Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to congratulate the member for Kingston on this fine policy that she has developed in consultation with a whole range of stakeholders and a whole range of families from around this nation. It is a superior policy to the one put forward by those opposite. I'm not interested in slinging insults across the chamber. I'll simply say why it is a superior one and should be adopted by those opposite and implemented asap, not in over a year's time.

It's because when I'm back in my electorate in Darwin and in Palmerston, the capital of the north, talking to people, talking to mums in particular—I was at a childcare centre just last week, meeting with parents, meeting with the childcare educators—the No. 1 concern that young families express almost every time this conversation comes up is unaffordability. Simply, the problem is that working families in my electorate are finding it increasingly difficult to afford child care. They're paying more than ever before, and it is no exaggeration to say that the system is completely broken. Even those opposite must acknowledge that to some extent, given their effort at coming up with a new policy. But it's broken. The Prime Minister designed it, calling it a 'once-in-a generation reform'.

It's not as though, for the seven years they've been in government, families haven't been struggling with child care. But, under this government, childcare fees have gone up by 37 per cent over that period. Just last year, a difficult year, the fee increase in the NT was 3.2 per cent. You mightn't think that sounds like much, but it is when it keeps going up and up and up. Working families in Darwin and Palmerston can't afford these fee increases, and that is a message I'm sending to those opposite right now. The three per cent or so in the last year is on top of all the other increases in the cost of living. What we're doing, through the policy proposed by the member for Kingston, is committing to helping families, because their wages aren't going up, particularly those on low incomes. And let's face it, those on low incomes are rarely in the thoughts and prayers of those opposite—certainly not in their policy prescriptions. Those on low incomes need this support. They are committing to bringing up young Australian families and they need support.

When it comes to productivity, if we want to get more people into work, particularly women, we need to get the settings right, and that's what our policy does. The situation we find ourselves in now, as the member for Kingston said, is that 73 per cent of Australian women say that childcare costs are stopping Australian families from growing. I think that's a massive problem. We want parents to be able to afford to grow their families. It's the role of those opposite, the role of whoever's in government at the time—hopefully us, after the next federal election—to do a number of things to get our country back on track, and this is a big one in terms of productivity and in terms of supporting Australian working families.

Independent analysis says that our early childhood education policy means that there'll be more support for more families for longer. That's a good thing. Early childhood educators love their jobs, but they're finding it increasingly difficult to stay in them. As I said, I visited Goodstart Early Learning in Bakewell, Palmerston last week, and I want to thank the director, Junell Moore, and Bella. I've got the highest respect for the job they do, but it is a reality that they're finding it difficult. Our policy will help families. It will help across the board, particularly at a time when people in my electorate are struggling, with rents going through the roof. Federal Labor's policy, which we will enact after the next election, will help working families.

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