Heatley Phil: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Heatley Phil: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12138] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I have sat here quite intrigued while listening to the arguments surrounding Part 1 and in particular the commencement date and constitutional issues which as far as I can understand this Minister and this ministry have ridden roughshod over. We heard from Brian Donnelly the chair of the Education and Science Committee that this bill was presented in September which is some time ago and was expected to be reported back in late October. Having sent out information about submissions the committee received I suspect—or at least I hope—oral submissions in a period of only 6 to 8 weeks. That is quite appalling when one can argue that this disestablishment of the longstanding Early Childhood Development Board is very important to those involved in the early childhood development sector. 
But that is not enough; I then hear that the board has been disestablished for a full 12 months and we are passing the legislation only now. I thought there was an out for the Government. Members may recall that I asked why the Early Childhood Development Board needs legislation to be disestablished. Why do we have to pass a statute for it to be disestablished? The answer came back and it is a fairly obvious and fair answer. The reason is that it was established under statute. It was established under statute and it should be disestablished under statute. Interestingly enough it was actually established under a Labour Government and now it is being disestablished under a Labour Government. 
I thought that the Government might have an out—that this disestablishment by statute might just be window dressing. I thought that the board had not been established by statute but through window dressing the Government would disestablish it through statue and in that way avoid the accusation that it was riding roughshod over Parliament by disestablishing the board in practice then 12 months later on the tail of that actually providing the mechanism to do so. But no I discover in the purpose clause that this bill provides for the Early Childhood Development Board “… a Crown entity continued under Part V of the principal Act”—that is the Education Act 1989—“to be disestablished and for its functions assets liabilities and rights to be transferred to the Ministry of Education;”. In other words the Early Childhood Development Board was established under statute. Its functions its assets its liabilities and its rights were established under that principal Act. We then saw in practice out there 12 months ago its rights taken away without statute its assets taken away without statute its functions taken away without statute and its liabilities taken away without statute. In fact 12 months later the House got the bill that provides the mechanism for that to happen. 
That is appalling constitutional mismanagement. I would like the Minister to take a call and to challenge that: to tell us why something set up under statute has to be disestablished under statute and why that would happen 12 months after the fact—that is retrospectively. It is appalling that that happened. The Minister may think it is a minor matter to do with a minor sector of not much interest to New Zealand but it simply points to an arrogance that this Government is reflecting to us here in this Committee and to the general public. 
I am also interested in the other purpose of this bill—that is to provide a “funding mechanism for certain early childhood centres to enable grants to be paid by the Ministry rather than through the Early Childhood Development Board.” The board had the power to make grants to non-registered services.