National gets taught a lesson in Parliament

Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee gets a big fat F for his political management yesterday, after he let Labour MPs cane cabinet minister Steven Joyce over his academic record.

Labour MP Trevor Mallard sought a debate to congratulate Mr Joyce on his academic achievements, after the minister tabled his less than stellar academic record in Parliament.

Mr Joyce was responding to questions about whether he, when a student, would have been caught out by a policy limiting access to student loans for those who failed.

When neither Mr Brownlee nor other senior National MPs objected to the debate, Speaker Lockwood Smith -- the "Dean" of Parliament -- let the debate proceed.

Laughter from the Labour ranks made it hard to hear Mr Mallard's congratulatory remarks, but he did say it was "just wonderful" Mr Joyce had obtained a degree, even if it was only conferred 21 years after he started studying.

"I must say that a Bachelor of Science in zoology is a very good qualification for working in the National Party cabinet," Mr Mallard said. "I think it's fair to say there are a range of animals there."

Mr Brownlee, who repeatedly warned that the debate was meant to be narrowly focused on congratulating Mr Joyce, walked out when Labour's Darren Hughes got up to speak.

Mr Hughes suggested Mr Brownlee was off making a special congratulatory cake for Mr Joyce. He said the whole nation joined in congratulating Mr Joyce, and it was very good he got an A minus in animal behaviour.

"Even though that's an academic course, every Monday morning that must feel like an applied course when he's in the cabinet room as he watches the machinations of the government."

Mr Hughes said Mr Joyce's career was patchy but "God loves a trier" and Labour would be supportive if he wanted to leave Parliament to do further study.

"We could explore some of the courses he didn't bother to do, some of the areas where it would show his interest did not lie, but today's not a day for politics."

Mr Joyce had tabled his record after Labour's Maryan Street asked what effect the policy of restricting access based on academic achievement would have had on him.

Mr Joyce said he passed all his papers in his first three years but "certainly, my latter years - year four, year five, and my attempt at year six – were less exciting and, frankly, I should have been shuffled out of university by then, anyway".

For the record Mr Joyce passed his first year (1981) vet science courses with Bs and Cs but did not make the cut for the second year so swapped to zoology where he got Bs and Cs plus an A for an economics paper. The third year he did a mix of zoology and economics papers getting As, Bs and Cs. The following year he passed three papers getting an A, B and a C but did not complete a further three papers and in his fifth and sixth year withdrew or did not complete all his papers except for labour economics for which he got at E.

At the time he was on the road to making his fortune -- he started up Energy FM at age 21 later going on to build up RadioWorks until it consisted of 22 local stations and four national networks.

Mr Joyce has never claimed to have been a great student and in his first speech as Tertiary Education Minister was disarmingly frank about it, but he did sit right through his lecture from the Labour MPs, which must have felt like being in detention.