Bennett Paula: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10411] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I stand to speak to the education estimates and to the Minister. I suppose that the member who spoke just before me Brian Donnelly was talking about the 20 free hours policy. I was sitting here thinking that the Minister must have been absolutely kicking himself for having put so much effort—and this was the Government’s big announcement for 1 July—into something that it has had no pick-up on whatsoever. The public out there are saying that they simply do not believe the Minister. They simply do not believe that the initiative is free. They simply do not believe that 20 free hours early childhood education is accessible for all the children who were promised it. As a consequence although some are saving a little bit of money most are unable to access the 20 free hours early childhood education. 
I start by asking the Minister a question. How much will parents save if their child is one of the 27000 who are missing out on this subsidy? For example if their child is one of the 49 percent of Auckland children who do not have access to 20 free hours childcare what does that actually mean for them? The estimates can talk about the millions being spent and how that money is being put in but the reality is that children are not getting 20 free hours early childhood education and it is not accessible for all 3 and 4-year-olds. 
We certainly heard the question of what the National Party would do when in Government. That is actually a fairly fair question and it is one we are looking at addressing over the upcoming months. But the real concern to us is the mess that we will have to clean up. We just need to look at what has happened with tertiary education and the fact that Dr Cullen had to step in at what is going on with broadcasting and at the haphazard policy made on the hoof in an election campaign when a party is worried about its future and what we see is a mess. What we see is a fraud and what we see is children actually missing out. When we see that sort of thing and look at our own policy we say that what we want to be doing is addressing something that is honest and something that we really can deliver to all those children who need it. 
Of real concern to us when we look through the estimates—and my colleague Katherine Rich mentioned this—is those children who are missing out now. The Government in its early days used to talk about those vulnerable children who are not accessing early childhood education. The Government used to actually count them to care about them and to give a damn but we do not even hear about them any more. So when we bandy around numbers of 92000 children and the Minister sometimes says they are the eligible children we say that no they are not and the Minister knows it. The 92000 children are the children who are currently accessing some form of early childhood education. They are not the only children who are eligible so it those other children whom we should be most concerned about. It is those children who then do not go to school and who then become statistics. It is those children who then become truants and who then are the most vulnerable later on in terms of becoming statistics in our prisons and that sort of thing. There is research proving that. 
So this Government no longer talks about those vulnerable children and no longer speaks about actually addressing participation rates in early childhood education. And yes those rates are high—early childhood education participation rates are up at the level of 92 percent—but a huge number are accessing it for only a short period of time. So we no longer talk about participation. We now talk about making it cheaper and we talk about subsidies. We bandy around numbers of savings for parents of $90 a week then savings of $60 then the Minister says $30 to $35 in the House today then we have kindergarten associations saying that it might be up to $20 a week. Parents might be saved a bit of money and good on them—all people need a bit of extra cash in their hands each week—but what about those kids who need early childhood education the most? And what about those kids who are not participating in any sort of early childhood education? Where in this Budget are they addressed? Where are the estimates that say that we will support them? 
How is the promoting of participation going? What about the programme set up by this Government that is supposed to be about going out and talking to those Maori and Pacific Island communities and getting them involved? How many of their contracts have been terminated? How many of their contracts have not been rolled over and have been terminated purely because they were not addressing what actually needed to be addressed and there was not a level of accountability?