Donnelly Brian: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Education (Disestablishment of Early Childhood Development Board) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12142] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 Comment has been made about this legislation removing the previous rights the Early Childhood Development Board had to distribute grants to the Ministry of Education. I point out that the legislation is very specific that the rights are purely and simply those that under present legislation relate to the Early Childhood Development Board it being the only entity that legitimately has the right to grant that money. It really relates to licence-exempt groups—basically play groups. The Minister will tell me whether I am right but I think it is about $1 per hour per child. It may be slightly more now I do not know; certainly it is not in the vicinity of $1000 per bounty head—as it were—that Mr Hide was talking about. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I can answer the question very quickly. It’s not $1; it’s $1.01. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: I got it wrong—the Minister has increased the amount dramatically since he got into power when it was $1. 
We need to reflect back to the reforms that created the Early Childhood Development Board which went across the early childhood sector and the compulsory sector. In the compulsory sector that involved getting rid of the education boards. The comment has been made that the ministry would be putting out grants that were previously put out by Early Childhood Development. People seem to forget that the money came from the ministry first. It then went to the Early Childhood Development Board and was distributed from there—just as in previous days the money went from central government to the education boards that had been established in 1877. They were the old provinces. Education could not be administered under the 1877 Act without the old provincial structures. Therefore the situation was that funding went from central government to territorial authorities then was distributed. 
The whole idea behind Picot and Tomorrow’s Schools was to cut out one part of the bureaucratic loop. In fact that is what this legislation is also doing. It is taking out one part of the bureaucratic loop. More money will be released to go directly to the providers. Therefore it is inexplicable that parties like ACT are trying to defend the continuation of this particular bureaucratic loop. It is almost like their arguing that we should bring back the old education boards. The purpose behind this legislation is to take exactly the same step as Tomorrow’s Schools took when it came to primary education—that is to take out one bureaucratic step and be able to make sure the funding is moved from the central provider to the providers of the services themselves with no encumbrances in-between. 
I also find it extremely difficult to understand why both National and ACT are critical of the Minister for not consulting fully with the New Zealand Educational Institute—in other words for not consulting fully with the union of workers in only a part of the sector we are talking about. The great protectors of unionism—ACT and National—are critical of the Government because it did not consult fully with the New Zealand Educational Institute! In fact there was a lot of consultation and this particular move had been flagged in the sector long before it came to the select committee. It was a little bit unfortunate however that the timing was such that quite genuine criticisms can now be made of the Minister and the Government. 
Once again we will be supporting this legislation because as I said—and the Minister can explain it—it will allow funding to go directly from the ministry to the providers without a duplication of service. That exists in the present system and it existed all through the 1990s when the National Government was in power.