Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud of the proactive support that the Morrison government has shown to the important early childcare sector during the past few months of the COVID crisis. Of course now that the acute emergency is past, it is time to review the situation, and I am pleased that the Minister for Education has already completed this review and it about to announce the next steps.

But of course the opposition are not content with the lengths taken and the swift action shown by the Morrison government during this unprecedented time. It is easy to complain when you have the benefit of hindsight. But in so doing, we risk missing the fact that the coronavirus has resulted in a pandemic of unprecedented proportions globally. It is extraordinary that so much has been delivered by the Morrison government with an eye firmly on the principles of saving both lives and livelihoods.

More than that, we've shown that we value our littlest Australians and the special care they need in those critical early years. We knew that we had to support the sector to support our children in those crucial developmental years. We knew that if we did not step in, the childcare sector would have been decimated. And by keeping childcare centres open and providing fee-free child care, we've helped Australian families as we face this global pandemic together—just like we said we would. We knew going into this pandemic that our response was going to hinge on the availability of our essential workers to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. We were going to have to ask them to put themselves on the line to keep Australians healthy during this time.

Let's just wind back two months. Across the country the childcare sector was facing a decrease in activity that was simply not sustainable. Parents were pulling their children out of child care at speed. The childcare sector was in freefall. A survey in the first week of April 2020 conducted by the Australian Childcare Alliance showed 30 per cent of providers faced closure due to a massive shock withdrawal of families, either from fear or unemployment, and another 25 per cent were not sure they would ever recover once the virus crisis had passed. The government recognised it was vital we kept the childcare sector afloat and invested heavily by providing the $1.6 billion Early Childhood Education and Care Relief Package. This provides for one million Australian families to receive fee-free child care. Just as importantly, it has meant that 98 per cent of current services have stayed open. Free child care for parents and a sector that has survived an unprecedented crisis.

To make up for any gap between what the centres were receiving and their outgoing costs, we delivered almost $1 billion in JobKeeper payments to the childcare sector workers to keep them supported during this time. We wanted to make sure that parents stayed engaged with the same childcare centre so that children, parents and centre operators could return to normal as soon as possible. As parents, we all know how important it is that our children have continuity of care.

Our four-week process is a mechanism to ensure that the system is being reviewed and that we can then deliver what we need to deliver. This review is so important, and these measures were decided as the curve was moving up. We had to act quickly. Now, due to the leadership of the Morrison government, the curve is moving downwards. We've started to ease restrictions and start our economy again, and people are returning to work faster than anticipated. That is a good problem to have. We need to ensure that we have the parameters right as we move forward, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister for Education about what those parameters will be.

The childcare sector was in the brink of collapse, and the success of our program has kept this sector alive. In fact, we know from our industry experts that our response is the envy of the world. It is the fact that we've cared for the most critical sector and for our most critical citizens: our children. It was vitally important for the health and welfare of our youngest Australians that we acted swiftly, and we did, and I'm incredibly proud of it.

I had services within Higgins who rang me up, desperate and crying that they were going to lose their businesses because they didn't think they were going to survive this crisis. As Australians, we should be proud that we've all worked together to deliver in a swift and appropriate way.

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