Donnelly Brian: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12126] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 This legislation I mooted was not going to inspire or create a lot of really inspirational speeches—certainly not if members stuck to the topic—and the member from National proved my point because he did not talk to the bill at all. It has nothing to do with public-private partnership whatsoever. 
What I do have to say however is that there has been quite a large amount of comment recently—most of it coming from the National Party and ACT—about the misuse of taxpayers’ funds. That in fact is what this bill is about: not the misuse but the duplication of usage of taxpayer funding. That is the situation with Early Childhood Development or the Early Childhood Development Unit as it originally was and the Ministry of Education essentially doing the same task. As Early Childhood Development reported to us the irony was that it was having difficulty recruiting staff because the Ministry of Education was able to pay a lot more money to staff who had exactly the same qualifications and experience that Early Childhood Development needed and this seemed to be a ridiculous situation. 
The genesis of Early Childhood Development was in the reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s and both the larger parties were involved in those reforms. Under those reforms the Ministry of Education was to be a policy ministry. It was hands off it did the policy making it decided how much funding would be given and then early childhood providers and school providers put things into practice. It was part of an ideology about how public service operated in that particular case. One Minister of Education is known to have told officials from the Ministry of Education: “Whatever you do don’t get out there and talk to the people in the field because it might taint your policy.” How ridiculous can one get? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who was that? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: I will not mention his name but I think it is well known by people in the educational field which Minister it was. Is there any wonder that by late 1996 there was a huge gap between the reality of people at the chalkface and the policy that was emanating from the Ministry of Education? 
Early Childhood Development was set up as a separate entity outside the policy division of the ministry to promote and support the development of early childhood education. That was the philosophy of the times and I think both Labour and National would have agreed with that particular model of public service development. However it did not quite work out that way. To start off with Early Childhood Development had some difficulties in covering the full gamut of early childhood needs and aspirations. It was not really able to extend itself across the full range of the population with its diversity of aspirations. It is fitting that Taito Phillip Field spoke of the area of need with the population he serves because Pacific Island early childhood education was not necessarily well served in the early 1990s as a result of the model that was put in place. 
 I have to give credit to Early Childhood Development which made some very large changes and grew tremendously by providing a much broader range of advice and connecting with a much broader range of population groups. However at the same time the Ministry of Education never gave away its hands-on approach to early childhood education. As distinct from schools where there was very much a split in the early 1990s that never happened with early childhood education. The opposite occurred in that as the 1990s moved on the ministry became more hands-on rather than less. So we ended up with two separate entities doing the same tasks with a duplication of function and costs. The irony is as I said that the Ministry of Education was able to pay its workers more and could attract the staff that Early Childhood Development needed to carry out its tasks as well as it could. 
So the decision to close down Early Childhood Development is really a logical conclusion to the events of the 1990s and to how they played themselves out. It is interesting that there was only one submission about this at the select committee stage. It was not as if people were marching in the streets saying that this was terrible. Early Childhood Development itself had come to the conclusion that a new way of organising the whole thing had to be found. Although employees were upset at the process they worked constructively with the ministry and we have to give them credit for that. Rather than being destructive or putting up obstacles they worked constructively for the benefit of early childhood education in order to bring about this legislation. 
Those parties that will vote against this bill are really saying to taxpayers that they do not mind taxpayer money being frittered away on inappropriate models because they want to play games with it. If they said that they opposed the bill because of Fitzgerald—as Wayne Mapp mentioned—then I would say that that is a much more solid ground than education or economic grounds. It has to be recognised that the changes we are now legislating for have already taken place quite some time ago. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Still on the board. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: In name only. This issue did not come to the House and it was not Parliament’s decision to make these changes—this bill should have been through Parliament before this stage. All we can say is that it was bad management by the Government because the Government obviously had this on its work programme but it advanced the work programme in advance of its legislative programme. The Education and Science Committee made only one change to the date on which this bill becomes law. The original bill was supposed to become law on 1 October 2003. I do not think it was even at the select committee before 1 October 2003. This is my first experience of legislation that was supposed to become law before it had gone through its first reading. It was untidy and messy probably because the Minister was so busy closing down lots of schools that he could not get on with pushing forward these legislative and work programmes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You support that work. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Some of it. Nevertheless to summarise New Zealand First will support this bill. We think it is a logical and sensible step. We despise the unnecessary duplication and expenditure which certainly does not further advance the cause of early childhood education.