Donnelly Brian: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8559] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting phone call from my colleague the member for Whangarei. Up in Northland we look after each other. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes party lines go out when it comes to Northland interests. I just want to report how the conversation went. He said: “Hey Brian what’s this bill about early childhood education about?”. I explained how the Early Childhood Development Board was to be absorbed into the Ministry of Education. The conversation continued: “What are you guys going to do?”. I said that there is duplication at the moment there is wastage of money and it makes sense to roll these bodies into one. The next comment was: “Yeah but that’s your position for New Zealand First; what’s our position?”. I explained to him: “You guys have always believed that there should be a split between the policy side and the operational side of things so you will probably be opposed to it.” Guess what? National is opposed to it and I am going to send Bill English a bill for the policy consultancy work done by Brian Donnelly on behalf of New Zealand First. 
Jill Pettis said that the National Party spokesperson on early childhood education was struggling and was mentioning how parents are outraged. I can see all these parents pushing their prams to the steps of Parliament to protest against this draconian move by this awful Labour Government. I can see Shane Ardern pushing a pram up the steps and the police coming to get him for disorderly conduct. The reality is nothing of the sort. 
I have to say that during my brief sojourn in the executive I was delegated responsibility for early childhood education including obviously the Early Childhood Development Unit as it was called at the time. During that 1 week in which I sat on that side of the House and was a member of the executive—which Geoffrey Palmer reckoned was a constitutional outrage—I think I signed off making it the Early Childhood Development Board. So there is a bit of a sense of loss here. 
But the Early Childhood Development Unit as it was or the Early Childhood Development Board as it is now was set up at a time when the theory of Government administration favoured a complete separation of policy and operation. In the early 1990s we did that across the field not only in the area of early childhood education but in a whole range of education areas. In a sense it was a sub-theme of the funder/provider split doctrine that existed at that particular time. In general that pure theory just did not work. It certainly did not work in education. We have seen the same sort of thing occurring with the Special Education Service and some other areas. There was fragmentation and even by 1996 it was recognised that there was a problem with that pure point of view in terms of Government administration. The policy makers were losing touch with the grass roots with the reality of what was actually happening in our schools and preschools throughout the country. The ministry particularly in the field of early childhood education was progressively taking a much much more hands-on approach even by that particular stage in time—even though it was somewhat surreptitious. 
I have to make the claim that I think it was the New Zealand First - National administration that started in education at least deliberately to reconnect the policy with the provision. I think the Minister of Education would agree with that. In reality some of this was already happening. During that coalition Wyatt Creech and I recognised that we had to start reconnecting the disparate policy/operation shift or policy/provider shift that was happening. The Labour administration has come in with a deliberate policy of breaking down that split. We have to recognise that that is the policy that this particular administration has pursued and the bringing together of the two parts has in fact accelerated. The result is we have duplication of roles between what the Early Childhood Development Board is doing and what the Ministry of Education is doing in this particular field. It does not seem sensible or fair on the taxpayer to continue to have this particular duplication. 
One of the ironies of the situation is that the Ministry of Education is able to pay salaries at such a level that it has been attracting all the staff from the Early Childhood Development Board which has been having difficulty keeping its best-quality staff. So it has been becoming more and more difficult for the Early Childhood Development Board to carry out its task. 
The Minister mentioned that the board has been strong in connecting with Maori and Pacific Island populations. In fact in 1996 or at about that time a criticism of the board was that it did not have a strength or a capability in that area. So it is significant that it has developed that strength and hopefully it will be transferred across into the Ministry of Education. 
The one thing about the Early Childhood Development Board and that whole area of education is its diversity. Its diversity is its strength because it is able to meet the multiple aspirations of different parents’ groups but it is also its weakness. Therefore we have to set up bodies—and there are lots of bodies—to try to speak with one voice for early childhood education. Unfortunately it is somewhat of a minefield because the different groups come with different philosophies about what good quality early childhood education is. We need to retain an entity that can bring all those particular threads together into one so that within the regions we can provide good quality early childhood education. But it should not be through single providers or single-sector groups; in other words we should not be saying: “Kindergartens are good so we will have only kindergartens.” or: “Kohanga reo is the only way we can deliver immersion Maori education.” because that is not so. There is a whole variety of ways that we can meet the aspirations of parents the aspirations of families and the educational aspirations of different groups. I think kohanga reo is probably the classic example of that. 
We need to be able to retain that diversity yet overcome some of the duplication. I think that by overcoming duplication by bringing the Early Childhood Development Board into the Ministry of Education we will get better cohesion within the programme of development of early childhood education across the country. New Zealand First members believe that we should not be duplicating resources and wasting taxpayers’ money. We can have all the philosophical arguments about which is better—the provider/funder split or whatever else there might be—but in reality New Zealand First takes a very pragmatic view. In other words we want what actually works and delivers to parents and families in the diverse rural areas and cities of New Zealand. We believe that this move is a positive and constructive one in terms of making sure that we do have high-quality early childhood education across the nation. Therefore we will be supporting this bill.