By RNZ

A Napier mother says changes in the Budget will make it worth her returning to work instead of being left with about $170 a week after paying childcare fees.

Anna Catley has three children under 3 and has welcomed the Budget’s big boost to funding for early childhood education.

Last year, Catley attracted a huge response to a TikTok post laying out the cost of childcare, which she said made it impossible for her to work.

Now, her twins will qualify for 20 hours of free childcare for 2-year-olds included in this year’s Budget, at a cost of $1.2 billion.

It will save parents about $133 per child each week.

Catley said she was excited both for her own family and for other parents needing help with childcare.

She said it had not been worth her returning to work because, after paying childcare fees, she would have been left with just $170 of her wages at the end of each week.

With the extra payment taking effect from next March and her twins turning 2 three months later, it will be a game-changer.

“We’ll definitely look into it [a return to work]. It’s an option now whereas it wasn’t before.”

Holding down a job with three small children would still be challenging but it had become “a solid option on the table”.

Catley said she had discussed the Government’s move with friends and everyone was pleased with it.

Some had children under 1 but had no choice other than to return to work even though they were not earning much once they paid childcare fees.

“So now they’re going to get that money in their pocket in March when it comes in, so that’s really exciting,” she said.

Catley also approved of the extra Budget spending for the early childhood sector and teachers’ salaries.

“We need to look after them – better ratios, better pay, better support and, if we could get more people into doing early childhood education as a career, I think it would be really positive.

“But we have to make it more appealing first so I think it’s a good start.”

Early childhood teachers are celebrating a boost of nearly $2b for the sector, including funding for pay parity from November 2024.

There’s almost $340 million for pay parity and $260m for operating costs, including $1.3m for Playcentre Aotearoa.

Dunedin early childhood teacher and NZEI representative Gina Sagan said the Budget package was a realisation of what they had been working for over a long period.

“It’s a welcome change.”

Teachers in early learning centres had the same qualifications as teachers at other levels but their salary structure was inferior and they had been fighting to be paid the same as their kindergarten and primary school counterparts.

“So this is a step in the right direction.”

There was a huge shortage of early learning teachers and Sagan was hopeful the pay parity funds would help attract school leavers to the profession.

While she also welcomed the changes to the childcare subsidy, she said there was a nervousness that it might lead to greater demand and adversely affect teacher-child ratios, which were much better than in schools.

Lukewarm response to funding for schools

Principals’ Federation president Leanne Otene says the Budget will not make a big difference for schools.

She said many areas of spending would help schools but the sums involved were not enough to be significant.

“Have they focused on the areas that are most at need and initially I thought actually they have, but is there enough in this Budget to make a significant difference? I’m not at this particular moment thinking there is.”

Otene said the 5.3 per cent increase in schools’ operations grants next year did not match the rate of inflation.

NZEI Te Riu Roa, the largest education union, said it was the second year in a row that school funding had not kept pace with inflation. All up, the Budget was a disappointment.

There was no money for teacher pay, additional teacher staffing or specialist staff, the union said in a statement.

“What we wanted to see was a Budget that looked at crucial issues around staffing, workload relief and decent pay. As a society we will be in bigger debt if we don’t invest in our tamariki and their teachers,” union president Mark Potter said.

Playcentre boss thrilled

A preschool education charity will receive a $3m grant from the Budget.

Playcentre operates 420 early childhood learning centres throughout the country.

Chief executive David Moger welcomed the one-off grant and said he was pleased to see the charity recognised.

He also celebrated the inclusion of 2-year-olds in the free early childhood education scheme.

“This is great news for Playcentre, with 2-year-olds accounting for 19 per cent of tamariki enrolled at Playcentre.”

Universities unimpressed

Universities are warning the Budget leaves them facing further financial pressure.

The Budget lifted tertiary subsidies next year by 5.3 per cent, the biggest increase in 20 years.

Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan said that did not keep up with rising costs.

“When I look at just this year and the next couple of years, the actual forecast inflation is about 15½ per cent. Today’s announcement [in the Budget] means that the funding will be increasing about 9 per cent over the same period so we are continuing to slip backwards.

“So it means perhaps a little bit less pressure for universities on what they had been forecasting but it doesn’t remove the pressure.”

Whelan said domestic enrolments were flat and universities would have to try to attract more foreign students.

Waikato University has criticised the failure to invest in training more New Zealand doctors to meet the country’s future health workforce shortages, particularly in general practice.

 “The Government is continuing to rely on importing doctors from other countries, when there is no doubt we should be training more of our own doctors here,” University of Waikato professor of population health Dr Ross Lawrenson said.

“A big goal of Te Whatu Ora’s is to increase the number of Māori and Pacific doctors – something that is hard to do when we rely on importing twice as many doctors as we train.”

Lawrenson said the Government had kicked the needed investment in doctor training down the road yet again. “The lack of action means that it will be at least another six years before we will be graduating more than the current 550 doctors a year.”

It was worrying that, while the number of doctors had increased by almost 5000 in the past 10 years, the number of GPs had only increased by 260, he said.