Moroney Sue: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Moroney Sue: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12738] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Nothing in the estimates shows how much this Government has no plan for the future more than the savage cuts being made to early childhood education. If anything would show that a Government understood what a bright future might look like it would be investing in our children. It would invest in making sure that our children had the very best and the highest-quality early childhood education. What has this Government done? It has cut the funding for high-quality early childhood education. 
Allan Peachey 
: Didn’t you listen to what I just said? 
SUE MORONEY 
: I listened very carefully I say to Mr Peachey and I invite the member to go and meet with the 2000 early childhood education services that have had funding cut. It has been cut to the tune of up to $320000. One service that I have spoken to has a funding shortfall of $320000 per year because of what that Minister of Education allowed to happen to her portfolio. That damage is being meted out to our children and to the future. 
This Government promised this country a brighter future. That is what it promised and now we have found out exactly what that brighter future looks like. It looks like a dimmer future. It is a dimmer future for the children because they will have their education dumbed down by having fewer qualified teaching staff in early childhood education. 
A lot of people in the sector have said to me that this move from a Government that pretends it wants to lift educational achievement makes absolutely no sense. The national standards are definitely not the way to do it because all that is doing is measuring what we already know is out there. The Government pretends it wants to lift educational achievement yet it has cut the funding for qualified staff in early childhood education. So the Government does not understand that investment is necessary for early childhood education and it clearly has no plan for the future. Those children are our future and it is definitely not the brighter future that this Government promised. 
Two thousand services are affected by the funding cut but that is just the tip of the iceberg. At least 93000 children and their families are affected by this cut. I ask what that will look like because the Prime Minister John Key is quite fond of saying that he does not believe that those huge funding cuts of $295 million will be passed on to families. He said that he thinks that somehow the sector will absorb that shortfall. He thinks that it will suck in the $295 million shortfall and that it will not be passed on to families. But that is not what the officials told that Minister of Education. The Budget papers reveal that the officials warned the Government that the cost would be passed on to families. They estimated that a cost of between $20 and $45 per child per week would be passed on to families. That is exactly the effect of the funding cuts. The tax cuts for low and middle income families will be completely taken away by this funding cut alone. If families want their children to have access to quality early childhood education then they will end up being out of pocket. 
My real concern is that this will lead to a three-tier early childhood education system in this country. If a family lives in a very wealthy neighbourhood and the parents can afford to pay the extra $20 to $45 per week per child then 100 percent of the staff for that neighbourhood’s children will be qualified which is great. But a family in a middle-income neighbourhood will probably have to make do with plan B a second-rate service only with up to 80 percent of the teachers of the young children qualified. If a family lives in a poor neighbourhood the Minister’s plan for their children is to go to a playgroup. That is completely upside down. 
All the research and the evidence tells us that it is the children from the low-income neighbourhoods who should have and absolutely need the highest-quality teaching for their early childhood education years. That can make a real difference to them. They need the teachers who are qualified who understand how to make the best of those children and who know how to get them off to the best start. But that will not happen under this Government.