Early Childhood Cl questions super scheme fairness

Early Childhood Council continues to question fairness of new super scheme

"NZEI's spokesperson Colin Tarr's press release, in which he tries both to defend the Government's discriminatory actions towards early childhood teachers and attack the Early Childhood Council as a bad employer, shows he must be visiting from another planet," says Sue Thorne, the Council's CEO.

"Tarr needs to brush up on his facts, neither the Government nor the Council are employers of early childhood teachers. The Council will however continue to point out that taxpayers' money, intended to support state employees, is being siphoned off to a select group of early childhood teachers employed by non-government organisations, who happen to be mainly NZEI members, and which is now revealed to have been secretly negotiated by NZEI with the Minister," says Mrs Thorne.

"Tarr suggests the Council keep quiet and instead set up some similar superannuation scheme for the remaining 10,000 early childhood teachers. We would love to, if between NZEI and the Minister they could again convince their cabinet colleagues to hand over a substantial amount of taxpayer money, which they seem to have easy access to."

"NZEI is supposed to be a representative of teachers and yet it goes out of its way to criticise the Council for blowing the whistle on this dodgy deal and trying to get a fair deal for all early childhood teachers. NZEI has failed in its fundamental role and should be ashamed. And early childhood teachers, who have been discriminated against and the public should see where the finger points," said Mrs Thorne.

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