudential supervision of the institutions as they continue their work. A fourth option was to put at least a significant proportion of student fees into trust accounts.

All of those options would fundamentally have been private sector options. It would not have involved the successful private training establishments having to bail out the unsuccessful institutions. Those were the real choices facing the Government. Those were the choices requested by the private sector itself, and it made that very clear in its submissions.

We have only to think of perhaps one of the most successful Government institutions to find the model. For instance, imagine banks were required to bail out failed banks. What would that say about the Reserve Bank? It would say that there was no proper supervision, no proper accreditation, and no proper analysis of capital adequacy ratios. All those things would reflect badly on the Reserve Bank. In fact, the Reserve Bank does an excellent job of supervision. Surely that was the model that the Government should have followed. It could have said to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority: “Look at the successful institutions, learn from them, and then impose those solutions on the private sector, with the agreement of the private sector.” Those were the choices out there. Instead, this legislation is the lazy way out.

As I said in my opening comments, this is the statist solution. I am not surprised that the Green Party immediately responded and said: “Statist solution, the answer must be yes.”, because that is always the Greens solution. So we have a left-wing Government looking to a more left-wing partner as the model for governing our country. One would think that in 2004 there would have been lessons learnt, and that the old statist solutions that come out of socialism would have been abandoned. In fact, even if the Government had listened to its erstwhile coalition partner it may have gone for a more moderate solution. And when I say erstwhile coalition partner, in this room there seems to be at least two others—United and, dare I say it, New Zealand First. Both those parties—[Interruption] Is it not an interesting concept that New Zealand First members are denying that they want to prop up the Government? I sat on a select committee all last week, listening to New Zealand First members propping up the Government on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. They need to understand that generally they do support the Government. They will be judged in a year’s time.

The lessons were clear. Listen to the private sector, listen to the members of the Education and Science Committee who heard the evidence, and take note of them. What on earth is the point of having submissions, and having thoughtful select committee members analysing those submissions and reporting back to the Parliament, saying that this bill does not work? If the select committee process meant something, and I would like to think it does, one would expect the Government to say: “Gosh, we really have got this one wrong. We need to go back to first base and review it again.” But no, Mr Mallard, with all his arrogance and his “he knows best” will just continue to impose his flawed and failed solutions on education.

I want to conclude on this point. It will not work for the private training establishments, it will not work for the compulsory sector, and it does not work for the State-owned tertiary sector. I predict that the public will make its judgment in 12 months’ time that the Minister failed. Some of them will remember that this bill was one of the first signals of failure.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it right, appropriate, and proper that reference be made to matters that are before another committee of the House, which has not yet reported, and made expressly in the way in which Dr Mapp covered in his speech? He could only have been referring to one such committee. If that is the correct interpretation, I would ask him to withdraw the serious allegation that was made about New Zealand First.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, the speaker was not out of order. It would have been out of order if the committee meeting in question was held in private. I do not believe it was.

It was.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, that is not a point of order. It was quite in order for the speaker to say what he said.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The point of order I wish to raise is that Dr Mapp, in the course of his speech, stated that New Zealand First supported the Government with regard to a committee meeting in another place in this Parliament. That allegation is not correct, and could not be correct.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, that is not a point of order. The member may take a call and counter the statement, or whatever, but it is not a point of order.