Smith Lockwood: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12145] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill of course is the part that deals with the disestablishment of the board and associated matters like funding unlicensed centres. 
I was fascinated by the contribution of the New Zealand First member the Hon Brian Donnelly. It is fascinating that New Zealand First seeks to cuddle up to the Labour Government. The poll fortunes of New Zealand First are reflecting those of the Labour Government. I say: “Good luck to New Zealand First.” 
This issue is serious. Mr Donnelly said—[ 
Interruption 
] The Minister should not really interject when there is a live microphone in front of his mouth. He has a big enough mouth without needing that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: But not a smile like yours. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: That is true. The Minister could well do with a bit more of a smile as he seeks to undo the mess he has created in the school sector with his mergers. 
Mr Donnelly said there was advantage in removing the Early Childhood Development Board from the system because it was a funding conduit and there was a cost associated with Government money going via the board to early childhood units. Because of the snuggling up between New Zealand First and the Labour Government the Minister got to his feet instantly and thanked Mr Donnelly for helping explain this rather strange measure in the bill. 
What is fascinating is that if that is correct and true and that is the prime purpose of this legation— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It’s not the prime purpose. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: So efficiency and saving are not the prime purpose? The Minister claimed that 34 percent of the money for early childhood funding was chewed up in the bureaucracy of the Early Childhood Development Board. Now he is saying it is not the prime purpose and Mr Donnelly is saying it is the prime purpose. If they are snuggling up as much as they are they should at least agree on what the prime purpose of this legislation is. 
The point I want to make is that if that is a serious purpose for this legislation why on the one hand is the Government getting rid of the Early Childhood Development Board and on the other hand establishing a Tertiary Education Commission? In the tertiary sector the funding used to go straight from the Ministry of Education to the tertiary education providers; now it is going via a Tertiary Education Commission which is itself a burgeoning bureaucracy. 
Whereas there used to be a very small team in the Ministry of Education involved in funding the tertiary sector there is now a rapidly growing bureaucracy in the Tertiary Education Commission that will chew up a far greater proportion of tertiary funding than the Early Childhood Development Board ever chewed up. I can see from Mr Donnelly’s and the Minister’s expressions that I am not totally wrong in that assertion. If this legislation is designed to create greater efficiency it is hard to reconcile those two positions of this Labour Government. 
What troubles me about Part 2 which disestablishes the Early Childhood Development Board is that the real motive is more sinister. When the funding for the tertiary sector used to be done by the Ministry of Education it was very transparent and clear-cut. The equivalent full-time student funding system did not lend itself to political manipulation. Basically the institutions knew that the funding they would get depended on the enrolments they achieved. Maybe some of the auditing was not as good as it should have been in some cases but it was a clear transparent system. 
What troubles people in the early childhood sector is this: with the Early Childhood Development Board there was a powerful voice for those beyond just the “State sector” because everyone knows that the kindergarten sector is sort of a surrogate State sector. The real worry about this legislation is that with the ministry now controlling the entire early childhood sector there is far more room for political manipulation in the funding of the system. What makes the sector nervous in my view is that it has already seen that. Prior to Trevor Mallard and this Labour-led Government coming into power the early childhood sector was funded in a pretty transparent and consistent way across the private and the quasi-public or kindergarten sector. Trevor Mallard became Minister when the Labour Government came to power and the kindergartens—the quasi-State sector—suddenly got more funding relative to the private sector. Once the whole lot becomes part of the Ministry of Education there is concern that it will be more vulnerable to political manipulation and that is the worry.