Moroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Moroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:666;Page:13771] 
6. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does she stand by her statement in relation to her funding reductions for some early childhood education centres “I think it is unlikely that most centres will pass on those costs because they are able to change their staffing they are able to change their services—they are able to do a number of things in order to make those changes.”? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did she receive advice that if she funded only up to 80 percent of teachers being registered fees would rise by $40 to $80 a week and over 80000 children would be affected? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: That was some advice that was given of one scenario that could happen in early childhood education. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Was the option not to fund above 80 percent part of the only scenario related to that option? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I do not have that briefing document in front of me so I cannot comment on the details of the advice. The member has received all the briefing documents that I released. I received a lot of advice but the core advice was that the cost of early childhood education had almost trebled in the past 5 years whereas participation had grown by less than 1 percent. So we were addressing a blowout in expenses that was unsustainable. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Will early childhood education that retain 100 percent trained staff be able to charge a fee to cover the additional costs of having trained staff for the 20 free hours component for 3 and 4-year-olds? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: We have not changed the restrictions on the 20 free hours. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Although the response said “We have not changed …” I am not sure that anyone in the House knows whether the answer to the question was yes or no. I will point out that the Minister— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no the member was fine until that point; he did not need to point out anything further. I accept the point being made. The question was a fair one. It did not contain any political accusations or anything like that. It was a straight question about the outcomes of a policy decision. I am not sure that anyone listening to the answer as the member suggests would be aware of what it meant. I invite the member to repeat his question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Will early childhood education providers that retain 100 percent trained staff be allowed to charge a fee to cover their additional costs of having trained staff for the 20 free hours component for 3 and 4-year-olds? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: This Government has maintained the previous Government’s fee controls which prevent compulsory top-up charges. 
Louise Upston 
: How will the reprioritisation of early childhood education funding help to raise the participation of children who are currently missing out? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Reprioritising the top two funding bands has allowed us to invest an additional $91.8 million over 4 years in a package to boost participation amongst groups that are currently missing out. Recently I announced that Waitakere and Northland children will be the first to benefit from the package. In some parts of those regions up to 25 percent of children are not getting any early childhood education at all and we are committed to addressing that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of her response to my last supplementary question why did she tell the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Associations conference that in order to make up the difference for the 3 and 4-year-olds and the cost of maintaining the trained staff who are not covered they should “go for it” and increase their fees? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I did not. I received an email after the spokesperson for Labour had put out her statement. The email asked: “Was Sue at the same meeting I was? The Minister did not say kindergartens should ‘go for it’ and increase fees. What I heard her say was she hoped that the last thing kindergartens and centres would do was increase fees to parents.”