Mapp Wayne: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12124] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Readers of the commentary on this amendment bill will have noted there is a minority view and that National opposes the disestablishment of the Early Childhood Education Board. We do so for two basic reasons. The first reason which is essentially constitutional is that the board was disestablished and the employees therein transferred to the Ministry of Education prior to the intended enactment of the bill. So it seems quite extraordinary— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why don’t you let Phil Heatley speak? He knows about early childhood development. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Because I am on the Education and Science Committee. It seems an extraordinary step for the Government to pass legislation that is in effect retrospective. It is its usual scant regard for constitutional principle that we are seeing in operation here whereby the Government acts without legislative authority. They are the very sorts of things that I am sure were raised in a particular case back in 1976 where the Government of the day acted without constitutional responsibility. Here once again we see an example of a Government that ought to know better because it proclaims itself as the authority on constitutionalism yet it has fallen into the trap. 
So now it is wanting this Parliament to rectify its egregious behaviour by effectively retrospective legislation. I find that and so does the National Party quite appalling that this Parliament is called upon to rectify an appalling constitutional breach. 
The second reason for our position is based on educational philosophy itself. It is not surprising that the Minister of Education is a centralist. He is the sort of man who is focused on union politics. He no doubt was an active member of the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute—their fellow travellers. The Government’s whole style of operation is to centralise and bureaucratise. That is the way it views the education sector. It cannot stand the thought of a stand-alone unit. It simply cannot stomach the sense of some form of autonomy. The Minister wants to be able to sit in his office in the Beehive and control things from the top. That is the philosophy of education that the Minister brings. So it is not surprising the unit was disestablished. No one has ever and the Minister has certainly not put up a case as to why it had to be disestablished—on the basis of poor performance or something of that nature. 
 No this all stems from a zealot’s approach to aggregation and centralisation. National’s view of education is fundamentally different. We say: “Trust the people.” Let the people determine how to govern the educational sector and if that means independent and autonomous units well so be it. That is how it should be because that is how one effectively delivers education in the way that citizens want. 
This will be an issue that will be tested at the election: the choice will be the centralising bureaucratic control mentality that is such a feature of this Government; or trusting the people and letting parents decide—letting people who send their children to pre-school primary secondary educational institutions have the say. 
Frankly I am surprised that this kind of legislation does not have mandatory kindergarten provisions in it because that is the sort of thing one would expect from this Government. Government members do not like the idea of private educational providers in the pre-school sector. They know full well that when people have the ability to make a choice there is diversity and that is why there has been such a growth in the early childhood sector away from the kindergartens. That is not a critique per se of kindergartens but having visited them I would make this one observation about them. They simply lack flexibility. They simply lack the necessary flexibility that recognises the way people really live with rigid starting and ending times. They have no flexibility about starting early to take into account that many parents have to work. One has to bring one’s child to a very particular place. That is very different to the private providers who have understood what parents want. 
I want to conclude on this point. The reality is that the Government needs to take note of the desire of people to control their lives rather than having the centralisation and bureaucratic control of this bill which though in a small part only nevertheless represents the deep-seated motivation within this Government to centralise to control and to stamp out initiative. 
Debate interrupted.