Hipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 15 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7292. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]12.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Why has early childhood education funding on a per-place basis failed to keep up with inflation in Budget 2015 when early childhood education costs for parents have increased by more than 7½ times the rate of inflation in the past year?Hon NIKKI KAYE (Acting Minister of Education): I do not agree with the member’s assertion that the Budget cost adjustments for early childhood education are not keeping up with early childhood education costs being funded by parents. Furthermore the Government does not automatically provide an annual cost adjustment to early childhood education funding rates. The Government provides a substantial subsidy towards the cost of early childhood education provisions. Funding for early childhood education even in a constrained fiscal environment has nearly doubled since 2008. The total now stands at over $1.6 billion. The most recent survey of costs that providers pay shows that for every $1 that families pay for early childhood education this Government provides $4.80 compared with 2011 which showed that for every $1 a parent was spending on early childhood education the Government was spending $3.45. What is more early childhood education is 32 percent more affordable than it was in 2007 and the level of affordability has been maintained—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is miles too long.Chris Hipkins: Why did the National Government cut funding to centres that only employ fully qualified teachers leading to yesterday’s announcement by kindergartens in Wellington that after years of underfunding they are asking teachers to either work part-time or face redundancy?Hon NIKKI KAYE: I make two points. Firstly what I say is that although we have made changes and we have put needs-based funding in other places there have been increases in terms of the salaries of kindergarten teachers this year. I think there has been a 0.56 percent adjustment so there have been increases this year.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With all respect that did not address my question which was: “Why did the Government cut funding for centres that only employed qualified staff?”.Mr SPEAKER: Because funding was moved to other places was the answer that was given.Chris Hipkins: Did the National Government cut funding for centres that employ only fully qualified teachers; if so why?Hon NIKKI KAYE: As I said before we did make changes in terms of funding and we did reduce funding in some areas because we have chosen for instance in this Budget to spend $100 million. That additional money is going to some of our most disadvantaged kids. We believe firmly in those 41000 children who actually need that funding.Chris Hipkins: Is she concerned that a recent survey of early childhood teachers found that a quarter of them would not be happy to have their own child enrolled where they are working with many saying the conditions are like “factory-farming children”; if not what will it take for her to be concerned?Hon NIKKI KAYE: Again if it is the survey that I believe that the member is referring to it was a survey sample size of about 600 people out of 25000 teachers. My understanding was that the answers that they gave—Carmel Sepuloni: 600 is pretty big.Hon NIKKI KAYE: This is a very important point—this is a very important point. In the quarter figure that he quotes some of those people said that the reason they did not want their children to be in those centres was that they wanted to look after them at home which is actually their choice.Chris Hipkins: Has she seen the comment from Amanda Coulston from Whānau Manaaki Kindergartens that they are being forced to cut teachers and that “We wouldn’t put 80 per cent professional rugby players out in the World Cup and have the other 20 percent as big fans and think we’re going to get the same result as if we had 100 percent professional players.”; if so why will she not properly fund the early childhood sector so it can have fully qualified teachers?Hon NIKKI KAYE: I have not seen the exact quote but I have seen various media reports and I make these points. The first thing is that we have doubled early childhood funding to $1.6 billion. The second point that I would make is that in terms of kindergarten funding as I said there has been an increase this year. The third point that I would make is that this Government believes firmly that it is not only about funding; it is actually about quality and participation and meeting some of our most disadvantaged students’ needs and that is what we are doing.