Simon Laube: Early Childhood Council CEO on the start to the FamilyBoost rebate

There's a belief the Government's FamilyBoost rebate is working, despite a lack of interest from eligible families. 

The new scheme is a hallmark policy of the Government's first Budget, offering financial support for early childhood education. 

It's been open for three weeks and less than half of families eligible have applied to receive it. 

Early Childhood Council chief executive Simon Laube told Mike Hosking it's an impressive start. 

He says it would take three or four years to do the same through ECE funding. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've got some issues around this new Family boost scheme.
This is where you get money for childcare. But if
you've got a register with your ECE receipts. So far,
three weeks after the registration's opened, about forty percent have so.
Early Childhood counsel by Simon Labor is with us on this.
Simon morning to you, morning mate. I know the Labour
Party you're trying to make a thing of this, but
I mean, yea, it's tens of thousands of people are

(00:20):
registered so far, it's only three weeks. I'm not overly
exercise to you.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think it's a really impressive start. That's to compare
that to how long it would take us to deliver
the same kind of changes through ECE funding, which would
be three or four years. I think it's a really
good beginner exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I also argue there's something to be said about self responsibility.
If you want the money, the money is there, and
if you've got to spend a couple of minutes on
a computer filing a few forms, that's not the end
of the world. Because we do it with a lot
of stuff in life, don't we.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's right. It's annoying having that admin burden, But if
you actually have a look on the website, they have
made it as easy as they possibly can. And if
you need help now with this cost living crisis, here
you go. You can go and get it if you
really feel motivated. But if you can't be bothered, that's
over to you.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Exactly have you seen or dealt with people who have
done it? It's working if you can make it work,
it's not actually a big deal if you don't want
to make it a big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Definitely. There's no issues with the system they've designed so far,
but everyone's just getting their heads around it. In the
ecy sector, it takes us about a year to come,
you know, to get our heads around new systems and things.
And parents are going to be no different. It will
take them a while to get the hang of it.
Once they've done that, it's just rinse and repeat.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Good on you.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
So i'd encourage people to get it to.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Go, all right, okay, especially for free money, Simon, And
nothing's free obviously, but you know what I mean. Simon Labor,
who's the Early Childhood Council CEO. Speaking of which, morning Mike,
what a Labor and the useless MP Ingrid o' leary
up to attacking Gumboot Friday and it's iconic leader, Mike King.
So I can see where you're coming from in the
text calling an iconic o Leary maintains that it isn't
a personal attack, but we can read between the lines.
So Leary's got enough on a plate helping out her

(01:57):
constituents and flood damage Dunedin, and she can never resist
an opportunity to attack the government. Labour's got to watch
this at the moment. I mean that whole story of
business of the ec ething came out of labor, labor
going and it's king complicated and it ain't it. And
if there's too much of that, you turn people off
in a major way.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
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