Hipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill (No 2) Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 09 December 2010. Volume:669;Page:16347. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I thought I would have a go at waking up Paul Quinn as well. I can tell members that after this debate I will get the video clip of Louise Upston saying she thought that teachers had 14 weeks of holiday a year and I will send that to every teacher in the country because I think when they see National’s view that teachers have 14 weeks of holiday every year they will all come flooding to the Labour Party in droves. Teachers will be so outraged at that. I know that Louise Upston may think teachers have 14 weeks’ holiday but she does not seem to allow for the fact that in order to be in a classroom and teach students they actually have to have time to prepare the lessons they will deliver and to mark the assignments of the students. It is not holidays that the teachers have for 14 weeks. Perhaps if that member visited one or two of the schools in her electorate she might have a bit of a—Anne Tolley seems to be shaking her head. She seems to think that teachers have 14 weeks of holiday as well. I think that probably just confirms what most teachers in the country think about the Minister of Education already. 
I am happy to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and I particularly acknowledge the work my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has done in regard to the drop-off early childhood education services and limited-attendance centres—I think that is the term the Government uses for them. I think the amendment that has been put forward in the name of Trevor Mallard and passed with the Government’s support is a particularly important one. I think it is vitally important that when parents leave their children with an early childhood service if people in that service have access to those children without any other form of supervision there should be adequate safety measures in place to ensure those children will be safe regardless of where it is and the duration of the stay. I think the amendment put forward by Trevor Mallard will help to ensure that that happens. 
I also think it is good that the Government has finally come to the party on that amendment after spending weeks and weeks denying that there was even a problem with what it was trying to do as we have seen at question time over and over again. It is very good that my colleague Trevor Mallard supported by the other members of Labour’s education team has not let this issue go and has continued to push it. We have dragged the Government kicking and screaming to what will be a sensible outcome in that regard. However there are many other things in the bill that will result in Labour finally opposing it. 
Before I move on and stop talking about early childhood education I will pick up on some of the comments that have characterised the debate in relation to limited-attendance centres. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Two minutes! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: The more the Minister interjects the longer I will speak. 
Hon Simon Power 
: No he won’t. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That is an invitation; I ask him please not to hold back. Some of the debate about limited-attendance centres has characterised the uglier side of the debate in relation to early childhood education in general. It really gets my back up every time I hear Government members referring to early childhood education as babysitting. We hear that far too much. We have heard that description in this debate about limited-attendance centres. [ 
Interruption 
] I can go back and find quotes from Government members of Parliament talking about limited-attendance centres as being no more than babysitting facilities—no more than babysitting facilities! I tell members that the teachers who work in early childhood education get really annoyed when they hear the Government talking about early childhood education as being nothing more than babysitting. The Government does not understand the difference between early childhood education and babysitting and this misunderstanding has often characterised this debate. A number of MPs on that side of the Chamber do not understand the difference between what a child in a limited-attendance centre will be doing and what a child in an early childhood centre will be doing. They actually do not understand the difference. 
I had a National Party candidate show up in my electorate in the last election and stand up in front of a whole lot of early childhood teachers and kindergarten teachers talking about babysitting. I do not think the National Party got a single vote out of that room—the member was practically booed out. There are members on that side of the Chamber—too many of them—who do not know the difference. They do not understand what quality early childhood education is all about. I suggest that they might want to take a little bit of time to learn the difference and to gain some understanding of that. If they did then perhaps they would not be making the other changes in early childhood education such as cutting funding for centres to have fully qualified staff. The kindergarten association in my own electorate has lost half a million dollars in funding because the Government does not understand the importance of quality early childhood education with fully qualified and fully trained teachers which is what kindergartens have a proud tradition of having. But that has been compromised by this Government’s changes to the funding system for early childhood education and it is absolutely disgraceful. 
Anne Tolley is shaking her head and no doubt she will be saying: “Oh the centres can just increase their charges.” 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: I’ve never said that! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Rubbish—absolute rubbish! Rimutaka Kindergarten Association will lose half a million dollars in funding next year; where will it get that from? Where will it get the half a million dollars in funding it is going to lose? 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: How much do they get? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: The Minister of Education cannot give an answer about where the Rimutaka Kindergarten Association will get the half million dollars in funding it has lost because of her Government’s budget cut. The Government does not understand the importance of qualified staff in early childhood education. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Yes we do! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Why have they cut the funding for it then? It is trimming everything the Minister said. That is right. The Government knows the dollar cost of everything and the value of nothing particularly when it comes to early childhood education. 
I will move on to some of the other provisions in the bill before I run out of time. I want to talk particularly about the inherited privilege provisions in the bill that deal with the enrolment schemes for schools. The provisions basically give kids whose parents or siblings have gone to a school the right to enter that school even if they live outside the zone. The provisions give them preference. How is that fair? It is inherited privilege—nothing short of it. If the Government wants to have that debate in an election year and go and tell people in my electorate why they cannot send their kids to the school they live closest to—because it thinks people with an inherited privilege should have a higher priority—then I will happily stand on the campaign hustings and say that I think National is totally wrong in that. I will tell them that for the people who live the closest to their local school their kids should have the priority of access to that school and they should not be pushed out because of inherited privilege. That is good old-fashioned Tory inherited privilege which is what the provisions in this bill will protect and deliver more of. I think that stinks. I definitely will not be supporting that and I will happily have that argument with National on the campaign hustings at every available opportunity. 
Finally I will talk about the pathways between school employment and further education which are covered by this legislation. The workforce has changed and the range of available training opportunities for young people has changed significantly over the last couple of decades. In the Schools Plus initiative that the previous Labour Government was putting forward before the last election we recognised the need to continue to build on programmes like Gateway the Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource and Young Apprenticeships which were all programmes introduced by the last Labour Government. We recognised the need to continue to build on those in order to ensure that every kid under the age of 18 was in some form of education or training and leading towards a more qualified workforce. We also recognised the need to invest in upskilling the current workforce. We have to recognise that most people who will be in the workforce in 20 years’ time are already in the workforce and we need to invest in upskilling those people as well. 
Hon Simon Power 
: What? Most of the people? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Yes. That member should go and do the demographic analysis. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Most of the people in the workforce now will be in there in 20 years? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Yes that is dead right; that is exactly what I said. I tell that member to go and do the analysis now. Most of the people who will be in the workforce in 20 years’ time are already in the workforce today. So we have to think about how we will provide them with upskilling opportunities. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Will the member be old enough to get a real job then? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Oh! I do not know what that comment says about Mr Mallard. If I do not have a real job I am not entirely sure what that says about him seeing that he has been here since he was about—well for the last couple of decades. He has been here since they were publishing  
Hansard  
on stone tablets. That is how long Trevor Mallard has been in the House. So I am not entirely sure that to say that members of Parliament do not have real jobs reflects particularly well on him. 
Grant Robertson 
: This is not helping Trevor! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Well he opened himself up to that. 
Overall Labour will not be supporting this bill because there is too much in it we oppose so we will be voting against it.