David Seymour: Regulation Minister on the regulation cuts to early childhood education

Regulation Minister David Seymour's accusing unions of 'fearmongering' about the review into early childhood education. 

Cabinet's agreed to adopt 15 recommendations from a Ministry of Regulation review that found a number of settings were outdated. 

Seymour says the unions made their mind up before the Government released its decision. 

He told Mike Hosking there are just too many regulators, with multiple Ministries and local councils trying to enforce rules without any clarity. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the early childhood sectors in for a bit of
common sense change. There are ninety eight rules apparently in
regulations around running any given center. About twenty percent of
those are going to go things like keeping the classroom
temperature at eighteen degrees, having hygienic facilities to clean up paint,
holding humanization records for every child. The regulation Minister, David
Seymore's in charge of it, and he's with us very
good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Devil is in the detail. Though. The angst seems to
be coming around the qualifications for teachers.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
You say, what, We're not going to change the qualifications overall,
but I think there's a worthwhile question. Do you want
to have somebody who might have a PhD In architecture
comes in, does a short course and go straight to
the top of the pay scale, or do you think

(00:44):
that the people who run the center and know the
quality of the people in front of them should have
more flexibility about how much they pay them. Over the
next year, these various changes will be rolled out and
towards this. At the end of this year, we'll look
at that. But if people say, oh, there's going to
be no qualifications, it's all deregulated and you won't know

(01:07):
what you're getting. Actually, it's the opposite of that. We've
got a system that is overly complicated. People don't know
what they get, and people that run their centers spend
too much time on red tape instead of actually focusing
on the safety and education of children and the choices
that parents have.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Is this union's protecting their patch.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah. I mean there's no question that there's been a
campaign by the NZI, the Primary teachers union, and I
don't mean the teachers by the way, it's the union
organizers who've done all sorts of fear mungering about this
review before the government's even released its decisions. But the
truth is, if you go and visit people in early

(01:48):
childhood centers as I do, they've got multiple regulators. They've
got the RO, the MOE, the MRH, the MPI, the
local council, all trying to enforce rules without any clarity.
And what we're going to do, first of all, we're
going to actually pass some law saying this is the
purpose of regulating it's child safety number one, children's education

(02:10):
number two, parental choice number three, and then not putting
in place any more rules than are necessary to achieve
those objectives. We're going to take a look at the
ninety eight rules. We've got a draft of what that
will look like. Around three quarters of them will either
be gone, changed or turned into guidance rather than we
will shut you down in order that the regulator can

(02:32):
look at the things that actually affect child safety and
child education. And more importantly, that the people running the centers,
you know, four thousand, many of them small businesses, saults
of the earth, people who are preparing the next generation
for when they take over running this country. They will
have some more certainty about what they can do, what
they can't do, and who to call if there's a dispute.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
More importantly, I've got this text. Mike asked David, who
caught the biggest snapper on the Bay of Islands East
to sunday him or his fiance. What's the answer?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Uh, okay, Alex's got a five point two kilogram Mine was.
I just want to say, definitely legal. However it was
it was about half a meter from the lip to
the v of the tale, So she definitely won that one,
and I obviously don't dispute it.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Good stuff, Nice to talk to you David Semore, the
Regulation Minister and King Fisherman. For more from the mic
Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
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