"Half-a-fix-up" - National on government's ECE policy tweak

The government is abandoning a funding condition of an extension that they added to the early childhood education policy in March. Currently the scheme offers three-to-five year olds 20 hours of free childcare at ECE centres. From March next year two-year-olds will also be eligible for the subsidy, But - the now dropped pre-requisite - requires early childhood centres to accept children whose parents only wanted to enrol them for the 20 free hours, and not for the remaining 20 paid hours of the normal 40 hour week. The early childhood sector warned some centres would run at a loss if the scheme went ahead without any changes. Nathan Rarere asked National's deputy Nicola Willis what she made of the change.