Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. The National Party is opposed to this bill the Education and Training (Grants—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and we're opposed for a number of reasons. The first and foremost is that this is just a very typical example of the way in which this Government is operating. An old adage in politics is that in their third term Governments tend to become arrogant in their approach to Government and what we're seeing here with this Government in the first year of their second term is they've already got third-term-itis" and arrogance. So they're in the position of ramming through legislation in a short truncated process such as we've seen here. And more often than not it's ill-thought-through and will have to be revisited.So what happens in the normal process—for people to understand how Parliament usually works—is that a Government consults with a sector when it's bringing in legislation that is going to directly affect it. The sector that's being directly affected by this of course is the early childhood education sector—a very important sector; a critical sector of course to the many tens of thousands of working parents who are looking for the opportunity to have their young children looked after and set on a path of good education but also looking after their kids while they're trying to work and make a living. It's an expensive business as any parent would know. So this is an important area and one in which the previous National Government put a huge amount of effort into increasing the share of young children who were enjoying and participating in early education and there has been a very very significant increase in that over the past few years. But this legislation directly affects the private providers of early education of which there are many tens of thousands.Now did this Government consult with them before bringing this in in any proper way? Absolutely not. They talked a little bit about pay parity being an issue and there was consultation on that but what suddenly has appeared in this legislation as it was thrown before the House is something that's a bit broader than that. It talks about wider employment relations priorities and we all know that the primary employment relations priority of this Government is to increase unionism and that naturally is something that rightly concerns the private sector providers of early childhood education. So they didn't consult over these broader issues; they brought this legislation quickly into the House and then in their usual fashion have tried to ram it through in short order. Rather than having the normal period of time to consult with the community through the select committee process which is a critical part of our democracy they truncated that dramatically so that people had only a week or two to make submissions and then a very short period to hear those submissions. That was a slap in the face to a sector that is working hard to provide services to tens of thousands of parents around the country—a complete slap in the face from an arrogant Government.Then when they heard the submissions the providers of this early childhood education said "Well what's going on here is that the Government is saying we need to pay our workers more—but hang on a moment we're not clear how much if any extra funding we'd get." and that's still unresolved. Then they look at the legislation and the legislation is around bringing in industrial relations rules relating to payments for workers—that they should go up automatically every year regardless of performance and they should start at a particular point on a new scale. All these questions are naturally left in the hands of the providers saying "Well how much is this going to cost and how am I going to make a living? How am I going to stay afloat?" and the average proposal or suggestion or guess from the providers was that this might add an extra $40000 of cost on to each provider.They then made the obvious point: "Well where are we going to find this money from?" and the most likely outcome this Government always just assumes is "Well when we add extra costs to business it just means businesses will be less profitable and everybody will be happy because we all don't like businesses and if they're less profitable that's a good thing." That's the basic kind of attitude that this Government has when it comes to small businesses. What they fail to realise is that a lack of profitability in businesses leads to less investment and less sustainable businesses. But secondly most business owners actually prefer to look at other options and the two most likely options in this space are higher fees for the tens of thousands of working parents or reduced ratios between the teachers and the children. So you'd have more children per teacher. So that was the message that this Government got from the sector in the very short truncated and rather arrogant way in which they went about consultation through this bill.So did the Government listen to any of that? Absolutely not. What we had was a very clear message from the Minister: "Get lost. We're not listening to you. We're not changing a thing in this bill. We're going to ram it through because we've got the numbers. Ha ha!" and when he went to a conference on the weekend with this sector he was roasted by that sector for this piece of legislation and the way that it's been introduced. That is why we on this side of the House are deeply concerned about it and we're not supportive of it and we're worried that the most likely outcome is to be higher fees for the children for the parents to pay. When we consider that in the context of what is going on at the moment we on this side are deeply concerned about the pressures that many families are facing right here right now. We've seen rents continuing to increase. The costs of living that many families are facing are going up and we all know how difficult it is particularly in big cities like Auckland but not exclusively. In fact if you go all round provincial New Zealand many many families are under intense pressure by higher rent costs and then if you add to that extra costs for childcare it makes it very very difficult for families to get by.What this Government doesn't seem to understand is that there is no magic. If you continue to add costs to businesses often with the best of intentions—and there's always a good reason and there's always a desire to pay people more or to have higher minimum wages; a whole bunch of things very good. But if you add the cost to those businesses—and in the case of this one don't send a clear signal that those additional costs will be properly funded—then that leads to a very obvious outcome which is like I say either higher fees or a reduced ratio for the number of kids per teacher.So here we are at this late stage this third reading and this Government is full of its power that it has got here right now. It's got the ability just to ram legislation through this House. We might well be seeing another example of that today where they win every vote because they've got the numbers. I suppose the message I'd give to the members on the other side of the House is that it's a two-edged sword because in two years' time you will have no other excuse as members—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will not bring the Speaker into the debate.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes thank you very much Madam Speaker. Members on the other side will have no other excuse. Those members are responsible for the outcomes. You can't blame New Zealand First anymore—or anybody else. What they will see and what they will have to tell New Zealanders is "What have we done with this power that has been granted to us?" and if this legislation is anything to go by they're not going to have a very good response because what they've done is made it more difficult for New Zealand families to get by. They've made it more difficult for young New Zealanders who are trying to get ahead trying to get on to the housing ladder facing higher rents and now face the prospect of higher fees and costs to have their children in early childhood education and everybody knows that it's expensive enough as it is.The icing on the cake is the Minister coming in here yesterday and coolly saying "Well it's not our intention to do anything other than focus on pay parity. Trust us. We've brought in legislation that's broad and gives me all sorts of powers to meddle in the way that the employment relations are sorted out. I've got all this power but don't worry trust us we're not going to do anything wrong." And this is a Government that of course said it wouldn't increase taxes but then they've raised taxes on the poor ute drivers—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time has expired."