Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I move, That the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Madam Speaker, I want to take you back to a convention centre in Wellington in mid-2023, filled with around 500 representatives of early childhood centres up and down the country. It was a pre-election political briefing. Astonishingly, representatives of the governing parties hadn’t shown. As the meeting went on, I started to appreciate why that might be. The people in this room—salt of the earth people, often small-business people who work hard, invest to ensure the next generation of young New Zealanders are cared for and ready for school—were ropable. They were tired of the regulatory overreach of the Byzantine rules and the abuses of power that they perceived coming from the Government. They said, “All I wanted to do was help young children discover their potential. And all I actually do is fear the regulator that is supposed to work for all of us. After all, it’s our taxes that pay for them.” I looked at this and I thought: surely we can do better.

Fast forward a little way, and the Ministry for Regulation was formed. Its first sector review involved going out and hearing from people, like the ones in that room that day, and asking them: what is it that has made it so difficult and so frustrating to do what should be a very rewarding and positive job, and mostly is? The Ministry for Regulation assembled a long dossier of concerns. It assessed them against the need for sensible regulation. It has come up with, broadly, three changes that Cabinet signed off. One is a simplification of the rules, and a binning of rules that make no sense; that’s happening separately from this bill. Another is transferring the responsibility for regulating to the Education Review Office—who are very good at doing this, in my view—away from the Ministry of Education, which I don’t believe has done a consistently good job; it tends to depend on the region. It also means that the regulator is separate from the policy maker, which is generally good practice for regulation. Those are two parts of the change coming out of this sector review.

There’s a third part which is encapsulated in this bill. It is setting out that there should be a person called, in this case, the director of regulation. It’s not a new position; there’s a person that does something like this. But they’re going to actually have their responsibilities set out in legislation, and they’re going to have the rights of people who run early childhood centres set out in legislation, and the purpose of regulating set out in regulation. In particular, things like enabling choice for parents is in this legislation. Things like ensuring childhood safety is in this legislation. Things like ensuring those things with the least possible regulation so that the people like the ones in that room aren’t tied up in endless red tape.

Where the rubber hits the road—and I happen to be the Minister responsible for early childhood education—there’s a wonderful place called Country Kindy, in Manawatū.

Suze Redmayne: Yes.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: These are salt of the earth people. There’s the member for Rangitīkei right there, and I’m sure she knows it well. These people were harangued, harassed, shut down to within an inch of their life. As the Minister responsible, I was very keen to intervene. To this day, I don’t fully understand what they were accused of doing wrong, because when I brought in the secretary to ask—the former secretary, that is—she didn’t have a good answer. I went into Country Kindy and was almost suffocated by a hug from the person in charge, because they were so relieved that this harassment had ended.

Well, what this legislation sets out to do is give people like her the ability to tap on the sign and say, “You regulate for a purpose. We pay your taxes.” Child safety—absolutely, 100 percent; 200 percent. Giving parents choice and information and making it clear what’s needed and what’s going on: absolutely. But overreach and abuse of power and overburdensome regulation and red tape that stops us doing our real job: that’s yesterday’s news.

This is another example of how a Government can hear people’s concerns and aspirations out in the community, formulate a plan, and bring it to fruition in this House. It’s one of many examples that we’re talking about just this week, that makes me very proud to be part of this Government. It makes me proud to be a member of the ACT Party, and it is going to make, I believe, a lot of people even prouder to work in the early childhood sector, because this statute will ensure that they are treated, by law, with the respect that they deserve. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, we heard there, in the first sentences that the Minister spoke, exactly the true intent of what this particular bill does. Unfortunately, that was reflected very much in the submissions which also identified the true intent. I just want to start by talking to one of those submissions that came through from the Office of Early Childhood Education, who said, “Let’s be honest; it’s misleading to say this bill is designed to improve outcomes for children and family. Its true intent is to satisfy service providers and their lobbyists who want a much lighter-touch approach to monitoring and enforcement.” The select committee had a number of submissions to this bill—107 submissions in fact—of which 78 of those submissions—78 of 107 submissions—opposed the bill. They opposed the bill because this was not putting children at the centre of this piece of legislation. In fact, it is such a dangerous change to what we will see and have ever seen in the early childhood sector.

The purpose of the regulations has been narrowed so much in this bill and in what it is doing that it does not put children at the centre of their education. Just think about that for a moment: children in the early childhood sector not being at the centre. Suddenly, the purposes of regulation have been changed so much that we’ve taken children away. Let’s just hear, with your indulgence, what the current Act says about the purpose of current early childhood education (ECE) regulation: that it “is to regulate an early childhood education system where all children are able to participate and receive a strong foundation for learning, positive well-being, and life outcomes by—(a) setting standards to support quality provision and learning; and (b) supporting the health, safety, and well-being of children; and (c) enabling parental choice by providing for licensing and funding of different types of provision.” So, that’s a service where the regulations, currently, ensure that there is quality provision that supports solid learning for those young people and children being put at the centre.

This bill has made a significant change; a very disappointing significant change. This bill changes that to: “[it will] regulate an early childhood education system to—(a) set and implement minimum standards to provide for quality early childhood education that allows all children to establish strong foundations for learning, well-being, and life outcomes; and (b)”—and this is where it’s critical—“support the choice of parents and caregivers to participate in the labour market.” It’s taking a labour market approach to early childhood education, and that’s exactly what the Minister just outlined in his speech.

That is absolutely worrying in an educational context in this country. I cannot understand why members on that side of the House have not fought back more about that. Our youngest and, as research shows, our children with the most potential to learn, are our under 5-year-olds, those in their first 2,000 days. If we get it right as a country, we have the most potential to make the biggest difference in a young person’s life, but because of the ideological nature and thoughts of one Minister, we are making a change here that will have a very detrimental impact on that. I urge everyone in the House to think about that and take that very, very seriously.

Now, really interestingly in the Minister’s address here this morning—which was very, very short, I should say, for something that’s an incredibly important piece of legislation—she talked about the input from the providers. Well, I can tell you that during the select committee process, we heard from teachers, centre managers, and parents who felt like their voice had been marginalised in that discussion and in that consultation. They felt like they had not been heard at all. I should add another group to that: the early childhood academics, who are some of the world-leading academics in early childhood in this country; people that are well respected around the world and who also feel that their voices have been marginalised.

Revising the purpose of early childhood regulation and legislation—and this is also important—was not part of the original terms of reference for the review. We understand, from the Ministry of Regulation, that it was not up for debate in that part of the process. Where people did have their input, they didn’t realise that this part of the purpose was actually going to be changed in legislation. Now, again, that seems like a little bit of a grubby process that has happened here. That’s the second time, where we’ve had an education bill put up in this particular session, that similar processes have happened. It isn’t any wonder why the education sector are starting to push back around what is happening to them.

It is really, really important that children must remain the centre of ECE regulation. We heard that time and time again in select committee, not only from teachers and not only from those heavily involved in the sector but also from the parents who are involved heavily in the sector but also want complete quality for their young people and the provision that is there for their young people. They said, “Look, we understand that this helps us get back into the labour market, but that should not be at the cost of quality.” That’s exactly what this bill is setting up. It is setting up at the cost of quality and quality provision. We know, from overseas research, that there have been dire consequences for similar changes that have been made in other jurisdictions. Be that on people’s heads who support this bill, if that is going to be the outcome here. From what we are seeing with this ideological approach, I would hate to think that, as a Parliament, we were setting our young people up to be in a really unsafe situation. This is exactly what we are doing if we pass this piece of legislation into law. We heard that from so many different sources during the select committee process.

Another part of this piece of legislation—I just want to finish within my final part of this contribution—that came up time and time again, from many of the submitters, was the omission of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in this legislation. We heard, “Look, it would be too hard because it’s in the primary legislation.” Actually, this bill is setting it up to water that down because it is not there and not being given the direct notice that it should be. The bill does not recognise Māori as tangata whenua nor ensures Māori participation in decision making. Now, that is of huge concern. When we have got kōhanga reo and puna reo that come under the guise of this bill, that is of huge concern.

Again, I implore members on the other side of the House to think how those parts of our early childhood system are world leading. I have been in other parts of the world where Ministers have said to me: “You have the gold standard of what you’re doing with kōhanga reo and puna reo. Teach us how to do it.” We should be proud. We should be setting that up and standing that up, but instead, we’re taking that away by not making that a big part of the provision of this bill. We are absolutely watering down Māori rights and their values and their perspectives within ECE by what we are doing here.

Once again, that is absolutely disgraceful in this particular space. I absolutely implore members on the other side to think very seriously about what they are doing here—

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Let’s be clear. This Government is happy to sacrifice children and young people for profit. That is what we are seeing here with this bill, and their intentions have been on full display this week on a wide-ranging education bill, whether it is the easy one we are seeing today or the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2) from yesterday.

Let’s unpack why I say that. Let’s start with the fundamental aspect of what parents want to do when sending their children to early childhood education (ECE), other than having it being cost-effective. We’ll talk about cost later, but the most fundamental aspect is health and safety. It’s that they are sending their tamariki to ECE, to kindergarten, to puna reo, and to kōhanga reo, knowing that they are safe when they’re in those kind of places. This bill will do none of that.

It’s all very well for the Ministers to go, like, “Oh well, health and safety is really important for me.”; thoughts and prayers. They are empty words and empty promises with no evidential backing. What is evidential is the fact that the move to deregulate the ECE sector has seen wide-ranging health and safety concerns in Australia, to the point that tamariki are being actively harmed in ECE centres, and to the point that we’re seeing rampant issues of violence and violations in Australia due to deregulation. This Minister and his Government has the gall to come into the House and say that deregulation is helpful for children. For whom, I ask? It’s not for the children. It is for those little corporate elves that are whispering sweet nothings in the Minister’s ear. It is for the international companies that come here and take advantage of our tamariki and our whānau. When you are looking at health and safety here, we are seeing—and we will see more and more of this—our tamariki being harmed.

Let’s move on to another aspect of what this bill is doing: taking the bill out of the hands of the Ministry of Education and putting it in the hands of ERO, the Education Review Office. Now, what that does is send a clear signal that the Minister and the Government doesn’t care about ECE teachers because they are moving to de-professionalise ECE so that they can pay the staff less. We have just recently, over the last few days, seen an ad saying, “Look, now is your chance. Staff can be paid at a lower rate.” How wonderful is that for our children? That is shameful. It is shameful that that kind of ad is even allowed to be up.

When we are looking at this bill, part of the thing that the Minister mentioned is the genesis of this bill is based on a Ministry for Regulation’s report. Now let’s unpack that Ministry for Regulation’s report, which we have done in the select committee stage. We also asked the Minister at that stage, “Well, how did you come about with this report, and how did this report actually shape the bill itself?” Because, number one, when the report was conducted, it had a number of leading questions, but also when we’re looking at the actual report itself, there was no genuine data that had been presented. Instead, it was a lot of hot takes from the Minister for Regulation on what they think and how they choose to interpret the data. That’s not genuine independent research. That is leading research and wanting a particular kind of outcome.

So when we did question the Minister in the select committee stage, the Minister was like, “Oh, you know, maybe, the report isn’t everything, etc.” But we asked the Minister, “Well, you based this bill on that report. How did you base this bill on that report if the Minister himself does not have full confidence in the report?” So we actually don’t know where this bill came from, to be perfectly honest.

Also, when we are looking at certain sections of this bill, let’s say in terms of the new role of records of regulations, we’re seeing, again, that for a Government that is all about deregulation and cutting all of the tapes, they certainly love to create a lot of new additional roles, additional bureaucracy, and additional yellow and blue tape. So I think that there is so little information in the select committee stage about how that Director of Regulation is going to eventuate, particularly, as the previous speaker, the Hon Jan Tinetti, has articulated, about when the Director of Regulation is going to be formed. They are also going to be overseeing kōhanga reo and puna reo, yet there is no evidence in here that says anything about our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In fact, the regulatory impact statement said there has been limited ability to consult with Māori on this bill. Why? Because the Minister doesn’t want to hear from Māori on this bill, or from the general population, or from kōhanga reo or from puna reo, because it doesn’t suit their agenda.

I mentioned in the beginning that this is part of a broader attack by this Government on the ECE sector. We’re also seeing the fact that there is an ECE funding review that has been happening again on how we can squeeze more money out of parents and out of Government, and how we can really scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of staff ratio, in terms of teacher qualifications, in order for those international companies coming in here and buying up our ECE centres to funnel the money offshore. That is what we are going to be seeing in this whole ECE reform package. That is not the intention of early childhood education. That should not be any Government’s intention for the future of our tamariki and mokopuna.

We want to see safe and thriving children and young people here, but this bill is not going to achieve that. This bill is not going to achieve the fact that the top comment and the top ask from qualified ECE teachers is to have a better ratio for student teachers. We are seeing that teachers are working longer and longer hours in ECE centres. They are having more and more of a burden, I guess, in many ways placed on them because of the ratio and because they are looking after more children. They are asking for better support, and from a Government that talks about how much money they are putting into learning access in this year’s Budget—not a single cent of that has gone to ECE. We have not seen an increase in the education support workers’ hours that are provided for children and for tamariki in early childhood education settings. That is the ask of the sector, and that is the ask of the teachers because we are seeing more tamariki with more needs manifesting.

For a Government that talks about educational outcomes, by having unregistered teachers in the ECE setting, how are we going to be preparing our tamariki for entry into primary school if this bill goes through? So, again, we want to see safe and thriving children and we are deeply concerned that this bill is going to take us backwards and we are going to be putting tamariki in harm’s way.

There are a lot more things that I think this bill could potentially tidy up on, and we’re happy to engage with the Minister during the committee of the whole House stage, but the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand will not and will never support this bill.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

If I was on that side of the House this morning, I would be embarrassed by the scaremongering they are creating in this House. I am lucky that I have a 17-week-old daughter this week, but I’m lucky because she’s not my first. We have children in early childhood education and we know the value of the work that teachers do across this county in early childhood education right now. But if she was my first and I had to watch what these guys have been saying in this House about the challenges they are creating in their minds and in the minds of New Zealanders about early childhood education, I would be worried about the education my daughter would be going into. But I want to assure New Zealanders that it’s not the truth. The truth is that this bill will support the development of early childhood education in this country, and, therefore, I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill follows what I think was some really good work. It’s good to see the Ministry for Regulation finding its feet and doing some good work. If we want our country to be more prosperous and if we want to be wealthier, we have to reduce red tape in some places.

I heard the words “gold standard” uttered by Jan Tinetti, and, look, I can well recall a number of early childhood education centres which were looking to upgrade what they were. They wanted to go from, if you like, bronze standard, and silver standard was all that they could afford to do, but the ministry would say to them, “No, if you can’t make gold, forget it. You’re not going to go anywhere.”, and so they had to stick with bronze standard.

I also heard, as Carl Bates has said, a lot of scaremongering from the Opposition parties about things like health and safety. Those are all in the bill. There is the primary purpose and a whole bunch of objectives, and that includes health and safety. I think that the Opposition is misrepresenting this bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

Kua tipu hei oranga mō te iwi Māori

Mā te Matua i te rangi hei ārahi te kōhanga

Nō reira mauria mai ō tamariki

ki te kōhanga reo

[It has grown for the wellbeing of the Maori people

May our Father in heaven lead the Kohanga

Therefore, bring your children

to the kōhanga reo]

This is probably one of the most colonial, violent pieces of legislation to move into this House. I go back to a time as a graduate of te kōhanga reo, and when I was at the kōhanga reo, it was driven by community, it was driven by elders, it was driven by hapū, and it was driven by iwi kōrero and mātauranga. This particular bill takes that power away from our people. It takes away the ability to ground our tamariki in who they truly are. It takes away the ability for our people to live by design and not by default. This particular bill is probably one of the most atrocious bills I have seen in regards to Māori being able to live their best lives and being able to grow tamariki mokopuna to stand strong, to stand tall, and to stand true to who they really are.

We don’t need monocultural perspectives. We don’t need monocultural subjugation and assimilation projects and experiments. What we need is to allow our people to live with dignity, integrity, and rangatiratanga. This bill strips away all of that. It takes away the cloak of safety that Te Tiriti o Waitangi provides, not just to Māori tamariki but to every tamaiti in this country. To then move it to a ministry and a Minister who has openly attacked Te Tiriti o Waitangi, who has openly attacked te reo Māori, and who has openly attacked the rights of tangata whenua here in Aotearoa is absolutely appalling. That this Government will allow that, after years and years of support for kaupapa like kōhanga reo and puna reo—this particular party and past MPs that have supported kaupapa like kōhanga reo and puna reo would be ashamed. They would be ashamed that they have allowed this piece of legislation to go through this House.

They gave an ability for Māori to be able to build a kaupapa that was grounded in te ao Māori. This iteration of a National Government and a National Party disregards the mahi that their forefathers and those who have gone through this House before them have left. It was a legacy that allowed a relationship to be built—albeit incremental, albeit very slow—but at least they were listening to the people outside of this House. They have forgotten the voices outside this House. They have forgotten those who matter. They are out of touch—they are out of touch. What we need to do is just have a look at the history books, have a look at the Hansard, have a look at what past National Governments have done to ensure that Māori were able to build kōhanga reo and were able to build puna reo.

But what we have done is moved it under a Minister that has a fetish to discriminate iwi Māori, not only its language but Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Joseph Mooney: What a load of absolute nonsense!

RAWIRI WAITITI: It’s all in your legislation. What we want to do is to say that Te Pāti Māori are absolutely and unequivocally opposed to this bill. At the second reading, we hope that the National Government and the National Party find the heart that they have had in the past to ensure that this bill doesn’t go through, and allow Māori to live by design and not by default. Kia ora tātou.

Before I take the next half of the split call, can I just remind members that the conversation does not happen across the House. If you want to have a conversation with anyone else that’s not speaking, take it out into the corridor. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill. Before I begin my speech properly, I just wanted to acknowledge two of the previous speakers from the Government benches: Andy Foster and Carl Bates. They’re very able and intelligent people, so it surprised me that they couldn’t do full calls on this, that they did sub-one-minute speeches. I had a think: why would these intelligent, thoughtful members have such short contributions to a debate? I think it’s because they know that this bill is actually indefensible, so they can’t muster up any kind of defence to what this Government is doing, which is actually continuing the deregulation agenda that has begun from their term. We’ve seen the impacts of the deregulation agenda on our electricity markets and we’ve seen the impact of deregulation on the monopoly power that our supermarkets enjoy. So this is just continuing a trend that has immiserated New Zealanders.

Now, we have specific objections to this bill that were articulated already quite nicely by the previous Green speaker, but I’ll go through them again. One of the concerns that we have is the speed at which this legislation and all the wider Government reforms are actually taking place. It’s a policy blitzkrieg because they know that they’re on their way out already and they’re trying to rush through as much legislation as they can on their way out.

One of our concerns, as well, is the opaque consultation that has occurred. We know that the genesis of this bill and the report that it relies on was the regulatory review that the Ministry for Regulation did. We know that that report ignored the research evidence relating to teaching and learning; we know that the ministry chose not to proactively release the data collected from the consultation; and we know that this is a trend and that it doesn’t have to be this way, because we’ve seen other bills where they’ve actually released the information proactively. We know that this bill creates potential risks for people not only working in the sector but for the people that they’re servicing, the children who are in these centres.

One of the main recommendations of the genesis of this, which was the Ministry for Regulation’s regulatory review on the early childhood education (ECE) sector, was to remove HS5, which is safe assembly areas for children in the event of fires and emergency. We see this sort of thinking permeate with the shift to risk-based monitoring that this bill is proposing to do. We on this side of the House think that’s potentially dangerous, and it’s dangerous because we know that the number of emergency events in New Zealand has only risen quite precipitously since—well, it’s been increasing constantly.

One of the things that you do when you’re a new MP is you get taken to the bunker and they show you the number of emergencies that New Zealand has had. There’s a little chart that they show you that shows the number of emergency management events that have occurred in New Zealand. There’s been quite a rapid explosion over the past 10 years. So the removal of safe assembly areas, and the shift to risk-based monitoring that this bill is proposing to shift towards, is really a retrograde step in the wrong direction and it’s something that will potentially compromise the safety of the tamariki in the centres but it also potentially compromises the staff and also the wellbeing of the parents.

We also know that the child impact statement was not produced as part of the consideration for this bill, and Mana Mokopuna were not genuinely engaged in the development of this bill. We know that this uneven scrutiny invites breaches of trust, places children and families at risk, and risks jeopardising our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We know that this will further undermine the confidence of parents, whānau, and the community in our ECE provision.

With the remaining 10 seconds that I have left on this bill, I want to reiterate our opposition not only to this bill but to the wider deregulation agenda that this bill represents. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill in its second reading. At the Education and Workforce Committee we did hear from a wide range of people and we were ably supported, and I want to say thanks to all the submitters and all the staff who supported us in this process.

The bill that has come through is a sensible one that focuses on safety, and it makes sure that it clarifies regulations for the education providers so that they can be there for the children and have a better opportunity to be able to start up businesses and therefore improve competition and reduce costs across the board. I commend the bill to the House.

Thanks, Madam Speaker. So just by way of a bit of context for my comments, there’s no doubt in my mind that the expansion of early childhood education over the last, let’s say, two decades - plus has been one of the really important advances in New Zealand’s social provision. It’s become an indispensable service for so many families now who rely on one or both parents working in order to feed the family. So from a sheer economic point of view, it’s become a vital part of modern life for families in New Zealand. It’s now widely accepted, I think, that high-quality early childhood education is one of the best social interventions we can make to give our children the best possible start in life. It’s one of the most powerful things we can do to improve the life chances of our people.

We have, through successive Governments, kind of pieced together, layer upon layer, a mixed model of public funding—public provision and private provision. That has its pros and cons. There’s a strong view amongst the non-profit providers in the early childhood education (ECE) sector that the competitive pressures inherent in the market actually tend to cut against the really important quality aspects of early childhood education that are so important: that is, highly qualified teachers, appropriate teacher-to-student ratios, an emphasis on child development and really positive learning environment, safety, and the wellbeing of the students.

There are, of course, many privately run early childhood education providers that do a fantastic job. My granddaughter’s just graduated to the local primary school. She spent more than two years with a local ECE that is privately run, and the quality of that centre and the teaching and the overall environment was outstanding. But nevertheless, I think the tensions that are inherent to this kind of mixed model are a really sensitive issue that this House should pay attention to.

The suspicion from the beginning of this process that the Minister, David Seymour, initiated with his review of the regulatory settings has been that it was a move by an ACT Party Minister to pursue a competitive market approach to the provision of early childhood education that would further privilege the market position of privately owned early childhood education centres. I think that suspicion has been reinforced with the emergence of this bill, with the submissions that we heard at select committee. I think that many in the sector—in the non-profit part of the sector, particularly—would say their suspicions have been borne out. What we see with this bill is that it puts in place a new regulatory framework, the appointment or the establishment of a new director of regulation whose mandate is framed primarily around the economic imperative to make it easier for parents to get back into the workforce.

Now, of course, that is important; that’s part of the equation. But, we ask, why isn’t the important framing for this new measure the quality of early childhood education: learning, the safety and wellbeing of the children who are in that system? That seems really to put the cart before the horse. If there’s a part of the education system where the wellbeing of the students and their safety should be paramount, surely it should be the early childhood sector.

The bill also establishes a number of principles that the director must have regard to. That includes the health, safety, and wellbeing of the children; it includes their learning and their development; the role of parents and caregivers; and that good regulatory practice must be risk-based, proportionate, fair, and transparent, and avoid imposing unnecessary costs on parents, caregivers, and service providers. The effect of that and the overall framing of this provision, we believe, is to move the dial in the direction of low-cost regulation that will remove the regulatory burden on providers and away from what we think should be the paramount objectives, and that is the safety, wellbeing, and the educational experience of the students.

There’s been a lot of criticism, and it needs to be noted that the process has been rushed, consultation has been limited, and that has, I think, further undermined confidence of much of the sector in this regulatory process. Ultimately, we’ll see in the work of the director of regulation and what that position delivers. We’ll see whether or not, in fact, the fears that the sector have that this is simply a Trojan horse to run the sector along purely market and competitive lines—we’ll see, in time, whether in fact those concerns are borne out. I’ll leave that there. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to take this short call on a very important bill. Listening to the Opposition, anyone would think that the world was going to end. Actually, we’re very focused on providing an early childhood education (ECE) sector that is both safe and provides high-quality education for young children. But what we do have to remember is parents. Remember the parents in this situation: the parents actually need the ability to find an ECE facility to use, and to also have the ability to afford it. This bill will allow both of those things to happen, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to talk on the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill. Of course, those words are important: early childhood education. We are not talking about daycares or childcares; this is childhood education. It is not babysitting, and I’ll come to that point in a minute, but I want to start on a positive note, and that is that I’m standing here as the member of Parliament for Dunedin. Of course, Dunedin is famous for many things: amazing wildlife, beautiful heritage, an amazing university, and—

Joseph Mooney: Amazing businesses.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —some amazing businesses. That’s right; lots of innovation. It’s a great city. There’s a real emphasis on education there.

As part of their emphasis on education, there has been the world-renowned longitudinal study—the Dunedin study—of people that are now, I can’t remember, 52 or 53. This study has gone for over 50 years now, over half a century, looking at, and following, about a thousand people over that half-decade and more, and they bring them back to Dunedin every seven or so years—it depends on the age that they’re at—and they do a lot of different testing and studying with these wonderful people, who’ve given up so much of their life to be part of that study. From this study, there have been lots of pieces of research, and one of those has demonstrated the importance of the first 1,000 days of life. Of course, for many children, those first thousand days of life will involve an early childhood education centre. This legislation is incredibly important because it deals with those first thousand days.

I also want to add, in my being a person from Dunedin, that I’m also a mother from Dunedin and have had all three of my children go through an excellent early childhood education centre attached to the hospital, and so I know what it feels like as a parent to have your children being educated by trained teachers with good ratios. What a difference that made to my comfort in going back into the workforce. It’s so important that we recognise their expertise and also the stresses that are on that workforce.

Of course, I’ve also been talking to NZEI in Dunedin and the teachers there that are very opposed to this legislation and have problems with both this legislation and the other regulations that the Minister has referred to. I want to go to who does the regulating. That is an issue that the Minister addressed in his speech on the second reading. He said that it’s good to separate the regulatory body from the policy body. That is a common thing that we see in regulatory systems, but it’s also good—and, I would argue, much, much, much more important—that the regulated isn’t doing the regulating. One of our concerns with the bill is that the industry who is now providing for some of this childhood education will set those standards and will become the regulator. That is of great concern because, of course, they have other incentives there, like the ability to keep on doing their business, which is this childcare. That is a concern and that is my answer to the Minister. Of course, we’ve seen that from ACT in other settings, as well, most recently with farm plans. This is where the industry is doing the regulation rather than a Government body.

I also want to quickly touch on these changes to the purpose of Part 2 of the Act, and that is where the focus becomes on the parents participating in the labour market rather than on all children being able to participate and receive a strong foundation for learning and positive wellbeing. That is a terrible change, and we’ll have more to say about that in the committee of the whole House stage. I do not recommend this bill to the House.

It’s a great honour to rise in support of the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill in this reading. I agree with the previous speaker: this is about education. If we tie up our educators with a high compliance burden, that’s less time for genuine educational engagement and children interaction. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. As I rise to reflect on this piece of legislation and, I guess, echo the words of my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking, who was talking about the Dunedin study, I say that I was about two years old and I was too young. I think it was about 1972 that that was first initiated, and I was born in Dunedin in 1975. So—

Hon Rachel Brooking: A great year.

GLEN BENNETT: A great year—but it was. As my honourable colleague has said, the significance of that piece of work and its reputation not only in New Zealand but globally demonstrates the fact that good data and tracking for a long time is what we need to be doing. That was about the role of nurturing a baby from conception right through that first 1,000 days, but often I reflect that now a lot of the research and work talks about the first 2,000 days, and that is the thinking about the fact that the time of conception through to the time a child can start school is significant and is so important in terms of the foundation. It is so important in terms of attachment, and you can look at all the research when it comes to not only early childhood education but also the make-up of a whānau and a community.

Attachment is such a key element when it comes to the wellbeing and the potential that a child has to grow into an adult who can participate in society in a productive way. All the research and the evidence shows that, and often in this House it does concern me—and I talk from all colours of Government—that at times we do ignore research or evidence. That is unhelpful, particularly when it comes to our youngest and particularly when it comes to the foundation, which means, if we get it right in those first 1,000 days and in the first 2,000 days, there is far more chance and likelihood that children will be, as I’ve said, those productive and engaged members of society.

I didn’t sit on the Education and Workforce Committee for this bill, and so I have just a few comments that I wanted to make as I’ve read through the regulatory impact statement (RIS), as I’ve looked briefly through the bill, and as I’ve listened to colleagues on all sides of the House debating this legislation this morning. I want to reflect on some of the comments in the RIS, and often we hear—particularly as this was brought to the House by the Ministry for Regulation, and the leader of the ACT Party, and the current Deputy Prime Minister—that it’s all around the money and it’s all around the cost.

I flicked through the RIS, looking at the cost impacts and what it means and what was presented to the Cabinet, what was presented to the select committee, and what’s been presented to the House this afternoon in terms of the cost benefits. For those who haven’t read one of these documents before, it goes through and it can be fairly methodical at times, and at times there can be lots of bits missing. When we look at this one this afternoon, we can look at the cost and there is, it says here, an outline of the key monetarised and non-monetarised costs, where those costs fall for people and organisations or the environments, the nature of those impacts, and the direct impacts that the cost of a piece of legislation like this will have. I looked at it, and it’s just missing. It’s completely redacted.

Obviously, we know that there are different reasons that information is redacted when it comes to the RIS, but the fact is that the whole section on the cost—the core information around this bill—has absolutely nothing that we can take as a House and there is nothing that we can take as a select committee around the cost implications. Whether it’s good or whether it’s bad, we don’t know, because it is completely missing, and that is always a challenge for us, as we in Opposition want to critique, want to understand, and want to find a way forward that shows that maybe, potentially, there is something good about this. But we don’t know because it is missing.

My second comment that I want to make—and my colleague the Hon Phil Twyford, who did sit on the select committee, brought this up briefly—is around the limitations and constraints on analysis on this piece of legislation. Again, we go through the RIS and look at the information that is at hand, and it talks about there being several limitations or constraints on the regulatory analysis outlined in this RIS. That is due to the limitations on the rigour and depth of analysis undertaken as part of the review. It talks about the ministerial direction to accept the findings and recommendations of the review and the ministerial direction to develop and implement the policy response at pace.

It is talking about trying to reduce regulatory burden for the service providers, but then it goes on to say that there are limited opportunities to test the key assumptions underpinned by some of the findings and the recommendations of the review and considered alternative options. That’s because time wasn’t allowed to make this happen, that is because they weren’t able to necessarily engage with all the stakeholders and key people that they needed to, and that is a challenge when we come back to the House. Not only is the select committee having to unpack it but then we come here in the second reading and, again, when we move into the committee stage to debate, to unpack, and to pull this apart to ensure that it actually has some decency when it ends up—if it does—having its third reading and having the Royal assent.

It talks about there being limited time to undertake a detailed analysis. There just was not time for them to engage with that, and then there was the lack of consultation with key stakeholders—including service providers, parents, and Māori—on these policy proposals, and that is a challenge for us, because we often talk about what the role of the Opposition is. The role of the Opposition is to critique, the role of the Opposition is to hold the Government to account, and the role of the Opposition is, yeah, to pull it apart. Potentially, we might not agree with every bill—in fact, on many of them that are currently coming through, we very rarely agree—but if we have to deal with it, it’s around how do we pull it apart and put it back together in a way that maybe is acceptable, not only to us as the Opposition but to the key stakeholders, to the families, and the people involved. But the challenge we have is that, yet again, it’s a rushed process and so there’s limited analysis and there’s little understanding of the cost, and that is where we have to say no, we can’t continue to support this legislation in its form, because we are just not happy with where it’s landed.

Finally, I just wanted to talk about the shift away from the child-centred approach that this legislation brings, and that is of concern for us. Again, as the Hon Rachel Brooking and I have talked about the first 1,000 days—and others in the House have nodded and agreed—we say that the child-centred approach should always be the key. With every piece of legislation—whether it be about children, whether it be about early childhood education, or whatever it is about—we should always focus on ensuring that there is a child-centred approach, and in this legislation the concern is that the child development, the wellbeing, and the learning are at risk because of the way that this legislation is put together.

The stakeholders actually talked about the fear and the concern that they have about this, and about the intrinsic value that play brings, that exploration brings, and that holistic learning brings in terms of a child’s development. We look at this bill, and it feels like it’s just around the economic development and participation—how to actually make it work from an economic development perspective—whereas it should be from a child-centred perspective. It should be about creativity, it should be about play, it should be about exploration, and it should be about the social and emotional foundations that we build when we talk about those first 1,000 and 2,000 days, to ensure that a child is equipped and ready to face the big, wide world out there, which is so challenging and tough.

We can’t support this bill. It fundamentally goes against many of the values and what we stand for as the Labour Party, and I know that other colleagues in the Opposition agree with that, as well. We cannot support this bill, and we ask the Government to consider voting against it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take the final call on the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill. I agree with the comments made by my wonderful colleagues as they have traversed this bill, and we do not agree with many of the comments from the other side. We support the bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority be agreed to.

Members, that is the end of Tuesday’s day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m.

The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Wednesday)