Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank Senator Hume for her question and her interest in the Turnbull government's policies in this area. Our policies will, as I have told the Senate time and time again, deliver a simpler, fairer, more affordable and accessible childcare system in the future. Importantly, we are proposing to roll more than two payments, most notably the childcare benefit and the childcare rebate, into one streamlined means-tested payment, a new childcare subsidy.

But, far more importantly, this new subsidy will ensure the greatest level of support goes to the lowest income Australian families working the hardest. It will empower them to make more choices about the hours they work and when they work. We are talking about increasing support for those lowest income families from around 72 per cent of their childcare costs to around 85 per cent of their childcare costs. That will ensure they can access effective child care for around $15 a day. Families who are earning around $60,000 or $70,000 or $80,000 will not just be a few dollars better off as a result of these changes, they will, on average, be thousands of dollars better off each year. It will empower those families to be able to make the choice to work the hours that suit them without having to worry about the crippling cost of child care in doing so.

Our new fee mechanism will help to keep a lid on fee growth in the future, helping to ensure the ongoing benefits of these changes. Because of the inherent fairness in these changes, because they are better targeted and because they are shifting resources away from higher income earners towards lower income, I would hope and think that this policy should get the support from everybody in this parliament. These changes see a greater investment to the tune of more than $1½ billion in additional support that will flow into childcare subsidy and support to help those hardworking, low-income Australian families. (Time expired)