Nanaia
MAHUTA
Education Spokesperson

14 November 2012 MEDIA STATEMENT

Select committee inquiry needed on Novopay

Labour’s Education spokesperson, Nanaia Mahuta, has written to the chairperson of Parliament’s Education and Science Select Committee, calling for it to hold an inquiry into the botched teacher’s pay system.

“Novopay has been plagued with errors since day one. In its first four pay cycles there were more than 8,000 stuff-ups – it is unbelievable,” says Nanaia Mahuta.

Labour’s proposed Terms of Reference for an inquiry cover the cost of introducing the new system, planning for its introduction, the cost to schools of dealing with payroll mistakes and the way the Ministry of Education and the contractor Talent 2 have dealt with the situation.

“This mess has dragged on for months now, and Parliament needs to get to the bottom of what’s gone wrong.

“The Committee needs to hear from schools and principals about the problems they have faced, and the amount of time, resources and energy it has taken to address them. It needs to hear from teachers and support staff that have been left financially exposed because of problems beyond their control.

“The Committee must hold the Ministry and Talent 2 to account for their poor performance. And it needs to make recommendations about how to fix this issue and avoid similar problems in future payroll projects.

“Novopay has been an absolute debacle, and it has dragged on for months. It appears Government Ministers can’t be bothered addressing the situation, so Parliament needs to step up and sort it out.

“I hope MPs from all parties, including National, will treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves and support a Select Committee inquiry into Novopay,” says Nanaia Mahuta.

NOTE: Nanaia Mahuta’s letter to the Chairperson of the Education and Science Select Committee is attached http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1211/Request_for_Novopay_inquiry__13_Nov.pdf.pdf

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A (Sweary) Analysis Of Urgency Abuse And
The Consititution

Keith Ng: You’re looking at the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for the Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill. Basically, the courts said that the Government had to pay family members who looked after people with disabilities (because not doing so was discriminatory), so the Government passed this law to say: “Yeah nah.”

The RIS isn’t just redacted for the public – it was redacted for MPs. *Parliament* voted on this, with all the relevant facts blacked out.

Sure, it’s understandable, right? If you’re passing a law that’s really dodgy, you don’t want advice from civil servants saying “uh, this is pretty illegal” to be public. But actually, that’s not really a problem here, because in the same piece of legislation, THEY SAID THEY CAN’T BE TAKEN TO COURT. More>>