Our petition requests that sufficient funding is allocated to make this work for families and centres. We understand that many ECE providers would like to offer this scheme but are unable to due to insufficient funding and the inability to charge top-ups to parents (and that this concern applies to both private and not-for-profit centres).

When the Government told the electorate that all three and four year olds would be eligible to receive 20 hours free early childhood education, there was an expectation that that would be delivered. Nothing less. However, take the example of a sessional centres which is being offered an extra $1.10 approx per hour per child (on top of the existing subsidy) for services that parents currently pay $6.50 per hour per child to recieve. This example, typical of what our centres are describing, shows that the Government rates are inadequate and that they need to be re-examined.

Help us ensure that as many families as possible are able to benefit from the 20 hours free policy and that it is not just a lottery for the lucky few. Please sign our petition and better still visit us at http://20hoursfree.blogspot.com
and learn more about this issue. You can also print off more copies of our petition and help us by circulating them in your community.

Signed petitions should be returned by 31 May to:

20 Hours Free. Please
Private Bag MBEMI07
Auckland 1142

Thank you for your time. For further contact email us at 20hoursfree.please@gmail.com

Our petition requests that sufficient funding is allocated to make this work for families and centres. We understand that many ECE providers would like to offer this scheme but are unable to due to insufficient funding and the inability to charge top-ups to parents (and that this concern applies to both private and not-for-profit centres).

When the Government told the electorate that all three and four year olds would be eligible to receive 20 hours free early childhood education, there was an expectation that that would be delivered. Nothing less. However, take the example of a sessional centres which is being offered an extra $1.10 approx per hour per child (on top of the existing subsidy) for services that parents currently pay $6.50 per hour per child to recieve. This example, typical of what our centres are describing, shows that the Government rates are inadequate and that they need to be re-examined.

Help us ensure that as many families as possible are able to benefit from the 20 hours free policy and that it is not just a lottery for the lucky few. Please sign our petition and better still visit us at http://20hoursfree.blogspot.com
and learn more about this issue. You can also print off more copies of our petition and help us by circulating them in your community.

Signed petitions should be returned by 31 May to:

20 Hours Free. Please
Private Bag MBEMI07
Auckland 1142

Thank you for your time. For further contact email us at 20hoursfree.please@gmail.com

Personally, I would not mind paying $90 a week as a top up. Beats paying $290 a week any day. This government is only putting more government officials in the way of the average New Zealander, and charging us for the dubious priveledge.

A tax credit, as proposed by National, would have been a less expensive and far more effective tool to acheive this aim. However, I am rapt with the response of the Early Childhood Educators to this whole mess. Funny how those tasked with teaching 3,4 and 5 year old kids can’t make our government see sense.

No argument, just the normal stereotyping and propaganda of the socialist religionists, underpinned as always by the simplistic leftist mantra “left good, right bad”. Here’s the left, Rag and his altruistic gang, who care (really care) about “the children”, whilst the right just wants to eat them.

Rag examples again the brain damage that afflicts all leftists in that they cannot compete on an ideas basis. If you’re prepared to bandy words about the best way to implement socialist policy, they’ll grant you legitimacy. Oppose the whole concept of socialism, and you’re labeled as an uncaring heretic (or crazy).

This strategy exposes the left’s real agenda. Its not altruism that motivates them, its their obsession with political power. If they cared about raising living standards, they wouldn’t be socialists. If they weren’t blind ideologues, they wouldn’t preach socialism. All over the globe any objective and sane observer can see that if there’s one way to destroy a country, to rip its heart out, to make its people spiritless and hopeless, its to impose the religion of socialism upon them.

Anywhere the socialists hold power, and have incrementally and deceitfully infected the citizenry with their sad sick disease, you’ll see the negative effects. High crime rates, massive levels of welfare dependency, low standards of living, and a social malaise and lack of spirit, a hopelessness most often manifested in widespread drug use.

It is not socialism and government dependency and reliance on the deceitful “altruism” of power crazed leftist zealots like Rag or Helen Klark that lifts standards of living and improves the quality of life. It is the natural growth and development of the human spirit that does this, the freedom to pursue your own destiny whilst enjoying an independent self reliant and confident mindset. The very mindset that socialists work night and day to destroy.

Your duplicitous strategy of labeling the right as the destroyers and the left as the benefactors of the poor Rag, as with most things on the left, is a complete reversal of the reality. You don’t care about anything other than political power. So don’t come on here with your simplistic holier than thou bullshit about “the children”. In the new millennium, your soviet/Stalinist style propaganda with its clear objective of keeping such as you and Helen Klark in the halls of power at the expense of those you profess to care about, just doesn’t wash any more.

Hey Rag, the parents of NZ dodged a bullet by electing Labour there didnt they?

Remember all the footdragging and whining about how the mean old govt was trying to screw them over and how GP’s would all go out of business en masse? It was all going to be the end of the world as we knew it if you listened to certain medical industry PR spinners…

Couldnt be because a ideologically driven election bribe has come back to bite them is it?

It would be very easy to subsidise childcare fairly and equitably, but of course the Labour Govt had to design a scheme that punishes businesses and meets teacher union preferences.

So it doesnt work in practice – hey who cares? In fact it worked exactly as intended, it helped win an election, and by cauterising the issue early, hopefully people will have forgotten by the next election.

Then the unspent money can be promised to some other constituency group, and so it continues…

As a small government libertarian I think the Labour Government should be congratulated on its efficient policy design. This one is pretty much fiscally neutral. Well done Steve and Trevor!

Interesting to see those involved in the ‘industry’ only see the dollar signs. And the temerity that people should be ‘qualified’.
You should try working with large business they will screw you even harder than the government and then take months to pay.
The Kiwi way is to look at the government as a soft touch.

Not sure what the solution is. And yes, I’m sure National has Achilles Heel’s of its own.

I disagree Sally – the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education have faced a near-impossible task trying to build a credible framework for a policy that was conceived on the hoof in a desperate effort to win an election.

As part-owner of an ECE service, we face a major dilemma – either we opt in to 20Free, and accept what amounts to a 45% decrease in funding or we hang tough, and run the risk of significant roll-loss to services who are offering 20Free. We are a small business, and our bank manager’s generosity is sadly, not limitless. We can only hope that Maharey & Co will accept that the policy in its present form is unworkable, and revisit funding rates – however, we’re not holding our breath, given this government’s proven reluctance to admit that they might have got it wrong!