Financial Review Debate — Ministry of Education

I am going to spend my 5 minutes talking about the issue of the day, which is the Government’s pre-election promise and policy to offer all 3 and 4-year-old children in New Zealand 20 free hours of early childhood education. What might have sounded like a slick election slogan around the Labour Party campaign table has proved to be exceptionally complex for the present Government, and what a shambles it has become. We have seen the Government slip and slide from a position where all 3 and 4-year-old children in teacher-led facilities were going to receive 20 hours’ free education, to a position whereby the Minister says that around 92,000 children might get it, to his saying that up to 90,000 children could get it—which could mean that 12 New Zealand children get it and he has met his own benchmark—to his saying that hopefully up to 92,000 children will receive it. The Minister has stared down the barrel of camera after camera and made comments to parents along the lines of: “Well, it is simple. You just go down to your local early childhood centre and say”: ‘I have a 3 or 4-year-old; I’m here for my 20 free hours.’ ” What he has failed to say is that many parents will go down to their local centre and say that they have a 3 or 4-year-old and they are there for their 20 free hours. Those parents will be told: “Sorry, sunshine, it’s not on offer, because the Government has set a rate that means we have to compromise on the quality of our early childhood education provision and we’re not going to offer it.”

The Government’s plan was initially targeted at community centres, but in the last week or so we have seen that even the Auckland Kindergarten Association, which oversees 107 kindergartens, has said: “If we accept this deal, our centres will be worse off.” There has been a collapse of a few brain synapses on the other side of the Chamber because Government members do not understand that if they offer a deal that makes centres worse off, they will not be keen to accept it. Why would they accept an arrangement whereby they will get less money than they do now? It is basic common sense and it is basic governance. The Government has totally underestimated that centres take very seriously the quality of their early childhood education provision and they see that to take on and implement this policy is to seriously compromise quality.

Government members will say that parents will pay for a few extras and they will give a few examples like museum trips and other bits and pieces and sundry costs, but centres are saying something quite different. They are saying that if we accept this, it will have an impact on the quality of the basic provision of early childhood education in this country. We have seen the number of weasel words surrounding this policy, but pre-election most parents were left with the distinct impression from the Minister and the Prime Minister that every 3 or 4-year-old child in a teacher-led facility would have access to this policy, but they will not. That is where a basic fraud is being played out on New Zealand parents. Pre-election, the impression was that they would get that access. Parents will follow the advice of the Minister, and turn up to their local centre and say they are there for their 20 free hours, but they will not get access to it.

Access to this policy and actually getting it are concepts that are worlds apart. It is not what was promised by this Government at all. That is why Kiwi mums and dads are rightly aggrieved. They were led to believe they would get 20 free hours but they will not get anything near that.

We heard Trevor Mallard talk about it as being a discount. He said in the House: “Who wants to turn down a $92 discount?”. I think that was a lapse on the part of that Minister and it gave a clear indication that that is exactly what the Government was thinking it might be. It is nothing more than a subsidy. In fact, the Minister himself has accepted that it is a subsidy, so why do they not call it what it is? But calling it 20 free hours when the Government is not providing enough to cover the basic costs of early childhood education provision is just a fraud being played out on New Zealand parents. The Minister needs to take a call and explain exactly how many kids will get it.

I rise to speak to the financial review of the Ministry of Education for the 2005-06 period. The review showed the level of activity that continues with regard to the ministry imposing requirements on schools to provide compelling evidence of accountability. The result has been more and more red tape, paperwork, and compliance costs. The outcome of such an inexorable process is that staff energies are diverted away from core business: that of interacting with students in order to facilitate learning.

New Zealand First says that the time has come to put the joy back into teaching, and that the joy of teaching does not come from filling out the latest form for the Ministry of Education. As those in this Chamber who have been teachers know, that joy comes from working with children. It comes from the beam in a child’s eye when success is achieved, and it comes from sharing the exhilaration with a student as she or he leaps a barrier that the day before had seemed impossible. The question New Zealand First is therefore asking is, who reads all the information generated by the schools—all the reports and plans, etc.? We would moot that much of the material produced, at the cost of active time with students, goes unread.

I will provide an example. I will not mention the school concerned, but the document from which I am quoting is a genuine governance document. The document looks at annual goals, for example, and I will provide members with one of them: to have high levels of literacy in years 9 and 10. The measure is “Year 10 Students average and above (Stanines 5-9)”. The baseline, which is the figure for the year before, is 57 percent, and the target is 70 percent for the year in question. The result is 39 percent. The document talks about the future action being continuing literacy development, but it demonstrates that measuring a piece of string does not make it any longer. It also mentions literacy and professional development for all year 9 and 10 teachers.

I will mention goal number 4, which talks about “ ‘CARE’ Values” underpinning the Waikikamukau college operations. It talks about the number of stand-downs being the measure, and the baseline for the particular year is 80, and the target is 70. The result, in fact, is 131, with a variance of 61. But this is what is written—and I kid members not—as the future action to be taken. It states quite clearly in that governance manual that the future action to be taken is to “Continue the flogging until morale improves”. I will table a piece of paper at the end of my speech to demonstrate that that is what is stated in that document. I want to know who read that stuff, who did not pick that up, and who allowed that sort of statement to continue to be made in that document. I would suggest that somebody was simply taking the mickey out of the system, and that he or she put that in knowing full well that no one would read it and no one would respond to it.

I also have to mention that the ministry is asking schools to meet deadlines. If it is to do so, surely it must also meet the standards it expects of the institutions it serves. I say to Minister Steve Maharey that I am sorry, but I have to point out that there have been some errors within his ministry. The review report acknowledges the introduction of a central electronic enrolment management system called ENROL, which New Zealand First has been calling for ever since it came into this House. The ministry informed the Education and Science Committee that the system should reduce compliance costs to schools and enable them to attract transient students. Primary schools were to come on to the system in 2007. Unfortunately, the reality has been that the system has not reduced compliance costs, and has created a great deal of additional work for schools. One of the reasons is that the ministry did not meet its own commitments and deadlines to the schools. Unfortunately, the excuse that the ministry used when asked why it had not done so was that it had been too busy.

Principals have been requested, for example, to provide information they were not aware they had to supply. Schools were required to give each student’s address, and the ministry seems to have been unaware that there is still no uniform rural numbering system across New Zealand—maybe one or two phone calls would have sufficed to realise that. So the ministry has ended up with teachers running around and putting dots on maps. I say to the ministry that that is not good enough. If it is to have a high expectation of schools, it must model those same high standards to schools.

Schools, for example, were requested to forward lists of pupil absences for 2 days before, and 2 days after, 1 March. It was not until 2 March that schools received information that that was totally optional—in many cases, after the schools had attempted to put that information in place. That brings me to my major point. If a student is not enrolled at a school on 1 March, there is no funding available through the 1 March return for that particular child. That system has gone on for a long time. For example, if a child leaves a Christchurch school halfway through the week before 1 March, travels up to Whangarei, and enrols there on 3 March, there will be no funding for that child.

I wish to pick up on a point made by the Minister Steve Maharey in the financial review today about the 20 free hours of early childhood education hoax that has been promised to parents and that will clearly not be delivered. I would like to pick up on something that may be of interest to Mr Donnelly. I was looking at the statistics. Quite simply, for the area north of Auckland, 77 teacher-led services may or may not opt into the 20 free hours policy. There are 94 non - teacher-led services that will not even have the option of opting in or out. I ask Mr Donnelly and I ask the Minister in particular, through the financial review, about those parents and children. There are simply not enough spaces when 94 centres are not teacher-led. That is just simple maths—it is simple. But the Minister says to the parents that it is simple, and that they just rock up to the centre and say they are there for their 20 free hours for their 3 and 4-year-olds. As soon as Mr Maharey said that, “ping” went my email. A parent who lived in central Wellington turned round and asked how simple it was for her when there were waiting lists going out of the door, and when she enrolled her children she could not even get them into a centre before they were 3 years and 10 months anyway, let alone for the 20 hours’ free childhood education.

I was quite encouraged to hear that the Minister himself said he would go out and talk to and listen to centres. I thought I would help him along a little bit with that, and share some of the correspondence I have received in the last couple of weeks that will quite clearly point out that this is not a case of National Party rhetoric; this is the simple reality for centres and, as a consequence, for parents who are hoping against hope that the Minister will be able to live up to his promise.

One of the emails states: “I am writing from my personal experience as a kindergarten teacher who has had close to 20 years’ experience, and how the 20 hours free will change kindergartens. Helen Clark has now really thrown the spanner in the works. Many trained kindergarten teachers are leaving the service disgruntled and unhappy about the whole future plans that may lie ahead in the future. The 20 hours free has left teachers and disillusioned parents angry, disappointed, and, hey, has anyone really thought about the children?”.

Another email states: “I am writing to express my concern regarding the implementation of the 20 free hours childcare scheme. I am a full-time working mother in a demanding profession. It is fair to say that I am a swinging voter, and that my decision to vote for Labour in the last election was based on the promise of 20 free hours. Both of my children have attended day care. … We were disappointed to learn from our childcare provider that they were unable to commit to participation in the Government scheme. This is due to the level of subsidy being proposed not being sufficient to maintain their current level of service, which includes such aspects as hot lunches, computer education, and, at the end of the day, quality education for them.”

Then we skip to an email from another centre: “As you will know, staffing is a huge concern for us, because of the shortage of qualified teachers and the increasing demand. Due to Labour’s strategic plan, new graduates are asking for and receiving higher wages than those that have been in ECE for up to 30 years. Pay parity is a joke. Wages have gone way beyond the equivalent in primary and secondary, and it is simply not sustainable.”

Another email reads: “Dear Mr Maharey, can you please explain to me how our centres can offer 20 free hours to our families, when based on our current rate of funding we will be eligible for $4.47 per hour from the Government? We are currently charging our families $6. Who will make up the shortfall? Because the Government has in effect taken $1.53 off our hourly fee rate. What we are most concerned about is the quality of care that we actually deliver. I am deeply disappointed that the Government has yet again misled the families in this country, who they profess to be advocating for.”

There is just another one for the Minister, because I know he is out there willing to listen to the centres and the playcentre sector: “We have grave concerns for under-fives as a result of the above policy. Children are unable to even begin to attend kindy until 3 years 10 months because of waiting lists already. How are they going to go under 20 free hours?”. Another letter we have received states: “At our present fees rate of $4.95 per hour and 100 percent registered teacher funding—”

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise—I meant to do this following my speech. I seek leave to table the page of the annual variance report from the governance report I referred to in my speech.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I want to point out to the member who has just resumed her seat, Paula Bennett, that she could just have tabled all those letters, then maybe spent part of her 5 minutes actually telling us what National would do with the 20 free hours policy that will be in place should it—perish the thought—ever become the Government.

💬 Paula Bennett: You can’t dis a policy that hasn’t been implemented!

I say to Ms Paula Bennett that I am happy to take a few seconds out of my speech to explain it. By the next election this policy will be implemented, and I want to know what the National Party would do with it. National members should not just tote out the standard line they have all been told to give in caucus, which is that it is not policy yet. They should tell us what National would do should it become the Government in 2008, lest we have another series of speeches from National members who waste the time of this Committee by simply reading out letters that could have been tabled. We are all very keen to know what National’s position is. Its members are all very concerned that there might be children in this country who miss out on this policy, yet at the same time they say they do not agree with this policy. They do not seem to notice the contradiction.

Contradictions have become just a matter of course in the National Party at the moment. Its leader, John Key, contradicts himself from supplementary question to supplementary question, so it probably should not surprise us in this Chamber that those members cannot get their key line straight on this 20 free hours policy, either.

I point out to the National Party that at the last election its policy was about tax credits. That party’s answer to everything is tax. Under them people could get a tax rebate for anything—and it was not just education; it was babysitting services. That is great, but what about those families that cannot afford to pay upfront—families that, since the last election, the National Party apparently now cares about? What about those families that cannot afford to pay upfront for early childhood services? They miss out under National’s policy, because all that National cares about is those few who can afford to pay at the top and all those families who are traditional National Party supporters. Again, that contradicts its line now that it cares about all those families in New Zealand who struggle.

Well, National has never cared about them before. National does not put in place any policies that actually support such families. The only difference now is that its members go around hoping that if they say the right thing—quietly, so that, hopefully, the media do not pick up on what they say and report it widely—they might get individual votes. But then at the election, of course, they will come back with a policy that will benefit the few and not the many, which is what we have come to expect.

That is not what this Labour-led Government believes in. This Labour Government wants to find a policy that works for everyone. We do not cop out just because it is difficult, and take the path of least resistance. The vision of this Labour-led Government is for quality early childhood education for 3 and 4-year-olds in New Zealand. We never said that it was going to be easy; we never used that as an excuse to go about enforcing policies that, once again, benefit the few and not the many. That is always National’s excuse. That is always its excuse for not bringing in policies that will be evenly spread around the entire community, in particular those sectors of the community that desperately need access to quality early childhood education.

The Education and Science Committee is doing an inquiry at the moment about children who seem to fall behind in the system. I have no doubt that when we look at its results we will find that a small percentage of kids do not engage in any early childhood education whatsoever, and that they will not under any of the policies that National puts up, either. At the end of the day I do not think that the National Party really cares. Despite its members saying that they want to appeal to people as being a softer, kinder, more caring Government, they simply do not put up their policies. I would love to see a U-turn on this policy, just as we have seen—or are about to see—on housing.

At the end of the day, when it comes to education for our 3 and 4-year-olds, only a Labour-led Government will deliver to all the kids in this country—not to just a few whose rich families support the National Party but to all of them. When that happens, maybe we will see fewer problems down the line with literacy and numeracy—problems that this Government is addressing along with all the other programmes that are going through.

The other day I went to Whakatane High School and was shown the results it has achieved from the Te Kotahitanga programme that is being rolled out. The principal wanted me to say in the Chamber what a fabulous job Whakatane High School is doing at being above the National average on many of the indicators for a decile school at its level. I gave him the assurance that I would continue to feed that back to the Minister so that he would know which programmes were going well. This is one that has been going well, and it is one we have looked at in our inquiry. The Labour Government will not be like the National Government and talk about decile 1 schools being awash with cash, which we can only imagine means that under a National Government that cash will go. Of course, these are the kids who, apparently, those members opposite say they now care about in these schools. I do not buy it.

Before I call the next speaker, I just remind members that chaos may be the period of creation, but not in this place, and we will have order. For those members who are not in their seats and who are not taking part in this debate, I urge them to look at Speakers’ rulings 58/4 and 59/1.

I draw it to the attention of the speaker who has just resumed her seat that there is an interesting article in the Gisborne Herald, stating that early childhood education centres may not be able to meet demands. That is quite evident. Unfortunately, the member also said that although it was not going to be easy to provide the service, it was going to be free. Does that not sound like a catchline? It is not going to be easy, but it is going to be free! Goodness me!

One thing about the 20 hours’ free early childhood education is that there will be winners and there will be losers. There always are, under Labour. There is Gateway, the Modern Apprenticeship scheme, and early childhood education. One word describes them: tokenism. We need only to look at Gateway. Many schools today see the opportunity to achieve something around Gateway, yet they are not being fully funded. They have to stretch the funding that is extended to them, in order to try to maximise that opportunity. I was at Fraser High School the other day. Five hundred young adults want to engage in that programme, but the school is being funded only to the level of 250. There are 9,000-odd Modern Apprentices at the moment. One hundred and twenty thousand people in industry are in apprenticeship-style training; Labour is funding only 10,000 of them.

Now we come to the early childhood education sector, and I say there will be winners and losers. I heard the Minister ask in the House today about what is making National so angry. I can tell him that what is making National so angry is the fact that he will cause perverse effects, and those effects will impact on my community of Kaikōura and on a lot of provinces and rural regions. The sad consequence of having a tired, worn-out Government is that it desperately hangs on to power by trying to give away as much as it can. In terms of what sounded like a wonderful cliché, the 20 hours’ free early childhood education was a cracker. However, we hear the comments made by the general public, who are saying that it is a disappointment when political parties do not put more thought into their promises.

Early childhood education, we know, is hugely important; it is something that has to be very helpful. The big problem with the 20 hours’ free early childhood education proposal of this Government is that it is poorly designed. In fact, it builds false hopes. It is a deception; it misleads parents. The reason it misleads parents is that when we get down and do the measurements around the availability of services, we find there is not the capacity to deliver the service.

For education to be teacher-led is a great thing; at the end of the day to have professionals leading early childhood education is a wonderful thing. However, a number of highly accomplished and successful centres are not in a financial position to move from where they are now to where they need to be, in order to be able to employ those teachers. When ministry representatives were in front of the Education and Science Committee, they had to admit they did not have the answers in terms of the issues that are very evident in provincial centres and rural areas. They said they had to go away and think about them, and would make recommendations to the Minister. That, again, is what came out at the last election. Government members across the other side of the House have not learnt the lesson, and they will be punished accordingly at the polling booths at the next election.

There is an inadequacy of capacity. Kindergartens and private providers are able to meet the criteria for teacher-led capacity. However, playcentres and kōhanga reo, which are mainly driven as voluntary services—run by excellent mums and dads—do not qualify. The Minister’s own modelling has told him that 47 percent of the capability has little opportunity to increase numbers or no opportunity to take on more numbers, and that 14 percent is unable to offer the service. My thoughts go out to a community in Blenheim, with a centre built up by a very enthusiastic mother, a former teacher by the name of Rebecca Thompson. She enthused enough people to get up and do it.

The 20 hours debacle is just one more example of how the Minister of Education shows that he does not have the ability to get on top of the mess that was left for him by his predecessor Mr Mallard.

💬 Darren Hughes: Oh, what rubbish!

The Prime Minister should have realised that; she has only—

💬 Hon Member: Listen, and you may learn something.

💬 Darren Hughes: Not from this guy.

It might be a good idea if members opposite remember that from Northcote to Invercargill, Labour MPs were thrown out of their seats at the election. I suggest that the member for Otaki listens to me a little more closely. The Prime Minister should have known—

💬 Darren Hughes: I’m still in mine.

Oh, the member will be gone—at the next election, he will be gone. I tell him not to drop Helen’s handbag—he will be gone. The Prime Minister should have known that if she was prepared to put the education portfolio in the hands of a failed schoolteacher—and that is what Mr Mallard was; he knows it, and I know it—the end result would be a lowering of standards, a lowering of expectations, rehashed excuses for failure, and botched policy.

There is no greater botch than the 20 hours of early childhood education. That is what it is—

💬 Darren Hughes: Is the member for it or against it?

Do I have to remind the member again how tenuous his hold on his seat is? I tell the member not to drop Helen’s handbag. This policy was made on the run, in a desperate panic reaction to the prospect of losing the 2005 election. That is all it is. And do New Zealanders not regret now that they let slip the opportunity to throw out the Labour Government?

💬 Darren Hughes: Is the member for or against the policy?

And the member for Otaki would have gone, along with Labour. The Government had no idea at the time—and it is clear that it still has no idea—just how the 20 hours policy was going to work. Members opposite, the members of the Government, screamed from the rooftops that 92,000 children would definitely—yes, definitely—get 20 free hours. Then the Minister stepped in, and it became “up to” 92,000. Then it became “I hope it will be 92,000.”

The situation reminds me a little of the report we received from the Education Review Office that stated that “up to” 20 percent of children were not experiencing success at school. Ah, but then Government members paused, and realised what their own officials were telling them. So the spin came on again: there were “up to” 20 percent of children not doing as well at school as they should be doing.

💬 Darren Hughes: Is the member for or against the policy?

Well, there he goes again—the callow member for Otaki. He should listen, because his seat will be gone. I tell him not to drop Helen’s handbag, because it is his only hope of coming back here. We have discovered, through the Education and Science Committee inquiry led so well by my colleague Mr Donnelly, that up to a third of New Zealand children are not learning to read, to write, and to calculate—yet all the members opposite can do is to shout across the floor of the House. I hope they are enjoying doing that, because very, very soon they will be gone.

The Minister had the opportunity in the House this afternoon to confirm that 92,000 children would get free early childhood education. He declined to take that opportunity. I invite him, when he rises to his feet after my speech, to address that issue. So what do we have here? It was a $140 million promise—an effort to influence the electorate, with no thought at all given to how it would work. The Minister of Education may well sit there looking bored, but, you know, that Minister must be sitting there thinking that with political friends like the previous Minister, he certainly does not need enemies.

That seems to be all of the speakers in the debate, so let me work through just a quick summary on this. First of all, I address Mr Brian Donnelly of New Zealand First, who raised some issues that I think are extremely important—the issues around compliance. I want to reassure Mr Donnelly—and of course he knows this already—that we are working hard with the sector around the area of compliance, to see whether we can drive those costs and time loads down. So we will see how we go.

But let me return to the other speakers in the debate, all of whom came from the National Party, and all of whom talked about the early childhood policy. I want to give a little prediction: by the time of the next election the National Party will support 20 hours’ free early childhood education. That is on the record. I think Mr Colin King will be campaigning in his electorate—he will probably lose it—around the issue, saying that the National Party supports the 20 hours free policy. Does anybody on the National benches want to say that that prediction is very unlikely to happen? I do not think so; no one is willing to say that. But until National adopts Labour’s policy on this, we will be treated to the most extraordinary scenario, as we have seen today. Mrs Katherine Rich, the spokesperson on education for the National Party, got up and attacked this policy, and, at the same time, anybody who looks at the web knows that National intends to scrap the policy.

Let us imagine we were in a hall now with early childhood people debating this policy, and Mr Hughes and Mr Peachey were there. If Mr Hughes got up and asked who in the hall wanted 20 hours’ free early childhood education, who backed this policy, the overwhelming answer—well, not even overwhelming; the 100 percent answer—would be: “Mr Hughes, we want this policy.” Mr Peachey would get up and say that he wanted to scrap it. If he asked who was for National, I think he would be killed in the rush.

The contrast between the policies at the moment is stark. We have a policy the entire sector wants; National has a policy the entire sector does not want. Yet we have to put up with the whingeing and whining, the moaning and groaning, of the education spokesperson, who, we are told today, does not even want the policy to be promoted. She is not allowed even to go out and tell people about the policy. Overall, we are spending $384 million on getting young people access to early childhood education, and the National Party does not want people to know about it.

Let us go to the other genius in the National Party—Ms Paula Bennett. She got up to tell us that she wanted not only people in the 3-4 year age group to get 20 hours free—this is the tax cut party talking—but every child in every form of early childhood care to get it, too. So I suppose that is the other National Party policy we had announced by the geniuses on the other side of the House today. They not only want to adopt our policies at some time—when they have finished whining about them—but want them to apply to everybody, and want a tax cut. How much more stupid will it get than this farce that is going on in the National Party? Every time its members get up they want more expenditure and more tax cuts.

Then we go to the other staggering proposal, by Mr Colin King. He got up and said he not only wants more early childhood education and backed the policy—but the policy has not been adopted yet by his leader, so he has to whine and moan about it—but loves a couple of other policies that Labour has put in place, too: Gateway and Modern Apprenticeships. I say to Mr King that I appreciate his support for those policies. No doubt he will campaign on them at the next election because they are such good policies, and will want to adopt them, as well, as part of his manifesto. But he also got up and said he was not satisfied with what is out there now. He wants every school in the country to have access to the Gateway policy—which, by the way, is the policy—and every child in the school to have access to it, as well. How much will that cost National and how will it afford it against its tax cut policy?

Finally we got to Mr Peachey. I was going to comment on what Mr Peachey had to say, because Mr Peachey is an educationalist and often says something that matters. But today I have to ask Mr Peachey to go and read his notes. In the 5 minutes he had allocated he said nothing other than that the member for Otaki should watch out for—I could not understand the rest because he was mumbling—something about his seat. We should expect at least some kind of major contribution from a member like that. He understands education; why did he not debate it?

Report noted.

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