Stanford Erica; Dean JacquiERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm happy to take a call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2). When this bill was originally introduced we had a good look through it. There are a number of changes technical amendments but on the whole a bill that didn't look overly contentious. There were some issues that we had but they could be nutted out at the select committee as you would expect us to do. However yesterday morning very early in the morning a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was tabled and this of course is highly unusual. You very rarely get a Supplementary Order Paper that is introduced before the first reading of a bill. Now I understand from the Minister that it just wasn't ready in time but usually what would happen is that the bill is withdrawn amended and then resubmitted to the House. So we've only had this Supplementary Order Paper since yesterday but I would like to base most of my contribution on what is contained in this Supplementary Order Paper because we will not be supporting this bill based on the Supplementary Order Paper that was tabled yesterday by the Minister.The reason we won't be doing that is because right from the very start when the original legislation was introduced to the House in late 2019 we had many concerns about network planning for early childhood. I've read back through all the speeches that we gave and we signalled at the time that there were going to be issues with network planning. When the Government and the Minister get involved with what types of centres can be set up where they can be set up under what conditions and how many students they can have—when the Minister starts to get involved in that level of detail of private businesses—we signalled at the time that we thought there would be issues.This Supplementary Order Paper goes even further and I'll get into the detail of that because I want to go through it part by part. But overall this Supplementary Order Paper for the early childhood education sector is anti-competitive. It reduces choice. It entrenches the existing providers regardless of the quality of the service. It discourages small players from entering the market. It reduces the likelihood of a centre being established in a brand new residential area and it makes it harder for new centres to establish basically anywhere especially those small niche community providers who are wanting to get set up. Now the Minister who was reading the speech today for the Government talked about this Supplementary Order Paper meaning that it would be sustainable and diverse—we'd have a sustainable and diverse early childhood education (ECE) sector because of this. I would argue that this does exactly the opposite and I will go through point by point. Firstly—there are two steps to this—the Minister is required to give approval for an early childhood centre to be able to later on apply for a licence. It used to be that you would just set up your centre and then you would apply for a licence when you had set up. Now there is a two-step process and the first part is actually going to the Minister to get his approval for applying for a licence within two years. Now the very first part of this in section 17 in new clause 5A talks about the Minister having a high-level assessment of the relevant attributes of the area to be served including without limitation the demography of the area the needs of the communities in the area the needs of the children and the availability of centres.Now it talks about a high-level assessment. The reason it has to be a high-level assessment is that the ministry do not have the capabilities or the IT system or the data collection to be able to understand. Other than a very high-level demographic view they do not have the ability to know what parents want. Do they want a play centre? Do they want a community centre? Do they want a private centre? Do they want something a bit more niche? That data doesn't exist and the education ministry doesn't have the ability to collect that data. There is no IT system to track it. They don't know where parents want those centres. Do they want them close to their home? Do they want them close to their work? Do they want them somewhere else? What size do they want? There are many things that parents want when it comes to an early childhood education centre and at the moment they have incredible choice but now the Minister is going to be deciding based on information that he doesn't have and cannot collect what type of centre can be opened and where. One of things that's been slipped in in this SOP is that the Minister must take into consideration any other matter that he considers relevant to the application—anything else that he thinks might be relevant based on data that he doesn't have. One of the things also is that the Minister will be looking at people's financial arrangements. Again the ministry doesn't have the capacity the bureaucrats available to be able to (a) actively collect the data and (b) analyse it. So it's a capacity issue that the ministry just doesn't have.What has been inserted into this SOP is a particularly egregious section section 17A in clause 5B and this is the one that I really want to talk about. The big problem and what the Minister doesn't understand is that when someone sets up an ECE centre it's a long costly difficult process. And when you add in extra compliance and the Minister has to decide whether you can set up a centre it makes banks nervous. The ANZ bank has already said they will not lend to ECEs setting up new centres under the existing legislation let alone this. This new section 17A allows the Minister to say at the beginning of the process or at any time This is the type of centre I want this is the number of children and this is where I want it." Now at any time in that 2-year process that the centre has got to apply for a licence the Minister can impose new conditions and amend or revoke any existing conditions. So you can have the rug completely pulled out from underneath you when you're already halfway through the process. No bank will lend to any ECE provider on these conditions. It's absolutely ridiculous. So when we talk about wanting to set up new centres and having sustainability banks won't lend on this. They already wouldn't lend on it but they certainly won't lend on it now. This a massive problem. The Government does not understand the commercial realities of setting up a new centre.One of the other issues with this bill—and it's always been there—is that the centre only has two years to complete construction. So from getting the approval from the Minister about what he wants they have two years. In most cases it takes almost two years just to get a resource consent before you even get a spade in the ground and that's a massive problem. In this bill they have gone on to say that if there are any exceptional circumstances it may be extended for an extra two years. It talks about things like adverse weather events that are outside your control but it doesn't talk about things like hold-ups by the council shipping delays or not enough staff. Those types of things don't seem to fall into the types of things that the Minister will grant an extension on. So you will have providers thinking "Am I possibly going to be able to get a centre set up in two years? Probably not." The Government is discouraging centres from building new centres. It's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve.The ministry has said they want to have small centres in more places and not just the big guys. Well this bill discourages that because these little guys will not be able to get the finance. The big guys can get the finance because they've got their own arrangements. So we will see a proliferation of the very big centres which isn't in itself a bad thing—they're great providers—but if the ministry are trying to get an outcome where you see small providers niche providers community centres set up this bill discourages that and will do the exact opposite. The second part the really important part is the Minister can at any time change his mind on the conditions and then section 17C says the Minister may revoke his approval for a licence if he's satisfied that the applicant didn't meet the criteria that were set in the first place—or changed halfway through the process. So the Minister can revoke his approval based on the fact that he changed his mind halfway through decided he wanted to change some conditions and the poor provider couldn't meet it or had his finance revoked or something and then the Minister can say "Oh sorry. Too bad; I'm revoking it." It's just absolutely ridiculous. The commercial realities of this they just don't understand.In my last 44 seconds I just want to talk about the fact that if an applicant is particularly aggrieved by this they can take it to the District Court. That's in the bill—the new part of the bill. The problem is that the Minister doesn't have to take that into account and he can grant a licence to their competitor who's also trying to get the licence in the same area regardless of that fact that you've gone to the District Court. So there's no point in taking this to the District Court if you feel aggrieved by the decision that's been made because the Minister doesn't need to take that into account. He can just grant the approval for the licence to someone else. This is a terrible bill. It's egregious. It will do the exact opposite of what the Government is trying to achieve and we will not be supporting it.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."