The first protest against Budget 2010 started around midday today when a lone protester stood on the parliamentary forecourt holding his placard. He wanted the government to know that early childhood education does not need cuts.
I popped down to have a chat with him just after attending the celebrations for National Excellence in Teaching and Leadership Awards in Parliament’s Grand Hall where some ECE teachers had accepted theirs. Earlier in the day ECE students had their graduation ceremony.
This is a day where people have been celebrating ECE. Now it’s time to see what the government has in store for this education sector, and the country.
Update: Funding has been cut to the 80-100% qualified staff funding band for 2211 ECE services that educate 108,000 children. Their parents will have to decide whether to have a lower quality of education or pay higher fees. Great choice eh!
So much to take in at the moment …
It looks like the protest was successful. It seems the Government listened, and there were no changes to ECE in the budget. Were you watching the budget Sue?
Yay, more money in my pocket.
92 million into early childhood, and the only change to the 20 hour free childcare will be income-linked?
I am just trying to figure out how Phil Goff has calculated that those on the low to middle income will be worse off when all the calculators say otherwise and that National has in fact cut spending to education & health when everyone else is saying it is a billion dollars or whatever in extra spending?
And no nasty surprises….I have expected them to say they were selling off various SOEs to pay for all the tax cuts!
Aah enough distraction, must get back to my work…
Rebecca – its called spin. twisting the numbers to try and find a negative.
Personally – I think its a brilliant budget and well over due!
You guys on the left are really going to struggle for any traction. Generally very good news all around – especially for middle income families. Good to get tax cuts so we can choose where to spend our money.
Overseas people invest to realise higher wage jobs and pay tax to maintain the public services of a first world nation. Here some celebrate tax cuts which increase the budget deficit and associated polices to decline core public services. Neither of which is sustainable.
And you guys on the right need to learn not to believe the spin!
The funding has been cut for early childhood centres that employ 80-100% qualified staff.
That effects 108,000 children and their families who will either have to accept reduced quality education or pay more – election promise broken on 20 hours free, as 60% of the children face higher fees or reduced quality.
$400m funding cut to ECE over four years – how ambitious!
I am amazed the number shrewd right wing believes that almost everyone can receive tax cuts but not service cuts :rolleyes:
SPC the problem I have with the argument that tax cuts decline core public services is that our core public services – esp health, roading, public transport, prisons have been declining despite NO tax cuts & loads of spending.
How is spending went up by 50% under the Labour party yet the Capital DHB still had to borrow 100% to pay for the building of the new hospital?
The reality is most people will in fact be better off – this is a pretty comprehensive guide as to how the budget affects ordinary New Zealanders….
http://www.taxguide.govt.nz/tax-scenarios.html
Sue – the cut to funding qualified ECE stuff will make little difference. Honestly a parent can barely tell the difference between a good Nanny & a ECE teacher….hence why so many choose home based care. As long as the staff feed their child, make sure they are safe, having fun & fill out profile books/communicate well with the parents then most really don’t care.
ECE and the whole emphasis on curriculum is completely overrated – a child would suffer no harm whatsoever if they were at home with loving, interactive parents until they started school. As long as they can recognise their name & have confidence then they are ready for school.
And there is no cut to 20 free hours. They are merely making it income tested – and why not?
If you’re on $100k you should not get free childcare – simple as that.
Plus there is the fact that the 20 hours free ECE is not in fact free. Many childcare centres charge for the hours they are getting the 20 ECE hours even though it says in MOE policy that they can not do that.
I could tell a few tales on quite a few centres…some of whom are owned by people very well known to some members in the Labour party.
Snouts in the trough springs to mind…
And no, that is not defamatory, it is fact. Have a ring around and find out for yourself – you will soon discover those centres that say your child has to be in care for a minimum of 3 days at 7 hours per day and you will be billed $100 or more per week due to the 20 ECE hours merely being a “subsidy”.
Rebecca, it’s not the tax cuts which decline public services, it’s the reduced funding for public services – for some reason, those who practice one also practice the other.
The only way education can operate with funding increases lower than the rate of inflation is to cut back spending or allow no wage increase to staff.
As for health, there is a demographic reality at play.
As for Labour’s spending here to match demographic change and afford modern medicine, much was on increasing wage levels for staff to attract and retain them.
For all their appeal to some, tax cuts are not on-going year on year. A health budget which does not allow wage increases without service cuts is going to result in under-payment of staff for years (wages falling behind inflation change etc) -increasing the attraction of overseas work. A health system without staff no longer functions. Of course when Labour comes back into government and has to increase pay to solve this problem – this will be called another inefficient spending spree.
Thanks SPC.
I agree that tax cuts are not everything. I guess for me, it is just nice to have a government finally recognise that they do mean something..
Sue, is this where I am subsidising child care for people earning $99,000 p.a.? If so, could you please explain why this is so. I did ask on a previous thread but was ignored. Thanks, John.
P.S. Wasn’t the Budget great ? Although I did feel a bit sorry for Phil. Especially for the way that nice Mr Key made a phool of him.
I personally think the burning issue isn’t about who should pay how much tax. The burning issue is whether we aspire to be Silicon Valley, or whether we aspire to be Fountain Lakes.
Hi Sue! Look forwards to seeing you at your Dunedin presentation on Mon night
DeepRed – yeah man, thats the one.
Tax cuts just change the way the pie is divvied up. Time to GROW the pie for all.
John Armstrong’s spiel in the Herald said it all:
I’m concerned that our entire economy s being judged on these tax cuts, isnt there much more to e thriving economy than tax cuts? Cos wouldnt it mean we should just lower them even further?
I suppose now John and Bill can look the men from the credit ratings agencies in the eye and say, “while we had to postpone the tax cuts after the election to look good in your eyes – we found by breaking a promise not to raise GST we could do much of it anyway.
By the time people work out what we have done to core public services and that we have no real economic plan to grow the economy we’ll be in our second term and offering more tax cuts funded by the sale of assets. Those who saved their tax cut money will be able to buy them at a cheap price and flick them on to foreigners for an untaxed CG.
That should leave the society and economy with litle capacity left but to obey orders from the private sector owners of the economy, thus a conclusive addition of once egalitarian and social democratic Enzed to the satellites of global capital.
Rebecca – I’m curious. What position of authority do you have to comment on what’s best for children re: nannies vs ECE Teachers?
I can understand adjusting the thresholds, but cutting funding to centers with 80-100% qualified staff? That says to center operators: fire qualified people and/or hire some dummies. I may not be a neuro-scientist specialising in the early development of the human brain, but I personally think it’s not wise to reduce investment in children. There will no doubt be a long term impact.
Lower quality staff?
I’m not a teacher but by the time my son started school, he could count to well over 100, do addition and subtraction, knew his alphabet and could read at an 8 yr old level. So according to you because I’m not a qualified teacher my child was disadvantaged?
Last time National did a cost and efficiency drive in public services organisations, did they succeed in streamlining without negatively affecting the services intended for delivery? I think this would be good to compare against this strategy, which seems to me to be back to the future on their part.
Lesterpk, ah your logic is flawed. We are talking about ECE teachers with significant class sizes and many children with highly varying needs to attend to; you are talking about parenting one child at home.
Parenting a child, not teaching a classroom.
I can’t send a personal email to Rebecca but I’d just like to say she should either:
a. run for parliament herself or
b. start her own blog
she owns everyone on here
No Chris73: Rebecca owns only herself. She’s happy with the budget because it doesn’t really matter to her how it may affect people on low incomes. You’re right. She should start her own blog and then she could say whatever she likes and no-one would care.
So let me get this right, childcare centres that had 100% of their staff quailfied as that is what all centres were aiming for and were funded accordinally, now lose 20% funding as they are only going to fund up to 80%?
So the ECE teachers working in these places, who trained for 3 years or so, now have Student loans to pay off, and either face a pay cut or pass the fees onto parents?
I missed the budget but am I on the right track?
@ A Mother: Basically, you’ve got it right. This particular funding cut is around 12.5% (spooky – what GST used to be) for centres that had 100% qualified staff.
You are spot on with the rest.
Hmmm. So lets see.
Increase in GST of 2.5% and increase in my benefit of 2%. My rent may rise, nothing really to replace the TIA (though that was wishful thinking anyway) Now when I’m on placement next year in a ECE centre or Early primary school, I’ll have to pay more for the care of my children due to rise in fees, though by that stage only one will will qualify for 20 hours (my youngest will be 2 months off when my placement comes up, my oldest just turning 4)
How can I afford to find the money for them to be looked after for 6 weeks next year while I’m on placements out of the DPB?
Have yet to read what is happening at Uni’s.
And my future profession maybe worthless as it will be hard to find a job as there is no incentive for centres to hire anymore qualified teachers?!!!
Not to mention what that does to the profession as a whole. Its not just a babysitting job, that is how this is how National seem to view ECE teachers. If it wasn’t for the fact that its a way to get people out there working, I don’t think that they would really care at all.
@Anne – Hi
@A Mother – it was depressing.
Chris73 said:
Looks like it doesn’t take much to impress these days.
*Smiles and waves*
ECE is a lot more than that Rebecca.
And further to my earlier post, here’s a cautionary tale of two nations. When Norway and Britain struck oil in the North Sea in the 1970s, they took two very different paths on how to spend it.
- The First Post – We could have been as rich as Norway
- The Spectator – Why hasn’t Britain got a sovereign wealth fund?
And neither publication is particularly leftist either.
A mother – I disagree. I have pre-school children and think it is highly over-rated. We don’t need intense education for our littlies, we need our children to be provided with safe, fun environments where they are free to develop the confidence & social skills needed to survive school. This can be achieved by reading lots of books, going to story time at the library, having play-dates, going to kindy or play-centre etc.
If you need to have your children in care because you are at work or are studying, the home based options would suffice – they are wonderful environments and are often a lot cheaper.
Chris 73 – I will take that as a compliment!
However, I prefer to live with integrity, honesty & a strong moral compass so parliament is not an option and I would doubt a blog from a fence sitter would be all that popular!
Further, it is highly amusing how so many of you have been swayed by Labour’s arguments that this budget is for the few & not the many blah blah blah.
The problem is we had 9 years of a government that talked only about assisting those on low incomes & completely ignored those on MIDDLE – that’s right MIDDLE to high incomes.
Labour crucified those on $38-60k for 8 of their 9 years in office – 33c in the dollar was robbery pure and simple. That is not a rich man’s wage yet somehow they thought it was okay to take away a 1/3 of their income. Grossly unfair & unjust.
Now that the rhetoric has changed – despite the percentages in terms of increased ‘wealth’ being the same – has changed, you all think that NACT is just looking after their “rich mates”….never mind the fact that it was Labour that made these people very very VERY rich at the expense of ALL of us. Hmmmmm. But that doesn’t sit that well does it as every time someone brings that up I hear oh, it’s not about the past, it’s about the future….despite that horrid past only being 18 months ago!
Perhaps I will have to jump the fence and go right after-all – you are all convincing me & my ‘rich friends’ who pay a fortune in tax, mortgages, ACC levies, road users, groceries, petrol, health care that the left is just an ideological dream that has no concept of reality.
Rebecca.
NACT looks after their very wealthy mates and they are good at it. English and Key who are multi-multi-millionaires have many of them.
And how do they do this? F.x. 15% of the tax cuts went to 1% of income earners, and curiously they are the 1% who can already afford many of the luxuries in life.
As for those on $38-60K that you are leaping to protect: these are the same people who get cake crumbs from the Budget this year. Probably less once you take the inflationary effects of the Budget into account. And this is not highway robbery now?
Perhaps you should acknowledge what it obvious to everyone already – your natural leanings and jump right after all.
Labour took taxes and left NZ in a better fiscal position. NACT are now letting that slide backwards in order to give tax cuts targetted at the wealthiest in this country, regardless of the social damage their cutbacks and engineered inequality create.
Lesson: The tories never change. Labour must.
I disagree Rebecca about ECE being over rated and its not an intense program, but yes home based care is good IF you have an instive person who is going to extend your child, teach them to think etc, teach them social skills etc. Not all are like that though.
Agreed, I was once babysat by a woman who moaned to her son about wanting to put a plastic bag over my head
Oh dear. I hope you never had her again.
Not after I told Mum about that and her hitting my younger sibling for dancing to the radio in the kitchen.