Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an opportunity—to follow on from Senator Kroger and her ramblings. Yet again, we hear a personal attack on the Prime Minister. When all else fails, we can rely on those opposite to attack the Prime Minister personally. I want to correct the record in relation to the assertions from Senator Nash about whether those on the government side visit childcare centres. I would like to inform the Senate that it was only in the last two weeks—the first week of the sitting break—that my colleague Lin Thorp and I participated in the 'walk in the shoes of childcare workers campaign' at a childcare centre in Launceston. It was a great experience to see firsthand what those opposite, including Senator Kroger, alluded to: ensuring that early childcare workers are actually rewarded with the remuneration they deserve and their qualifications are accepted and respected in the community. We not only saw and spoke to the staff but participated in looking after the children—and before anyone interjects, yes, the children were safe and well when we left!

I put on the record that not only is the criticism by those who have contributed to this debate today misleading but the Howard government had 11 long years to do more for the childcare industry and ensure that our early childcare educators are acknowledged and rewarded for their work and families have greater access to child care. They did nothing. Over the next four years the Labor government, under Julia Gillard, will invest more than $20 billion in early education and care. This is $13 billion more than was provided in the last four years of the Howard government. We are providing record levels of assistance directly to families through childcare benefits and the childcare rebate. Over the next four years we will provide $16.4 billion in direct fee assistance for Australian families through childcare benefits and the childcare rebate.

While the coalition and those opposite are perfectly happy to leave the childcare rebate at 30 per cent, with an annual cap of just $4,350 per year, the government increased the rebate to 50 per cent of parents' out-of-pocket expenses and increased the maximum for each child in care to $7,500 a year. It has been suggested that in recent times there has been a price hike of up to 11 per cent, but that is certainly not the average cost increase that we are seeing across the sector. The fact is that long day care fees in Australia have increased marginally above trend growth at about 7.6 per cent for the year to March 2012.

This was predicted as part of the national quality reforms—that is, changes to staff-to-child ratios and new qualification requirements—and we have always been upfront with the public about that. We respect those who look after our children because, after all, they are the most precious commodity we have in our community—that is, our children. They deserve the very best child care and early childhood education possible.

Of course there are waiting lists and in some areas there is still greater need for childcare places. We are working to resolve that. Those opposite have not got a policy. Their policy is: employ a nanny. I suggest that Mr Abbott ought to employ a nanny to keep those people over there up to date with their own policies so that they are able to come in here and talk about the facts rather than try to mislead the Senate. Nannies! Nannies are an option, but they are certainly not the option for the majority of Australian families.

As I said, it is this government that has already committed the $22.3 billion of early learning and care initiatives. More than $20 billion of that is to directly help with childcare costs, the childcare benefit and the childcare rebate. We want to make sure that parents can be assured that their children are being looked after, being educated by those with the best qualifications. We want to do more to keep people who are well qualified to look after our young children in the childcare sector. (Time expired)