Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham. Can the minister inform the Senate how the government's reforms to child care will simplify arrangements for families?

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

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hume, a supplementary question.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister update the Senate on how the new family portal will help to make child care easier for families?

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

These are not just policy reforms we are pursuing; we are making sure the administration around them is also simpler with a new IT system and support that will reduce regulatory burden on services. It will make it simpler for parents at drop-off and pick-up times and in their engagement with the childcare system. As well, it will remove a range of red-tape measures around services so that they can be more flexible in the hours and the days they open, which is particularly important to services in rural and regional Australia that offer different hours to suit what the market can sustain in those communities and the support that they need. Our new IT system will mean that early educators and care workers will get to spend more time with children and less time on paperwork. They will actually be more focused on the things that matter and the IT system will ensure far greater compliance and guarantee that taxpayer dollars are going where they are needed and where they ought to go.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hume, a final supplementary question.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister explain how the changes will support families' choices to work?

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

These changes, these policies of the Turnbull government, will make it simpler for families to choose to work the hours that suit them because they will not have to worry if they are a low- or a middle-income family about the impediment of childcare costs in making those choices. It will empower an estimated more than 200,000 Australian families to choose to work more days or work more hours, or engage for the first time in the workforce. These are empowering decisions for those families; life-changing decisions in terms of their opportunity to return to work sooner, to work hours that suit them and to do so knowing that they will get fair support that reflects low- or middle-income status in meeting their childcare costs. I find it remarkable that anybody could consider opposing these changes with the fairness that is built into them. Ultimately, they are going to deliver the greatest support to the lowest income, hardest working Australian families.