Simon Laube: Early Childhood Council CEO on the need for a review of the sector

A review of Early Childhood regulations is said to be long overdue. 

Regulation Minister David Seymour says the sector needs a closer look, to better affordability, access and regulation for the sector. 

Early Childhood Council CEO Simon Laube said that the system they have is just not fit for purpose. 

He told Mike Hosking that it’s so complex, and some of the regulations are conflicting with each other. 

Regulations get applied inconsistently, Laube said, and one minor infraction could mean the loss of their licence. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So change coming to the early childhood sector. We've got
a review and announced the idea. It simplifies the way
it works. That a look into education, health safety, child protection,
food safety, buildings, workplaces, et cetera. Early Childhood Counsel boss
Simon Lover is with us, Simon Brey, Good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You, Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome and over due or not oh very much.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Long over due, couldn't get started soon enough.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
The examples that David Seymour gave is yesterday about all
the stuff you have to go through paperwork wise, are
they real?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, that's right. The system we've got it's just not
for purpose. It's so complex and some of those regulations
they're conflicting with each other. They get applied inconsistently, and
real icing on the cake is one minor infraction and
it could mean the entire loss of your license, and
that could happen in twenty four hours, and that just

(00:55):
that's a killer blow. It can knock the service out
and there's nothing they can do to recover. But I've
got a string of really good examples. I think that's
a good way for people to relate to things. But
I think the best example is really around teachers. So
if you think about Minister Seymour talks about that person
in charge, the person responsible, we need one of those

(01:18):
for every fifty children. And that regulation recently got strengthened
in February to make it even harder. And they've got
to be teachers. With that regulation, we can have a
teacher who's trained an EEE or it could be a
primary school teacher. However, we've also got another regulation for

(01:38):
required staff and in that second regulation we've got to
meet her at fifty percent. The primary school teachers don't
count as teachers at all. They're nothing, They're unqualified teachers,
so they don't count. And then we have another rule
around funding around teachers as well, and for that one
we can count teachers who are in training. It is

(02:02):
incredibly unworkable, you know, how how do you make all
these systems that don't work together work at a level.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Well, let's hope that they tidy it up, clean it up,
and you can, as David Seymour said yesterday, move faster
and do more. Simon Lover, who's the Early Childhood Counsel CEO.
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