Tinetti JanHon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Madam Chair thank you for the opportunity to take a call here in this committee of the whole House. I really do want to speak to an Amendment Paper that I am putting forward and proposing and I want to talk about a sector that has been well down the track of putting together their fair pay agreement and that's our early childhood educators.I'm really concerned because when the early childhood educators started to work towards this there was a great excitement that we might see change in the sector. As we know as it stands at the moment there is a lot of variability of provision of early childhood education within this country. It goes on a continuum I'd have to say from really really amazing—and that's the majority—but sometimes it can be quite questionable as well. Unfortunately part of the reason for that is because of the lack of standardisation of minimum terms and conditions for those educators.That's where it seems a bit unfair as well because there are parts of the sector where there is a standardisation of minimum terms and conditions. I'm not just talking about the schooling sector; in the early childhood education sector we also have the kindergarten teachers who have privy to collective agreements and have that standardisation. That means that there's a quality control that exists for those young people in a sector where the education of our youngest and most vulnerable New Zealanders is incredibly important because that sets them up for a really good placement for their education and continuing on in their education. In fact we know that the research shows that if we have a good quality provision of education in those early years that is likely to continue on and have greater outcomes when those young people move throughout the education system.I know that had we been able to go to select committee there would have been a lot of educators who would have come in to talk to these provisions and what it meant to them. We know that fair pay agreements for them could mean that it would take the competition out of the teaching sector. It would leave teachers able to choose where they wish to work based on reasons like having a shared educational philosophy wanting to work within certain demographics or in certain areas or because they wish to upskill in certain aspects of their teaching rather than being driven by their salary packages as they are now. Now we know that the literature review that was gathered in 2019 had pointed towards this and showed that I quote By limiting competition on wages and working conditions a focus (and investment) on quality and innovation-based economic activities may be fostered."Now I was contacted by an early childhood education teacher who was really disappointed that they didn't get the opportunity to go to select committee because she was so excited about the fact that they had the opportunity to put together this fair pay agreement and I wanted to take the opportunity to just read a few words of what she sent through to me. She says: "Earlier this year I was one of thousands of kaiako and kaimahi across all of early childhood education who came along to the fair pay agreement meetings to vote on the things we wanted to see in our fair pay agreement. We're extremely disappointed this Government isn't giving us the opportunity to follow through and work with employers to make these things a reality. We organised our fair pay agreement claims around key ideas. We wanted to improve child-teacher ratios; we wanted to invest in our educators by providing increased sick leave above the minimum for tough conditions we work in; we wanted to win better pay for support staff and unqualified teachers who are on minimum wages and fully funded pay parity for teachers; we wanted learning support that can actually be accessed for all tamariki who need it and a funding system that works and ensures community-based and Pasifika ECE can thrive. We voted almost unanimously to support this because it's a vision of the ECE sector that reflects"—[Time expired]"