Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am gobsmacked! To me, that shows the absolute ignorance of that senator, that he knows nothing about the childcare industry and yet he deigns to get up and make those ridiculously stupid comments.

Just to get back on track a bit: as I said, we are worried about the impact that the government's changes will have on Indigenous children, who in every state and territory already have lower early childhood enrolment rates than average. The childcare package will end the current Budget Based Funded Program that provides direct subsidies to 300 mostly Indigenous services that reach 20,000 children. These services are often small and in remote locations, and a lot of them are not financially viable without ongoing support. A lot of them need that ongoing support. They will probably never be able to be financially viable without ongoing support, but that does not mean they are not important. Trust me, they are very important.

Deloitte Access Economics has found that the changes to the Budget Based Funded Program will disadvantage Indigenous children and that 54 per cent of families will face an average fee increase of $4.40 an hour. Forty per cent of families will have their access to early education reduced and over two-thirds of Indigenous early childhood education services will have their funding cut. The government must ensure that children can access two days of care, not just 12 hours.

I am concerned. I think that the introduction of the new complicated test would remove the current entitlement of all children to have that two days of early education. And of course if a child's parents work casually or part-time we have more concerns. Their likelihood of being able to access stable, subsidised early education is seriously compromised under the changes. We know, as Senator Polley mentioned, that 90 per cent of a child's brain development occurs in the first five years of life. I am glad that people are actually taking in some of the things that I have been saying for the nine years I have been in this place. Children who attend quality early education go on to do better in school, better in employment and better in life. Early education has to be recognised, as I said, for its ability to assist in solving social problems and in addressing disadvantage.

When I was an early childhood educator, the Tasmanian state government actually allocated me a special licence. I worked predominantly with children from disadvantaged backgrounds. I had care of children who had been treated so appallingly that people would cry if they saw it. I worked with these children for five days a week to try to improve the outcomes of their future lives. I think this is important, and I do not want to misquote Senator Bernardi, but what I think Senator Bernardi said, as I understand it, when he was talking about children at risk of abuse and neglect, was that they should not be given priority of care for two days and then be returned to their families. I am sorry, Senator Bernardi, they should. They should be given priority. They need every bit of help they can get from those fantastic early childhood educators.

Most of them, in fact, probably do not go back to their families. If it has been proven that they have actually suffered from child abuse or neglect—if there have been charges and things—then they will have been removed from their parents or whoever did the abuse. They may well be with other family members. They may be living with grandparents. I have had situations like that. I worked with two young brothers, one just over three years old and the other just under 12 months old. These children had been removed from their mother and were living with their father and his mother, who was 64 years old, in Hobart. Of course, this was back in the eighties, so listeners would have to take this in that context.

She had very severe health issues, but she had taken them in. The only work the dad could get was on the west coast of Tasmania, so rather than go on unemployment, or family support or whatever was around in those days he would go to work, when he could get work, on the west coast of Tasmania and these children would be left with a very loving, but not necessarily very capable, grandmother. She was not capable of chasing around after these two children so they came to early childhood education. They came into care. In those days they had access to four days a week, I think it was, of care. With the childcare workers putting in all that special effort and special programs, and with the childcare workers being professionals and knowing what these children needed, we did turn those two little boys' lives around.

I will never forget the day I resigned and left childcare work. This specific dad was standing there with a little posy of flowers he had picked from his mother's garden, embarrassed and apologising to me because that was all he could afford, because he would have liked to have given me the biggest bouquet of flowers he could find in the whole of Hobart because my colleagues and I had managed to get his three-year-old to talk, to finally have some language skills, and we had managed to toilet-train his three-year-old. For those of you who have never toilet-trained a child, let me tell you it is not particularly easy, especially when they have a whole lot of other problems. And in the next year or so his child would be able, with the extra-special care he was still going to receive, to be enrolled in a normal school, with normal kids, with the neighbours who lived around his mother's. This father was just so grateful.

People know I have a bit of a bad memory—I have had brain tumours, so people work with me on that—but I think I will remember till the day I die that father's sadness at me leaving, which was quite complimentary, and also his gratitude that someone had been able to help his child. I think every child in a situation like that deserves to be helped. I think it is our job as legislators to make sure that no child gets left at a stage where they cannot reach the best that they can be. But, if we leave it to this government, that is not going to happen. That is not going to happen.

There is clear and longstanding research to show that vulnerable and disadvantaged children have the most to gain from early education. As I said, I do not want to see any child not reach its full potential, and I know that my colleagues on this side certainly do not want that. Yet we have independent research by the ANU that shows that the government's proposed changes will leave over 71,000 families with an income below $65,000 worse off. Do you know what that says to me? That says to me: 'If you are maybe not as well off as other people, then bugger off; you do not deserve anything extra-special. You could all pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get on with it.' Well, that is not how it works. If you lock a child out of the benefits of early childhood education and care—the education component, the socialisation, the learning to get on with people, the ability to develop their minds—then not only is it unfair but it shows a complete lack of understanding of the absolutely enormous economic and social benefits of those children having access to quality early education.

In the few seconds I have left to speak, I note that none of the three ministers who at various times have had responsibility for developing this policy has ever been able to successfully explain how these proposed changes will increase workforce participation. I would love another 20 minutes—but it is not going to happen, is it! (Time expired)