The plan all along

Before people start getting outraged over the government's $20 million bailout of Te Wananga o Aotearoa, they might want to remember one thing: driving te Wananga to the brink of bankruptcy so as to install proper financial controls and accountable management was the government's plan all along. The problem with te Wananga was financial mismanagement, nepotism and cronism - so back in February, the government pressured them into accepting a Crown Observer on the board with a veto over the Wananga's finances. It did this by threatening not to pay over a $20 million suspensory loan the Wananga was entitled to (if it met certain conditions) as part of a Treaty settlement. According to the Herald this morning, that loan was not paid as the conditions had not been met - and the current cash crisis is a direct result.

Normally, such measures are not necessary as tertiary institutions are established with proper governance in the first place. But te Wananga morphed from being a small private training institute into a public entity without adapating its internal culture and management to suit. The sorts of things that are perfectly acceptable when you are a privately run business (like hiring your relatives) are simply not tolerable when you receive millions of dolars of government funding. I'd prefer that the government hadn't had to play financial hardball in order to change this management style, but I think its a far better alternative than simply cutting off the money entirely and letting the whole idea of Maori tertiary education sink.