In what could well be a historic first, a toddler delivered politicians a petition at Parliament on Friday on behalf of the country's early childhood teachers.
They're calling for a change in teacher-to-child ratios - not only to ease the pressure on them, but to give kids the best start they can get in education.
Balloons, bubbles, face paint and fun - not your usual protest at Parliament. But this one is different - it's for the country's tamariki.
"Right now we are a profession in absolute crisis," one teacher said.
Hundreds of early childhood teachers marched onto the forecourt with giant babies and real ones too.
"What we are asking for is not unreasonable," the teacher said.
They chanted their message - "one-to-four, make it law" - before toddler Niko delivered an almost 6000-strong petition to politicians on behalf of the country's ECE teachers, calling for a change in ratios.
"We need to put our energy, our mahi and our money into our tamariki," one person said.
"Children need to be learning in better spaces with better ratios," a second added.
"Having the ratios that the Government has at the moment just doesn't cut the mustard," a third said.
As it stands the minimum ratio is one teacher to five babies. For two-year-olds, it's one teacher to every 10. But they say it should be one for every four under three years old.
"Any parent who's got a toddler will understand that if you're trying to look after five - 10 toddlers is just crazy so for us it's really important that they pay attention to this and that's why we provided the petition," Early Childhood NZ CEO Kathy Wolfe said.
The ratios haven't changed since the 1960s, but a lot else has including research that backs a one-to-four ratio. Associate Education Minister Jo Luxton who met with the group agrees too.
"But we do need to fix or address the workforce shortage before we can fix the ratios," she said.
"We're kinda at the point where enough's enough and we have to actually get some tractions now," Wolfe said.
And until they do they vow to continue making noise to put our tamariki first.
