Media release
Wednesday 3 April 2019

Launch of the Parliamentary Education Charitable Trust

The Parliamentary Education Charitable Trust was formally launched at Parliament in an event today hosted by Speaker of the House Rt Hon Trevor Mallard.

Chairperson Katherine Rich welcomed the formal launch of the trust and said today that the ambition to provide opportunities for extra education and training support for Members is at the heart of the Parliament Education Trust.

“Opportunities will be bespoke and tailored towards the needs of individual members, and the range of options includes a Postgraduate Certificate in Public Policy delivered by Victoria University which leads to a qualification, career development support, speakers on relevant topics, and other course modules.”

Rt Hon Trevor Mallard said that the idea was formed after the recommendations of the Report of the Seventh Triennial Appropriations Review Committee titled, “Towards a world-leading democracy”.

“All MPs come to Parliament to do the same role, to be a representative and a Parliamentarian, but they all arrive with a different basket of skills and experience. The Parliament Education Trust aims to enhance New Zealand’s democracy by supporting MPs in their further education and development of skills essential to their work as Parliamentarians.”

The educational work of the trust has been made possible working with Victoria University’s School of Government, and the Trustees would like to acknowledge them for their work in creating the Postgraduate certificate that is on offer, and for the work in the future delivering this course to MPs.

The work of the Parliamentary Education Charitable Trust has been funded by a generous donation from New Zealand philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn, who is supporting this because he believes such an investment in education will enhance our nation’s representative democracy. The Trustees are grateful to Sir Owen for his generosity and innovative thinking in supporting this new idea.

ENDS

Other information:

• The Trustees are: Katherine Rich, Bill Birnie, Bill Moran, Trevor Mallard

• The programme currently has 15 MPs confirmed for the first intake of the programme.

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