Peachey Allan: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Peachey Allan: Education Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1647] 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I rise to speak in opposition to the Education Amendment Bill. In doing so I wish to focus on the new regulatory regime for the early childhood education sector. That is another example of the way in which the Labour Party thinks that by making a bureaucracy it can solve the problems of children. When will the Government learn that no child ever learnt to read in a bureaucrat’s office in Wellington? 
I take on board the advice of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and the Early Childhood Council both of which have expressed concern that the children who currently miss out on early childhood education will gain nothing from this bill. Yet it is those children who would benefit most from access to early childhood education. From among those children will come the silent catastrophe of New Zealand life—the 150000 New Zealand boys and girls who will pass through our school system not learning to read write or do mathematics. This bill will do nothing for those children. We know that children who have good early childhood education are more adaptable when they start school and more likely to pass through the school system and go on to tertiary education than those who do not get that opportunity. So why does the Labour Government continue to ignore the children who most need opportunity—who most need help? 
I reflect on the irony of this situation. If this were a National Party bill people like me would be burnt in effigy on the forecourt of Parliament House by members of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Instead kindergarten teachers are ringing and asking me to go and see them or asking to come and see me. They are begging members to do something to protect their work practices and their work because they know that this bill is the end of kindergartens as we know them in New Zealand. 
I want to take a moment to reflect on what kindergartens have meant to New Zealanders—to think about what going to kindergarten meant to my four children and to think about the opportunities that being involved in a kindergarten gave me to meet the parents of the children my children would go through school and grow up with. That went right to the very fabric of what made decent caring communities. We got involved in volunteer efforts. I remember well painting the kindergarten roof and two or three guys putting up a new shed there. Those were the days of course when a couple of volunteers could put up a new shed for a kindergarten—not like today. Those were the days when on a Saturday we would go and dig the sandpit or help clean the building. Our involvement would then carry on through the school and the PTA to the children’s sports clubs and that sort of thing. That is what we will destroy if we let the kindergarten system collapse—yet that is what we are doing. 
I say thank you to the kindergarten teachers of New Zealand for the years of service they have given to children like mine and to hundreds of thousands of others. I ask them to reflect on where the leadership from their union is—or is it just the fact that because this is a Labour Party bill it is OK? How many of those teachers forewent the opportunity of a decent tax cut to vote for Labour and now what will Labour do to them? 
This bill will be the end of kindergartens as we know them. We know that children who have the opportunity of decent early childhood education will be more successful at school will not become the criminals of tomorrow and will not be amongst the youngsters who will not learn to read write or do mathematics—150000 of them the silent catastrophe of New Zealand. This bill does nothing to give those children a start in life. The Government will spend $100 million yet the children who most need access to early childhood education and who most often do not get access to it will miss out again. 
 What is it about socialism that says that it is legitimate to leave 20 percent of one’s population stranded—stranded in poorly performing schools stranded in lousy State-funded housing and stranded in crime-riddled streets—but not to lift a finger to deal with that silent catastrophe. In fact we are introducing into this House legislation that will perpetuate that situation. 
Hon Member 
: It’s just poor workmanship; that’s all. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: He would have seen the figures that came out just after you guys got out. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: I would like to thank Mr Donnelly the chairman of the Education and Science Committee for the committee’s contribution. He does a fine job chairing that committee. I know that he must appreciate the disappointment of missing out on the baubles of office. I say to him that his leader owed him better than that. 
So where is the New Zealand Educational Institute? Where is the voice of kindergarten teachers? And where is the voice of those parents who want a kindergarten education for their children—who do not want to drop their children off at 8 o’clock in the morning and pick them up at 5 o’clock but who like the idea that their children can go to kindergarten for 3 hours in the morning then spend the afternoon at home with their parents? Where is the consideration for those parents? 
Let us not lose sight of one thing: the best upbringing a child can have is from that child’s parents. The more time a child spends with his or her parents the better it is for that child and we do not want to be in a situation of encouraging the State to take over the upbringing of our children. It is far better to put our resources and our effort into those children who are currently missing out. That is where our efforts should go because that way we can finally start to break that chain of silent catastrophe. We can finally start to reduce the number of our children who are not learning to read to write or to do maths and who will therefore have no place to contribute positively through our economy. That is what we should be concerned with—not with creating another bureaucracy that gives jobs to bureaucrats. And please will this Government understand: no child was ever educated in a bureaucrat’s office in Wellington.