Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): This bill is about the employment conditions of early childhood education teachers. I want to start my contribution by saying that I have huge appreciation for early childhood educators. I have had four children go through early childhood services and to watch the patience the care and the dedication of the teachers that each of my children had in those services was a real joy and I feel ongoing appreciation for that. Early childhood teachers shape our children's expectations of education and their social interaction; they are incredibly important people. In fact they also helped me I believe be a better parent by teaching me all sorts of things about how to get the best out of my kids. So I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the vital role of early childhood teachers. I also want to affirm National's commitment to this very important sector. While National was in Government we more than doubled funding for early childhood education. We did that because we saw its vital importance as a foundation for all education and we wanted to ensure that more children from across our communities were able to access early childhood education and that it wasn't just the privilege of the few but it was something that was able to be accessed by people on all income levels and from all communities. We are very proud of the work that we did here. Now this bill deals with an issue that has been a long-time disparity and something that early childhood educators have long pointed out is just unfair and that is the disparity between kindergarten teacher pay and other early childhood teachers; a disparity that has been reinforced by differential funding rates for kindergartens versus other types of early childhood services. I would be asked again and again when I visited early childhood services in a previous role I held as National's early childhood education spokesperson—they would say to me Why do kindergartens get funded more when they do exactly the same thing as we do? They are required to meet exactly the same regulatory standards. They are required to follow exactly the same curriculum. They are required to teach children in exactly the same way. Why do they get funded more?" It was a very hard question to answer because actually the only reason that kindergartens have been funded more is because that then allows their teachers to be paid more. But the work that those teachers do in kindergartens—incredibly important valuable work—is not actually different in substance from the work done by early childhood teachers and other types of services. So we acknowledge that that disparity has been unfair and we acknowledge steps towards reducing that disparity. But as the Minister well knows this is an issue that has been under discussion for years. In fact the Minister himself has talked about the Government's desire to address this disparity for months. So it is a very fair question for us to ask on this side of the House: given how long this issue has been talked about discussed why is it that a bill has suddenly been landed on the Table under urgency seemingly blind-siding the sector? Why is that the approach that is being taken when the Minister has had ample opportunity to engage constructively on this? I would simply question: why the urgency? What is really going on here in the way that this mechanism has been created? I am told by those who work in the early childhood sector that yes there have been discussions about what a mechanism could be for ensuring that additional funding intended for teacher pay is used in that way but they were not expecting legislation of this sort and believe that there has been miscommunication from the Ministry of Education that there has not been clarity about why this is the mechanism that is being sought or what is intended by it. I would point out that they have some genuine reason to be concerned about that. When we look at the wording in this bill it is actually very broad. What it says is that the Minister is allowed to put conditions around the funding that he gives centres to help achieve aims that are or include employment relations aims. Now the Minister if we take him at his word is intending for this to be funding—simply that it will flow through to particular funding rates for teachers. But the term "employment relation aims" which is used in this bill is much much broader than that. It is fair I think for this side of the House to say "Well why are you using such a broad broad phrase and why has it been sprung on the sector that this is the way you are going to do it? Is there a bigger agenda here in terms of the way the Minister intends to use this legislation to dictate other aspects of employment relations that are important to him that may challenge the basis on which privately owned early childhood centres and businesses wish to operate those businesses and wish to employ their staff?" That is why we on this side of the House are very cautious and are very concerned that people in the early childhood sector look at this legislation consider what it means for them and have the opportunity to submit fully during a select committee process. We would not like to see a situation where the nature of the relationship between early childhood services and the Ministry of Education and its funding goals is inalterably changed through something which is framed up as something of good-faith in terms of paying teachers more. So we on this side of the House cautiously support the bill at first reading. We acknowledge the disparity in pay between kindergarten teachers and other teachers and the need for that to be addressed and the benefits of addressing that. But we are very concerned that this has been introduced under urgency that it is a broad provision. We think it is absolutely vital that the sector consider what this means for them and their future and that the Minister listens to them carefully during the select committee process."