Power Simon: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8564] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 One thing is pretty clear from that contribution of the Hon John Tamihere—which is that he just does not believe a word of that stuff. John Tamihere I am sure believes that early childhood education like every other form of education is best dealt with out of the reach of grey suit - wearing bureaucrats in Wellington and in communities where people understand exactly what their communities require in the way of education. 
I tell Brian Donnelly that I listened with interest to his contribution. I generally listen pretty carefully to what he has to say on education matters but I was very disappointed about his coming to the House and telling us about a private telephone conversation. That is not really the done thing for a member who is hugely credible in the education area and generally brings a lot of sane argument to some pretty robust debate in that area. 
I want to reiterate what my colleague Phil Heatley said. National will be opposing this bill. The closest I have come to a close relationship with the early childhood sector were my own kindergarten days back at Milverton Kindergarten in Palmerston North which was not— 
Hon John Tamihere 
: Only 6 months ago. 
SIMON POWER 
: That is right. I have read through the bill. I spent a bit of time on it last night. I am not an expert so I wanted to make sure that I would be able at least to hold my own against Brian Donnelly. I was not too worried about John Tamihere because I knew that he would agree with whatever I said. What we are seeing here is in direct contrast to what we saw in the tertiary sector. We are seeing the Minister signalling that he wants to disestablish a Crown entity integrate it into the ministry and recentralise control over this part of the education sector so that matters I guess are more firmly in his grip. 
In the tertiary sector quite the opposite happened. A separate Crown entity was formed to be the Tertiary Education Commission which was charged with independently overviewing the tertiary sector outside the realm of the Ministry of Education specifically so that the sector would see that the Crown entity allegedly had that independent credibility so crucial in the Minister’s mind to the steering of that sector in either a light-handed or heavy-handed way. 
I tell the Minister of Education and the Associate Minister of Education Steve Maharey that it cannot be done both ways. The Government might have the view that all sectors should be centralised into the ministry—into that monster bureaucracy that will drive the future of this country because that is what education does. In fact education is the engine room of the growth not only of the economy but of the nation. On the one hand the Government cannot say that the Ministry of Education is best equipped to centralise sectors in the early childhood area—by which it will wipe out a separate stand-alone entity and bring it back into the fold of the big behemoth bureaucracy the ministry—then on the other hand sell the view to the tertiary sector that what is required to gear that sector appropriately is a stand-alone Crown entity. 
There is just no consistency in the way in which this Government applies its basic philosophy to education. I just cannot understand what has created two roads running side by side—that is early childhood education in one direction and tertiary education in another. The Minister came to the House and said that the bill was about tidying up a few funding mechanisms getting a few things in order and getting the house tidied up. Quite the opposite was done by the Hon Steve Maharey in the tertiary sector and I do not believe for one second that both can be right. It just simply makes no sense. 
We are looking here to create what is essentially a new funding mechanism that enables the Ministry of Education to channel funding and that is the key point of the whole bill. It enables the ministry to channel the funding whereas of course the Tertiary Education Commission does that separately by way of charters and profiles and the Performance-based Research Fund does it separately again. With early childhood however it is a case of—“No no the ministry knows best.” It will control and channel funding to licence-exempt early childhood providers. At present funding is channelled to those providers from the ministry via the Early Childhood Development Board which provides a buffer organisation. In my view—to recall Brian Donnelly’s comments about policy and operation—that is probably an appropriate way to operate in the sector. 
I want to know from the Minister what will happen to those people currently employed in or around the Early Childhood Development Board. Bernie Ogilvy touched on that ever so gently but pulled back at the last minute from making an issue of it. He said the Minister of Education also holds portfolio responsibilities concerning the State sector and 3 or 4 weeks ago we saw the passing of a State Sector Amendment Bill that dealt with the issue of Christine Rankin’s liability. Some would say that it was a question of merging two ministries. Clearly it was designed to create a redundancy void. I have a very strange feeling that this legislation is designed to do exactly the same thing that we saw in the social development area. 
I spent some time looking at the bill last night—and if Brian Donnelly wants to take another call I would be very happy to hear from him on this—and I saw that it is very light on the detail of the contingent liabilities of the people who work in the current Crown entity. What will happen to those people? Have they been guaranteed that they will be swallowed into the Ministry of Education—there is a future to look forward to!—or will they be put in some box somewhere issued with grey suits and told never to come out to see the light of day again? 
I want to know where those issues are dealt with in this bill—because they are not. The bill is strangely quiet over employment and technical redundancy matters. My reading of it is that the State Sector Amendment Act passed through this House 3 or 4 weeks ago deals expressly with the issue now raised in this bill and that there will be no provision for technical redundancies under this bill. The State Sector Amendment Act will apply to the merging and the disestablishment of that Crown entity. 
The Minister should answer these questions. Those members opposite who were elected to this House to represent the workers of New Zealand should be concerned that this bill they are about to vote for will do exactly this: it will wipe out any opportunity for those employees to create or find any redundancy—technical or otherwise. I am extremely concerned that the State Sector Amendment Act will effectively introduce into this legislation a pay-nothing clause for those people leaving the Early Childhood Development Board. 
We heard very briefly from other speakers in this House that this legislation is part of a trend. We have seen the Special Education Service merged with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth Affairs with the Ministry of Social Development although as the honourable member Deborah Coddington quite rightly pointed out the same thing did not happen to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. It is very tricky to work out why a Government would do that to the Ministry of Youth Affairs but not to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. 
I have to say to the Minister John Tamihere that he lost that one to the sisterhood. The Ministry of Youth Affairs was merged but the Ministry of Women’s Affairs was not. I would be very interested in hearing that Minister’s view because now he is left with the portfolios of land information and statistics. I hope he does not get too bogged down. I see that he has some light reading from the library on the pedestal in front of him which he obviously checked out to fill in the afternoon. Once the Ministry of Youth Affairs has gone let us be clear there will be a huge growth in the bureaucracy around education. 
I finish with this message to the House: beware the bureaucrats. They do not know what is best for the children of this country. We should be making sure that they are held accountable. During the select committee process and through the rest of the process of this bill National will be making sure that two groups are looked after—those who currently work at the Crown entity about to be disestablished but who are about to lose their jobs through technical redundancies being wiped out and the children of New Zealand so that the education afforded them in the early childhood area does not lose the quality standard it now has because it is going to be absorbed into a giant bureaucracy promoted by that Minister.