Media Release September 29 2010

PPTA Pans Private Profiteering

PPTA conference delegates have unanimously voted to oppose any government moves to establish public private partnerships (PPPs) in schools.

PPTA executive member Megan Teekman moved today’s Private Profiteering or Public Partnerships paper, speaking of the huge potential risks posed by well-financed corporate bodies funding school building.

“Our own Minister of Education is currently promoting PPPs as a promising solution for school property development and pressing on with plans to privatise a significant chunk of New Zealand’s school property programme, Teekman said.

Anne Tolley had also said that the introduction of PPPs in schools would have no impact on students and teachers, prompting Teekman to question why, as education minister, Tolley was spending so much time promoting something that did not involve teaching and learning.

“While this may sound fine in theory, businesses are interested in this partnership purely because there is money to be made. The illusory appeal for the government, she said, was the appearance of reducing debt in the short term by shifting funds around.

Teekman told the conference that many influential people and groups had reservations about PPPs. “The auditor-general, in a 2006 report, went so far as to say that public entities are ultimately accountable for delivering public services and cannot transfer this responsibility to the private sector. Treasury, a month later, also raised some large disadvantages to such schemes, she said.

There is also now a considerable amount of literature from official, academic and media sources of the problems that have occurred with PPPs and similar schemes in the UK, USA and Australia, she said.

“At the end of the day, if a project goes bankrupt or if a contract is altered, it is the taxpayer that ends up paying. The government must take responsibility for the public financing and provisions of public education.

Full details of the paper and live video feed of the conference can be found at www.ppta.org.nz

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