Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. The National Party supports this bill at first reading but only with very considerable concerns that we will need to see addressed through this process. So we hold our right to reconsider this as it goes through the House because there is a clear sort of line of logic where I think there's universal agreement that further resources into improving incomes for early education teachers is a good thing and we all understand the importance from a social investment point of view of making sure that young New Zealanders have the ability to get good education in their early years and to set them up well for the compulsory schooling sector. That's why the previous National Government invested very heavily in early education. So we agree with that and we do want to see better pay for those working in this sector.But then we see this bill and we've just been in this House this morning dealing with yet another case of bungled legislation from this Government in the COVID area and the pattern has been well established that this Government doesn't seem to think that it should follow the traditional tried and true method of passing legislation which is first to consult with the sector and there has been very little of that in this place—it's all just been blindsided with no detail—and then to rush through shortened select committee processes in order to ram through legislation very quickly and then we'll figure it out once it's been passed!So they rammed through very loose legislation and again this is another classic example—it's just a handful of pages. There's a very very loose and sloppy departmental report that comes along with it. It looks like they've given about two or three days' consideration to the legislation. They throw it into the House. They haven't worked out exactly how it's going to work. They haven't talked to the sector but we'll have a conversation through the select committee in a short time in a rush and then when we pass the bill we'll sort it out afterwards! And surprisingly we have to spend all our time in this House fixing legislation again when it comes round and when they realise that they've made a mistake. So we will be very interested to hear from the sector.Given the fundamental issue around supporting our early education providers we're prepared to support this bill at first reading. We will be opposing rigorously the next debate which is the shorter select committee time frame because we don't think that's justified; we should actually allow proper investigation of this legislation by the sector. And we will be very interested to hear from the sector as to how they think this will work because the overriding concern is that there is a centralising attitude in this Government and a well-explained desire towards national collective agreements in every area of industrial relations. This legislation all seems to fit with a pattern of more and more centralised control. The basic sort of point of this legislation is to say we don't trust the sector to pass on the money that we're going to give to them in terms of higher wages; therefore we will make it much more clear that the Minister has powers to delve even more deeply into the employment matters.That's the basic message of this legislation and I would be surprised if the sector is very impressed by it. We talk about it being a high-trust model but this legislation obviously says it will be a slightly lower-trust model going forward because we don't fundamentally trust the providers to pass on the legislation. I suppose the natural fear in the sector will be that this is just one more step in a march towards a much more centralised highly controlled sector.Now will that lead to better results? Well I'm not so sure. We do as a country invest significant sums in early education and all New Zealanders do have a very clear interest to make sure those significant sums are spent wisely and there are robust processes in place to ensure that early education providers are delivering good quality services and that is a fundamental role of the ministry. I think there is a good argument that they should be more active and vigorous in ensuring that that quality is high. But it doesn't necessarily follow that we should be moving more and more in the direction of national awards and everybody being dealt with exactly the same. That seems to be the approach of this Government.So here we are a day after a Budget a Budget that provided very little to working New Zealanders and for all the billions of dollars that have been spent working New Zealanders haven't seen very much in this Budget. And in the education sector we haven't seen a great deal—for particularly the compulsory sector—but what we have seen is extra resources being sent in the direction of early education teachers. And we agree that if we're sure of the quality of that teaching that is potentially a very useful thing in order to get kids better prepared to go to school.I don't like to divert too far but I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't make the point it's all very well preparing them to go to school but if they don't actually go to school they're not going to make any progress. We have a truancy crisis in this country and I think it's a tragedy that for all the billions of dollars that have been spent on education we only managed to come up with an extra $5 million a year to actually go out and ensure that kids go to school. I would have preferred to have seen more effort in that space.Chlöe Swarbrick: You can't punish them into school.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Pardon?Chlöe Swarbrick: It's a housing crisis issue. You can't punish them into going to school.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well it's very good to hear from the Greens.Simeon Brown: Professor Swarbrick!Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Ha ha! From Professor Swarbrick and the Greens who have focused very much on making it more and more difficult for private sector landlords to provide houses. Over the last few years we've seen a massive increase in house prices and rent prices.Chlöe Swarbrick: Stop being so patronising.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: But now she feels the need to blame I'm not sure who for that problem. The only point I was making there was that good quality early education teaching is something that the National Party supports. We do not support the general process of this bill and it is yet one more example of a Government that seems to be operating off the seat of its pants when it comes to legislation. It rushes stuff through doesn't talk to the sector entirely has short processes and as a result we spend most of our time fixing legislation six months later. And I have no doubt that we will be revisiting this topic again very soon. Thank you Madam Speaker."