English Bill: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
English Bill: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2655] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 This part has a number of innocuous and fairly inconsequential amendments to other enactments—the State Sector Act and the Student Loan Scheme Act—consequential amendments to other enactments and repeals and revocations. What is interesting about this part and the schedules is that they are the last parts of any significant education legislation that we will see for the rest of the life of this Government. Schedule 1 tidies up some loose ends to do with the definitions of early childhood service and makes other inconsequential changes like omitting the words “management of” and substituting the words “employer at”. Is that not a damp squib on which the Labour Government’s legislative programme in respect of education comes to an end? The Minister in the chair Steve Maharey will not come up with anything smarter than changing the definition of “early childhood centre” to “early childhood education and care centre”. That was the last good idea of Trevor Mallard but at least he had one even if the last one was not much. This Minister has none. 
The House should debate this bill at some length because we will not get to debate another piece of education legislation under this Minister or under the Labour Government. This is the end; this is the tail end. If the best they can do is devote legislative time to changing the definition of “early childhood centre” to “early childhood education and care centre” then there is nothing else to be said. The select committee has no legislation in front of it. The Government finds itself increasingly on the wrong side of a number of arguments and a number of directions in respect of education that the public are headed in and it cannot take the risk of bringing to this Parliament any more education legislation of any significance. I suspect we may see some legislation to fix mess-ups because that is part of the normal business of Government—although this Minister of course is an expert in messes and unfortunately he will ruin the tail end of Dr Cullen’s career in trying to fix up his tertiary education mess. But we will not see anything significant. 
Some of these definitions do flow from a fairly wide-ranging change in early childhood funding. The reference in clause 48 to the kindergarten movement is a signal of that. The kindergarten movement is only now really beginning to understand the scale of change that this change in funding brings about. I am sure that if a National Government had brought about the changes in this bill there would have been protest marches in the streets about the end of free kindergartens—because free kindergartens have ended. This part talks about free kindergartens. Kindergartens can charge. If parents send children there now they are eligible for the childcare subsidy. Kindergartens are now writing to parents and saying that thank God fund-raising is now over because they will charge parents and the parents will get it back through the childcare subsidy. That is all going on right now. 
So kindergartens are no longer free. They are also starting to figure out that they will lose their distinctiveness as kindergartens. That is something that many New Zealanders do not yet understand but will come to understand over the next few months. This bill of course does not trumpet that change; nor does the Minister I might say. I was waiting for him to get up and give a lyrical speech somewhere about the end of free kindergartens the destruction of a New Zealand icon and the nasty right-wing forces that brought it about. But funnily enough he has not done that because of course compared to Steve Maharey Trevor Mallard is a nasty right-wing force and the early childhood funding in this bill is his brainchild.