Tuiono TeanauTEANAU TUIONO (Green): E tū ana mātou ngā Kākāriki ki te tautoko i tēnei o ngā pire. The Greens are standing to support this bill amending the Education and Training Act 2020 to clarify the education Minister's power to set conditions for funding and to fulfil its Budget 2021 decision to unlock funding by $170 million to employers who opt into higher funding levels and agree to pay their teachers at least parity with the first six steps of the kindergartens' collective agreement and we welcome that.I agree with the previous speaker Angela Roberts who talked about the problematic nature of paying for extra things from the wages of teachers. This legislation—it's a small technical bill but it will unlock a pathway for that funding to actually start to happen to flow into the sector. When we had a committee of the whole House last night I welcomed the statements of the Minister that this would be a first step and that there would be a next step and there would be a step after that but I would also invite the Minister to actually provide that clarity to send very strong signals to the sector about what that actually will look like—sending signals to the teaching profession but also to the providers as well.I also think it's important that we stop trying to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic—that's the impression I get from that corner of the Whare. It's important that things cost what they cost. You can't go to the mechanic and go You know what I'll just have three wheels on my car." and then expect it to go. Things cost what they cost and having this amendment to unlock and to begin this move towards full pay parity is a good thing.I think it's really important to acknowledge the work of the early childhood education (ECE) sector. They do an incredible job teaching our tamariki. They're passionate about what they do—all the ECE teachers that I've talked to are passionate about what they do. I have my own relatives who work in the sector as well—they're not doing it for the money they're not there for the pūtea but they do need to get paid properly so they can feed their whānau as well.The first years in a child's life are really important and they set up our children for educational success. The future of our physical cognitive and emotional social development is profoundly affected by our early experiences. At the heart of those experiences are the relationships children form with their parents and of course with their teachers and ensuring that those teachers are paid properly is actually a strong part of that. The Greens believe that every child deserves a high-quality free accessible public education that gives them the best possible start in life and we want all children to reach their full potential.For true pay parity to be implemented and sustained ECE sectors need to be able to start as kindergarten and school teachers do on pay steps that reflect their qualifications and experience then progressively advance through the steps annually. The pay varies wildly across the ECE sector—we know that. And while in schools there's a clear transparent pay scale that means teachers with the same experience responsibilities and qualifications receive the same pay and advance up the scale every year teachers' submissions on this bill made it clear that they want the same fairness in ECE. And that gap is huge. I keep reflecting on this press release that came out last week from the NZEI where they did a bit of—in this quote in particular it says "NZEI Te Riu Roa estimates that within 10 years an ECE teacher starting their career today will on average have been paid more than $100000 less than their colleagues in kindergarten unless the Government accelerates pay parity."—$100000 that's massive. So this first step must be followed up by consecutive steps.As I was saying regardless of what people say it costs what it costs and we need to get a really clear sense of what that is. Continuing down the path of privatisation expecting that when we rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic that it will sort it out will not work. So I would urge all of us around this House to be courageous in terms of the way that we fund education in particular with what needs to happen in order to meet pay parity. And I think again that we can alleviate the anxiety in the sector if we can give teachers and providers a clear plan—give them that clear plan so they know that this year it's $170 million; next Budget it's something else; next Budget it's something else; because if we do that that gives them a kind of pathway for them to organise. They know exactly what's coming down the pipeline. It'll help them to organise their staffing and that will mean the flow-on effects and how they can manage teacher ratios workload and of course deal with the teacher shortages that we're experiencing not just within the ECE sector but teaching in general but in particular within the ECE sector. I think we need to do this and I look forward to the next step because our teachers deserve it and so do our tamariki. Tēnā koutou."