David Seymour: ACT Leader and Regulation Minister talks early childhood education, Treasury update

There’s hopes a review into early childhood education will better clarify regulation for the sector. 

It's made 15 recommendations to simplify and modernise regulation, to help better provide safe, high-quality care and education. 

Regulation Minister David Seymour says one major issue is the overlapping of multiple agencies on the same matters. 

He told Heather du Plessis-Allan the plan is to have one regulator and one rule, so providers can get on with educating. 

Seymour says how that plays out is for next year, but it's clear they needed to identify what needs to happen. 

The ACT Leader is also suggesting the Government's cuts should be more significant. 

The half year economic and fiscal update shows the Government's books are in a worse state than expected in May's Budget. 

A surplus is not expected for a number of years. 

Seymour told du Plessis-Allan there's a natural tension, as the Prime Minister wants to avoid what he sees as austerity. 

He says he'd like to go faster, but believes the current Government's better than the alternative. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the Ministry of Regulations completed its first task, actually
very fast. It's done its report into the early childhood
sector and it's recommended cutting three quarters of a list
of ninety eight different licensing rules. Regulation Minister David Semo's
with us now morning, David good one. So does this
mean they're not going to have to maintain the old
eighteen degrees and doors all day long?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing that we want
to either remove the regulation or clarify, because right across
the sector you feel a lot of anger from people
who say all I wanted to do was keep kids safe,
obviously and help them discover their potential. All I actually
do is to maintain a plethora of documents fear getting

(00:43):
inspected and answered to multiple regulators, from Hero to the
Ministry of Educations at Fire and Emergency in New Zealand,
often with each regulator having conflicting and positions on the
same basic questions. So I'm really soaked with the report
that the Ministry for Regulations produced. As you say, I

(01:05):
think they've done it pretty quickly. They've only been in
existence for nine months, They've not this up. You had
submissions from twenty three hundred different people in the sector
and in the new year we're basically going to roll
up these changes.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
So what is actually going to happen with the door handles,
because this is one of these examples where you've got
conflicting things. Right, the building Code says the door handles
have to be at a certain height, but the EC
needs editor different heights. So where do you end up.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, where we'll end up is that we'll have one
regulator and one rule, so that if you're running an
EC you know what the rule is and you can
get on with it. Exactly which ones will change to
align them. There's a bit of work to do, and
you to go backwards and boards of the different ministries
and so you've got a movie yours. So exactly how

(01:54):
that plays out is for next year. But the clear
issue is we've identified this as a problem by asking
people and it's pretty obvious what needs to happen. You
need one regulator on one question, and in some cases
it's something that maybe doesn't need to be regulated at all.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Have you heard from the Easy Ease on this they
stoked about this or what.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, there's been a bit of commentary from some of
the people who are commentators in the sector. I see
Kelly Seberg there, who was a pretty knowledgeable and vocal
operator of several ecs and someone that's been involved in
the review, and she, as far as I can see us, saying, yes,
this is exactly what we need.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
David, listen, what are you thinking about the high food?
Why aren't you guys cutting harder to get back to surplus?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, a couple of things. I mean, if you look
at where government is as a percentage of GDP under
Robertson in eighteen twenty nineteen, they were spending about twenty
eight dollars out of every hundred in the economy. During
COVID they went nuts, went up to about thirty five
dollars out of an extra seven bucked out of every

(03:02):
hundred ye earn goes to government. Now it's sitting around
thirty three and we're going to get it in a
couple of years down to thirty one. Now you say, well,
how can you be spending three percent more of duty
to than Robertson was before COVID. The answer to that
is that every year there's about thirty thousand more people

(03:24):
on super healthier costs rise at a similar rate. That's
a factor of having a rising aging population compared with
a number of taxpayers. And also because dear old Brandt
borrowed about one hundred billion dollars when interest rates were low,
and of course now the higher we're paying almost ten

(03:48):
billion a year.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
But are you comfortable, I mean fair enough you hit
it in the right direction. Are you comfortable with the
slow pace at which you're doing or do you think
should be doing it faster?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, I mean, look, there's no surprise from act when
we have these budget meetings, generally the ones saying that
you know, I think we need to go harder and faster.
But you know, obviously we're in a coalition and other people,
as you'll hear Nicole Assay and you heard Chris lux
And say yesterday, we don't want to go to what

(04:18):
they would call austerity. So obviously there's a natural tension
there and no surprise that it's been the association of
consumers and taxpayers and a tech ronym would like to
do that. But I also think that where we are
in this government is an awful lot better than where
we would be with the alternatives. So look, I mean

(04:39):
there's no surprise I'd probably like to go faster, but
I'm pretty happy with we the governments it ended up
because I know what the alternative is.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Okay, David, thanks very much, really appreciate this. David semore
Regulation Ministry. For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen
live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
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