Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): My pleasure to talk on this bill the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No. 2) which in the normal course of events was a fairly routine piece of legislation typical of this Government fixing up little mistakes made in previous pieces of legislation brought to the House in haste and in error and so there's a long list of little things that they've got to fix. So align the Police vetting procedures in the Act more closely to the safety-checking requirements of the Children's Act 2014—they didn't get it right the first time around. So then they had a bill through the House which we've just passed but they still didn't manage to get it right and so they've got another bill to fix that. So that's what we see quite often and ordinarily that's OK. But as my colleague Erica Stanford pointed out unusually we've had—at the same time as this bill being introduced—a large Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) bringing in what is a reasonably significant policy change around early education providers.And in essence what we've got is a strengthening of a licensing regime for early education providers and returning to a situation—a lot of younger New Zealanders won't recall how the New Zealand economy was arranged back in the 50s and 60s and 70s and early 80s where the whole of the New Zealand economy was licensed. So if you wanted to set up a business as a transport business for example you couldn't just open up a business and say Here are my trucks I want to take your stuff from A to B."; you had to get a licence from the Government to do it. The Government would say "Well actually there's already a transport business here in Eketāhuna. We don't think you should set one up because there's already a business there. You don't need to do it." That's how the whole country operated and it was a mad system and it led to—it was all about protecting the incumbents and if you had a licence you had a licence to print money and if you didn't you didn't. That was a corrupting regime because it became not about the skill of what you were offering; it became about how effective you were at getting and retaining a licence. That is the mad arrangements that had New Zealand in a terrible situation by the early 80s and was all thrown out under a reforming Labour Government. It was the only decent Labour Government in the history of this country I'm bound to say but that's by the by.Now years later in 2021 we have another Labour Government restoring that sort of mind-set to the early education sector. So rather than coming along and saying "Well here I want to set up an early education offering centre in Eketāhuna"—or Remuera or wherever—"I believe I'm going to provide something that parents will want. I want to help educate and look after these young kids. I've got a bright new idea; I'm going to do a better job than the people who are doing it down the road and people if they like what I have to offer will come and if they don't they won't and that's what it's all about. I'm going to deliver a better service and product than anybody else and people are going to come" that's not the option because under this proposal some Minister and some bureaucrat in Wellington will have to step back and say "Well actually there's already sufficient providers in that area. We don't think we need you and the country doesn't need you. Get lost. We're not going to give you a licence based on our data analysis and our assessment of what the situation is." So that's fundamentally all about protecting the incumbents—the people who are already there. It leads to a scleretic—sclerotic—what's the word? It leads to a calcified and hardened situation where there is less innovation and less opportunity for new providers to come in. It's a dreadful idea and we will oppose it on principle. I don't know why they don't just be honest and say what they really want is they just don't want the private sector involved in education full stop. That's what they're trying to do and this is sort of a halfway step which is a tragedy. So look we'll be opposing this legislation. It speaks volumes of this Government that they introduced a bill and then couldn't even get their act together to introduce a coherent bill with this actually in the bill rather than throwing in an SOP at the time that it's introduced in a rushed and messy manner. But at least it will enable the submitters in the select committee process to deal with it and engage in the issues and I'm sure many people in the sector will be very interested in it. But of course the moment that you bring in very difficult licensing regimes then naturally it's the people that aren't in the sector who might have got into the sector who are the most affected. The incumbents quite often are quite happy to make it difficult for competitors to come along and so it becomes a very difficult and unhelpful set of arrangements when Governments get more and more involved in making decisions about whether a New Zealander should have a go and set up a new business in any part of the economy whether it's early education whether it's driving trucks or whether it's doing anything else.Quite aside from the natural requirements and absolute expectations around the many things in the education sector that are special in terms of ensuring quality and qualifications and Police vetting and all those elements which are quite legitimate and separate and should be dealt with in a rigorous way what we're talking about here is about the market demand for places in early education and that is where this Government is crossing the line and of course is part of an overall wider-ranging trend towards centralisation and decisions being made by officials in Wellington about what's best for everybody else. That's very much a theme that we've seen in the polytech sector; it's a theme that we're seeing throughout every aspect of this Government—"Wellington knows best." As we all known particularly those of us from Auckland who have been locked down for such a long time there are different views in different parts of the country. People have different priorities and mind-sets and we'll be looking forward to hearing from them throughout the select committee process that follows. Thank you Madam Speaker."