KEY POINTS:
Relationship building was on the agenda yesterday when National Party leader John Key visited Te Wananga o Aotearoa's Mangere campus - the party's first official visit since Don Brash's double act three years ago.
And the language on both sides could not have been more different.
In 2005, Dr Brash held a news conference outside the wananga and attacked so-called separatism, "race-based" tertiary funding and the proliferation of "meaningless" courses.
But at a powhiri inside, his message was almost the opposite as the then party leader assured the institution of its future under National.
Yesterday, wananga kaumatua Naapi Waaka welcomed Mr Key and the party's tertiary education spokesman, Dr Paul Hutchison, as he had done for Dr Brash.
"Don Brash came to take a photo in front of the wananga. He brought the stinker with him. He talked about the wananga like it was a bad smell," Mr Waaka said.
But both groups had come a long way since then and there was a "genuine" belief that the party's stance towards the wananga had changed.
Mr Key's message was simple: the wananga serviced an important education market and was effectively "retro-fitting" skills to nearly 60 per cent of its students who came with no qualification.
He did not announce any new education policy but reiterated National's literacy and numeracy plan and said the wananga could play an important role by providing courses for teens for whom school was not working.
Asked why it had taken so long for National to formally return to the wananga, Mr Key said it was due to scheduling issues. However, lower-level meetings had occurred.
He also said National had always "been very supportive" of the wananga and there had been no major change in attitude. He blamed the wananga's past problems on the old funding regime.
"I think there were concerns about the systems that had been set up. The accusations that were made essentially had come off the structure of those regulations and rules [that] led to perverse outcomes that weren't really of benefit to anyone, but the rules have changed."
This year the wananga forecasts it will make a $6 million profit, in line with last year's result.
Thirty-seven thousand students enrolled last year, and this year's enrolments are up 20 per cent on the same time last year.
Chief executive Bentham Ohia said that since 2005 the focus had been about consolidation and improving quality. As "positive" changes had taken place, the wananga wanted political parties to understand what the institution was about.
"We want to be a permanent part of the tertiary landscape. It's understanding what our position is: we're by Maori for everybody, so we're inclusive of everybody.
"Our goal is to break down barriers to education for Maori and those groups that haven't participated in tertiary education. Any party that shares that philosophy works with us."
Mr Ohia said that while the institution was looking at providing educational options for secondary schools, nothing firm had been pinned down.
He also planned to talk to Mr Key about the capped regime, which sees the number of enrolments held at 19,000 fulltime-equivalent students.
