Stanford Erica; Hipkins ChrisERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to move on to the part of the bill that deals with the early childhood network planning and not just the Supplementary Order Papers. My first question I guess is around the data. I just wanted to know from the Minister what data he will be relying on in order to determine where a centre is required. How will that data be gathered how will it be analysed and who will it be analysed by?While I give the Minister time to read his papers a further question I would like to ask is: what are the Minister's priorities when it comes to deciding an application? I'll give the Minister an example: if a large early childhood education (ECE) provider turns up to the Minister or to the ministry and hands them a pile of research that they've spent a considerable amount of money on showing that there is a need for a certain type of service in a certain area—because that ECE provider has undertaken a great deal of research showing that there is a need in that particular area—how will he balance their data against the data of the ministry? The reason I'm asking that is because all parents know very well that you don't necessarily put your child in an early childhood centre that is necessarily close to your home. Quite often you put your children in early childhood in a centre that is close to where you work or on the way to work or somewhere else.Now there are companies out there that are able to provide this data to early childhood centres and they will do so at considerable sums of money. The Minister's data—that's why I asked the question before that; what data is he relying on? How will he get data to show where parents actually want their centres to be? And furthermore what data will he be provided by the ministry as to what type of service parents want? Now there is a plethora of service providers out there providing everything from a Montessori down to a community service based ECE centre and everything in between. So the question to the Minister is: will the ministry be able to find out data that tells the Minister where a centre needs to be and what type of centre it needs to be? Secondly when an early childhood provider turns up with data showing that exact thing—that they've spent a lot of money on—how will he balance what they're saying against what his own officials are saying? Will he use consultants to analyse that data? How will he balance the two?And I'll keep going because he's still not ready. Furthermore I guess the next question is: how long will the Minister wait between receiving the first application for a centre in a particular area and approving or not approving that particular one that he's received? Will the Minister wait until he receives more applications for a particular area so that he's got a number to choose from? How long will he wait for there to be more than one? How long will it take to process the application? And really importantly I guess if a provider turns up first out of the blocks with a whole bunch of information saying This is where a centre is required. Here is all the analysis I've done. Here's the type of centre that parents want. Here's where they need it—on their route to work or somewhere else." and then another four centres come in late to the party a month down the track and don't have any data themselves but are relying on the data that was already provided by the first provider how will the Minister balance those applications? Clearly one has done a lot of work but he might prefer one of the others—for various reasons that only he will know. So how fair is it that providers who don't do any of their own data analysis can ride on the coat-tails of one who did and how will he balance that out?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): All of the issues that the member has just raised will be covered in the national and regional policy statements that the legislation allows for. So the requirements around what an applicant will need to demonstrate will be set out. The time frames for the processing of applications will be set out in the national and regional policy statements. So that's not the subject of the primary legislation which is what the committee of the whole House is currently debating. And of course it will be open to successive Governments to be able to set out different national and regional policy statements. I'm not in a position to answer for what future Governments may or may not do with that ability but what I can indicate is that there is consultation happening at the moment which is a matter of public record which sets out the current Government's thinking around that.ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): I'd like the Minister to explain how this legislation around network planning is going to improve the quality of those existing centres in areas where there is no more need for a centre and therefore a licence won't be granted.The network planning legislation that's put in front of us also for a centre who is in an existing area that the Minister may decide no more centres are required in will have a huge impact on a business in terms of the value of that business and I want to know from the Minister what research or what evidence or any advice he's had around the effect on those existing businesses or the ones that he grants licences to in new-build areas—the likely increase in value to their businesses given that there will not be any competition allowed in their area therefore forcing up the value of their business."