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Speaker 1: The government has made significant changes to the Flagship Family

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Speaker 1: Boost program. The income threshold for eligibility will change from

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Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, it will go up

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Speaker 1: to two hundred and thirty thousand dollars, while the new

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Speaker 1: maximum rebate will be forty percent, up from twenty five percent.

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Speaker 1: Kathy Wolf is the chief executive of Early Childhood New Zealand. Morning.

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Speaker 2: Kathy more than Heather.

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Speaker 1: These change is going to make a difference.

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Speaker 2: They will definitely make a difference to another you know,

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Speaker 2: a few more families. Not a hell of a lot though,

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Speaker 2: so yeah, we'll have to see not a lot.

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Speaker 1: You don't think the sixteen thousand families predicted.

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Speaker 2: No, I still think there's still too many barriers in

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Speaker 2: terms of access to their rebates.

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Speaker 1: Well, you think too. This is in terms of the

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Speaker 1: people collecting the invoices for three months and then filing

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Speaker 1: it after the fact.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and also the fact that you know, many of

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Speaker 2: these families who really need it still have to pay

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Speaker 2: the fees upfront and then pain the rebates. And as

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Speaker 2: you say that, you know there's still challenges was the

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Speaker 2: actual process of doing so? Ah?

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Speaker 1: So, Kathy, the biggest problem is still the admin of

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Speaker 1: this thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, correct.

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Speaker 1: Now, look, do you think of family earning up to

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Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year actually needs welfare?

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Speaker 2: It depends, Yeah, at the cost of living at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Just as you know, it's just is just causing a

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Speaker 2: lot of challenges for families. And whilst you know, turn

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Speaker 2: a thitty cap per family sounds a lot, they're still

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Speaker 2: you know, they still got all the other cust them

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Speaker 2: orgages and all those kinds of things. So it definitely,

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Speaker 2: it definitely will help, will help families. We just really

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Speaker 2: hope that it is going to be excessed, you know

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Speaker 2: that those extra sixteen thousand families will access the family

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Speaker 2: boost I mean for us and for our members because

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Speaker 2: the providers they help these families trying to access it.

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Speaker 2: So again it's also creating more admin for early childhood services.

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Speaker 2: So for us, the better way to do something like

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Speaker 2: this is to really put it in the hands of

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Speaker 2: providers to help families, you know, afford the fees. You know,

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Speaker 2: if you fund if you invest in early time a

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Speaker 2: more meaningfully, which is the funding reviews coming. We just

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Speaker 2: think there's too many things out there for families who

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Speaker 2: have to move themselves around all these different what's the

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Speaker 2: what they're looking for, the funding things and rebates. Whereas

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Speaker 2: if they just have a very simplistic investment across early

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Speaker 2: childhood for families to actu high quality early childhood would

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Speaker 2: be much more meaningful for everybody.

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Speaker 1: Probably was a simpler way of doing it. Kathy, Thank

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Speaker 1: you very much, appreciate it. Kathy Wolf, Chief executive of

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Speaker 1: Early Childhood New Zealand. For more from the My Asking Breakfast,

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