Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute farce this government has been from day dot when it comes to dealing with child care for that culminates in us being here today after they wasted two years. For two years they have argued that we could not possibly be having this debate about childcare changes in this chamber until they were linked to the cruel cuts which they have been pursuing. For two years they have left every Australian family using our childcare system—every child and every parent who has not been able to return to the workforce because of inadequate childcare assistance—in the lurch. It was all because the now Treasurer had the bright idea that he would come up with these reforms but they could only be progressed if they were linked to cruel cuts that robbed other Australian families.

After two years of total inaction—after two years of letting down the system and of letting down families—finally today we see, at the last minute, that the government have now rolled over and reverted to their old version of the bill so that we can finally have the debate in this House about the childcare reforms that were put forward in the last Abbott government budget. That is how ridiculous this government have become when it comes to the Australian childcare changes. But, we should be relieved. At least finally this parliament can have a discussion about the Australian childcare system, about what is required and about why it is that the reforms put forward by the Turnbull government—first put forward by the Abbott government—remain entirely inadequate to deal with the challenges that the Australian childcare system faces. That is because, whilst after two years they may have finally dropped the link to their cruel cuts, they still have not fixed the fundamental flaws which remain in this package.

When the government first announced this package, the entire sector—Labor, early childhood experts and Australian parents—pointed out that there were some fundamental flaws in the reforms that needed to be fixed. When the Senate inquired into this bill not once, not twice but three times, they reported back on the fundamental flaws which were in this bill which would see vulnerable and disadvantaged Australian children going backwards in terms of access to critically important early childhood education in this country. Yet today, after two years of total inaction, we finally have this debate and the government still has not fixed the fundamental flaws in this bill.

Let us just place it very clearly on the record: Labor absolutely stands for improving the Australian childcare system. We stand for improving assistance to Australian families and, perhaps most importantly, we stand for ensuring that Australian children have access to the quality early childhood education which we know that they need and deserve. However, we will not support a package which will see some of the most disadvantaged children go backwards when it comes to access to early childhood education. In the government's reforms, they have many measures which we would support. We would support simplifying the system. We would support measures to try and limit the inflationary nature of childcare fees. We would support ways of offering better assistance to children with disabilities. We would support a range of elements in this bill, but, again, we call on the government to fix the fundamental flaws which I will now outline for the House.

At the moment in Australia, every child has access to two days of subsidised early childhood education. We know that the majority of Australian childcare centres currently bill on 12-hour days. Every Australian child has access to 24 hours of early childhood education and care per week. Under this proposal put forward by the government, that 24 hours is cut to 12 hours. What that means is that some of those children coming from very disadvantaged families and some of those children who might come from unsafe environments at home are currently spending two days a week in a safe, secure environment where they have access to quality early childhood education. But this government, despite the fact that they want to spend over $1½ billion additionally, want to see those children go backwards in terms of their assistance, and Labor will stand up and fight for these children.

The government will say that this is about workforce participation and that this is about parents and the decisions that they make, and we will absolutely stand up and fight for ways that we can improve and increase particularly women's workforce participation. But I will tell you what Labor will not do: Labor will not punish vulnerable children for the decisions that their parents make, and, ultimately, that is what this bill will do. This bill will ensure that some of those children who may come from dysfunctional families—dysfunctional backgrounds—are denied access to early childhood education, when all of the research in fact suggests that early childhood education is one of the most effective ways of breaking the cycle of disadvantage. We know that the changes to the activity test in this bill will have a devastating effect on far too many Australian children, and, again, we call on the government to fix these flaws.

I do understand that the government does not always take Labor's word for the problems within their policies, so I am now going to quote, for the government, some of the other experts who have pointed out the flaws with this. Mr Bernie Nott, from the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia, told the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee recently:

The evidence is clear that children benefit from access to high-quality early learning, particularly from two days per week, as articulated in the evidence brief tabled with our submission.

…   …   …

However, we fear that the childcare proposal currently before the Senate will cut access to early learning in half or, worse still, to zero for some families earning less than $65,000 per year. Children from up to 100,000 low-income families could be worse off as a result. We therefore recommend that the package is modified to ensure all children have access to at least two days of early learning.

Labor agree. We also agree with Dr Cassandra Goldie from the Australian Council of Social Service, who also stated to the recent inquiry on the bill:

Our concerns about the childcare bill are directly associated with what we believe and what the experts have also confirmed will be the effect of this, which is that we will move away from enabling access to early childhood education and care of a minimum of two days per week, which is considered to be the minimum that should be available to children …

We know that Mr Paul Mondo, the President of the Australian Childcare Alliance, stated:

From our perspective, we have come to this minimum requirement of 15 hours as one of the ways of trying to ensure that that service provision is over the two days.

And, of course, Sam Page stated:

If you are on contract work or you take short-term work or you are in a casual labour market, you are going to really struggle to meet that activity test all the time. So, where we have identified improvements to the package, it is to try to stabilise participation for those children.

We know that there is a very, very long list of not just Labor, not just childcare providers, not just early childhood experts, not just academics, not just Australian charities and not just Australian parents but a broad cross-section of people who have been absolutely unanimous in their view that the changes to the activity test which are proposed in the bill that is currently before the parliament are unacceptable and would do untold damage to Australian children who are vulnerable and who deserve this parliament's support. So Labor will oppose these changes before the parliament today until we see this, as one of the fundamental flaws in the bill, amended and fixed by the government.

We know that this is a position that has been advocated by the Australian Childcare Alliance, Early Childhood Australia, the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia, Family Day Care Australia, the Early Learning Association Australia, the Creche and Kindergarten Association, UnitingCare Australia, Mission Australia, Anglicare Australia, the Benevolent Society, Social Ventures Australia, United Voice, the Parenthood, Affinity Education Group, Goodstart Early Learning, KU Children's Services, Early Childhood Management Services, SDN Children's Services, Bestchance Family Child Care and the list goes on and on.

Despite the fact that the government have had more than two years, they have still not done a single thing to address this fundamental flaw. Today, like yesterday and the week before and the week before that and the months before that, I stand here to urge the government to fix the flawed activity test in this legislation so that the parliament can get on with the job of trying to assist Australian families.

Vulnerable Australian children should not have their access cut at a time when the government is throwing millions and millions of additional dollars at the childcare system. It would be simply immoral for us to just stand here while the government say: 'We want to put a few extra dollars into the pockets of middle-income Australian families and we are not going to worry about those poor kids. We are not going to worry about those children who actually have the most to gain from quality access to early childhood education.' Labor will stand up and we will fight for those children and we will fight for those families.

We know that analysis by the ANU shows that these childcare changes will leave one in three families worse off—330,000 families will be worse off and 126,000 will be no better off. Over 71,000 families with an income level below $65,000 will be worse off.

Something that is really important for this parliament to note is that in recent decades the way that we have used this whole sector has changed. There was a time when this sector was set up that it was largely seen as a babysitting service so that parents could return to work. That is no longer the primary aim of Australian early childhood education and care. Both sides of the House have now been convinced that the evidence is overwhelming about the importance of investing in early childhood education for all Australian children regardless of the decisions that their parents make. We know that 90 per cent of brain development occurs in the first five years of a child's life. We now have not just international evidence but Australian evidence that shows that those children who have access to quality early childhood education go on and prosper. They have improved educational outcomes. They have improved health outcomes. They have improved social outcomes. They are less likely to end up in the juvenile justice system. The list of benefits goes on and on.

The Australian example itself shows that those children who have access to quality early childhood education in the year before school are already scoring higher in their year 3 NAPLAN results. This is what we are talking about. We are actually talking about one of the smartest investments that government can make in ensuring that children have more opportunities than their parents and grandparents had before them. But also, if we just want to look at this in terms of dollars and cents, this is one of the smartest investments that governments can make in boosting our future economic growth, in cutting down on our future welfare bills and in ensuring our future job growth and employment prospects.

So we stand here today once again saying, 'We want the government to fix this bill.' It is not Labor's intention to try to be obstructionist when it comes to improving the childcare system. We do not for one second stand in this parliament and say, 'We think the system is perfect and we don't think that anything more needs to be done.' That is just not the case. But what we do say is that we cannot with our eyes open support changes which will send vulnerable children's access to early childhood education backwards. We need the parliament to do better than that. We need to the parliament to be better than that. We need to stand up for those children who are absolutely relying on us to ensure that, for at least two days a week, they have a safe, secure and educational environment that they get to spend their time in. That is one of the bottom lines for Labor in this debate.

Unfortunately, that is not the only flaw in this government proposal. We also know that as part of this package the government is proposing that they end the funding to the budget based funded childcare services. Just for those who may not be up with all of the abbreviations and acronyms that operate within government, the BBFs are services which were set up decades ago in communities—often in remote Indigenous communities but also in other communities where the system simply would not work, where the market was just not viable and where parents were perhaps just not able to pay fees and children would not have had access to this environment unless the government stepped in and funded them directly. That is why for decades now the government has directly funded budget based funded services.

Having visited some of these services firsthand, I can tell you that some of them are not that flash. Some of them might be little more than a tin shed in a remote community. But they are a place where children will be safe, where they will have access to healthy food and where they will have access to early childhood education. Some of them are actually much more advanced and are really operating successfully. But we know that the government cannot just walk away from these services.

As part of this proposal the government said: 'Oh, no, it's okay. We'll transition all of those services into the mainstream.' The parents accessing those services will be able to pay fees and receive childcare assistance from the government, just like any other parents in Australia. But we know that, for many of the services, it is just not going to work. That will not be viable, and they will close down as a result of that. Evidence of this has been presented time and time again. Yet, the government remains locked into the position of, 'It's not a problem; there's nothing to see here.' More recently they have said, 'If there are problems, we'll fix them up later. But just trust us and pass this legislation.'

Labor stands here today to say that it is not good enough for the parliament to stand up once a year and talk about closing the gap. It is not good enough for us to stand up and talk about how we are faring, but not to consider, in every piece of legislation, the impact that this legislation is going to have on the gap. We know that access to quality early childhood education is one of the most important investments that we can be making to close the gap. The government cannot just turn their back on Budget Based Funded services, and Labor will not turn our back on the Indigenous children who are relying on us to stand up and fight for them in this proposal.

We also know that it is not just Indigenous children who are at risk as a result of some of the proposals in here. In fact, we have heard that there are a number of regional services whose funding is also in jeopardy and who are also in danger of being shut down, particularly mobile services. Members from regional communities will be familiar with the services that travel from one community to another, ensuring that those families have access for at least a day or two to early childhood education. They get on the road, pack up and drive to the next community, and offer some relief and important childcare expertise. Clearly, these services are not funded in the same way that we fund the service around the neighbourhood corner, and they cannot be. It is just not a viable option. But that is what the government is currently proposing. The government is currently proposing, 'We'll just transition them into the mainstream. They'll be fine; if there's a problem, we'll deal with it later.' Well, regional families deserve better than that.

Anne Bowler, the chair of the National Association of Mobile Services, said:

The funding reform proposal will no doubt ensure the closure of up to 90 per cent of the current BBF mobile children's services across rural and remote communities in Australia.

This is evidence that has been presented before this parliament—to Senate inquiries—and that every member opposite has just chosen to ignore. This is the chair of the National Association of Mobile Services saying 90 per cent of those services, which are vitally important for regional families and regional children, will close. But we have not heard a peep out of the National Party about this. We have not heard a peep out of the Liberal Party about this. Nobody seems to care about these children and these parents, except people who sit on this side of the House and, I should be clear, on the crossbench. We know that the member for Indi has taken up this cause herself and has been arguing for them. This is a flaw. The government needs to guarantee that it will not just let these services close their doors and that, before we support this proposal, it will come up with a real assurance for the parliament that it will stand up for regional mobile services as it will for the Indigenous BBFs.

I spoke about the impact on the Indigenous BBF services under this proposal, but I want to turn to what some of the experts have said about this. Professor Fiona Stanley—of course, a former Australian of the Year—has said of the move to transition these Indigenous BBF services into the so-called mainstream:

It will fail. Every service that I can actually think of in the children's area that is mainstreamed after Aboriginal control, fails. And it fails because the services that these Aboriginal-controlled people are providing, provide a whole range of other things that are very protective and culturally important for Aboriginal children and their families.

SNAICC, the peak body that advocates for Indigenous children, has said:

It is like putting a square peg in a round hole, trying to jam it in and make sure it fits. We know that it is not going to, because we are going to have splinters everywhere. What is going to happen to our services? In 2018 they will have to close their doors.

That is what the experts are saying about that. We have talked about what some of the experts are saying about the activity test and we have talked about how all of the experts and early childhood stakeholders have come together, agreed and urged the government to fix the flaws in this package so that we can get on with delivering childcare relief.

Labor reiterates those calls today. We say it is totally unacceptable that, after two years of inaction, we still have this same proposal before the house today. We say that we cannot support this proposal in its current form and that we need these flaws to be fixed. But we also say that this bill is going to go to the Senate and we would suggest—from the way that the government have sat back and put their feet on the table when it comes to childcare reforms since they announced them in Tony Abbott's last budget, but now, all of a sudden, there is an urgency to this debate coming on this morning—that this is going to be dealt with fairly quickly. So we say to the government that, when this legislation goes to the Senate, we are absolutely willing to sit down and negotiate with the government on ways that we can fix these flaws and come up with outcomes that will assist Australian families. But what we are not going to do is just sign up and go in with our eyes open about what some of the impacts of these terrible pieces of policy will be.

There are a number of other flaws in this package. Personally, I am deeply disappointed. When we know how important it is that we have high-quality early childhood education, and we have gone through the fights and it has been settled that the National Quality Agenda is important and needs to be permanent, it is totally unthinkable that the government would cut professional development for our early childhood workforce. For the life of me, I do not understand how this government justifies cutting professional development for our early childhood educators by saying, 'That's all been done now.'

We have a crisis in our workforce when it comes to early childhood education. We have a crisis which is caused not only by unacceptably low wages but it is also caused by the fact that this is a workforce that has not been valued and shown the respect it deserves. We should be investing in this workforce and we should be ensuring ongoing professional development so that everybody is equipped with the all of the latest tools to get the best out of each and every child.

Since this package was first announced, my personal situation has changed markedly; in fact, I was very pregnant when this package was first announced. I now see firsthand the benefits of my child accessing early childhood education and I see firsthand the benefits of him being in the care of qualified professional early childhood educators who actually know exactly what they are doing in educating, in teaching, in caring. And we should not walk away from that. Professional development is really important and it is deeply disappointing that this government is looking to invest more money in child care but is entirely cutting professional development for our educators altogether. That is deeply disappointing. As I said, if the government fixed the flaws, some of which I have outlined here today, then Labor would get on board and support this package. But there are a few things that we would not do. We would not, as the government seems to be saying, suggest that this is some kind of a silver bullet—that all of a sudden the early childhood education and care sector is going to be fixed because of this reform package. That is just not true.

There are so many things that this package does not do. It does not, as I mentioned, do anything when it comes to workforce strategy, when it comes to supporting our early childhood educators, when it comes to professional development. But it also does absolutely nothing when it comes to issues like waiting lists. If you talk to Australian parents, yes, affordability is a very big issue for a large number of Australian parents but there are also Australian parents who cannot even yet grapple with the issues of affordability because they cannot find a place to begin with. These are the Australian parents who are being placed on waiting lists where they stay for one, for two, for sometimes three years—that is, three years that they are unable to return to the workforce, three years that they are unable to find a place locally for their child. Yet this package, which I have heard the Prime Minister and the minister say is the most important reform when it comes to child care in decades, does absolutely nothing to address the issue of waiting lists.

This package does absolutely nothing to outline the long-term position that we need to be working towards when it comes to early childhood education and care. Labor believes that we cannot just continue tinkering around with a decades-old system which was designed for a different purpose than what we use it for today. We invest a huge amount of taxpayer dollars in the Australian child care system, and rightly so. We know that if those dollars are well directed, it is an incredibly smart investment. But it is time that we had a broader debate about whether this is actually a system which is delivering for Australian families, whether it is a system that is delivering for Australian children and whether it is system that is delivering for Australian taxpayers. I think that if we really ask those questions, the answer to every one of them would be 'no'. That is the debate that this parliament should be having: what is Australia's vision for quality early childhood education into the future, and how do we go about getting on the pathway to delivering that? There has been a lack of vision in this debate. It is a debate that has gone on for years and years with no action but it has also put itself up as the answer to all of Australia's childcare problems and it just is not that.

So Labor will oppose the measures currently before the parliament in their current form but we again reiterate: we are up for the job of sitting down are working with the government to fix some of the flaws in this package. We want to see a package go through the parliament which can offer some greater assistance for Australian families. We want to see Australian children better supported. We want to see this sector and this workforce supported by this parliament but we think that this bill in its current form falls short. We will negotiate with the government and we hope that we will get to a point that the parliament can pass these measures knowing that they will add some improvements to the current system.

But we do not for a second suggest that what the government is offering in these reforms is the answer to Australia's childcare problems. We do not pretend for a second that the job is done. The government might like to pat themselves on the back and think that that is the case. Labor will keep working because we actually know that Australian children, that Australian businesses, that Australian parents, that the Australian economy and the Australian education system rely upon Labor to continue to be the leaders when it comes to Australia's childcare system, to be the leaders when it comes to quality early childhood education and care. It is something that we have proudly done not just for years but for decades.

Labor have always led the way and we will continue to lead the way by looking at the big picture, by looking at the longer term and by looking beyond the very narrow scope that the government have taken when it comes to their solution of fiddling around with payment systems a little bit more. This falls short in its current form, but we hope that the government will get it to a point where childcare improvements can be delivered for Australian families, and Labor are up to the job of working to ensure that that is the case.

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