Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition believes in and has always been a strong supporter of choice. We want Australians to have a choice on where they live, where they work and how they raise their kids. We believe that all parents who work or study should have access to care for their children if they want it or if they need it.

The coalition has always been passionate about getting Australians into the workforce. Whether it's their first job, a new job or supporting families back into the workforce after having their children, we have a strong record when it comes to this. Under the coalition women's workforce participation rates were at an all-time high at 62.3 per cent in May 2022. It was 58.7 per cent in September 2013 when Labor last left office. We want to see more women in work. We want to see more children and families access early childhood education, which is why the coalition will not oppose this bill. However, we have several concerns with the government's legislation, and we call on the government to address these concerns to ensure the sector is not placed under further pressure come July 2023.

We are disappointed with the government's lack of detail in the early childhood education policy, given they had nine years in opposition to perfect it. It's clear the government has no effective plan to address the current workforce shortages or the pressures faced by our early childhood educators. Over the last four months I've held roundtables with educators around the country to discuss issues within the sector, and every single one I've spoken with has expressed the concern that this legislation will create more demand and so put more pressure on them—a workforce already under great pressure.

There are more than 7,000 vacancies currently across the sector. Almost every centre I've spoken to is desperate for more staff right now. They know that by July next year without additional staff there's no way they can take on more children. According to Goodstart, the biggest not-for-profit early childhood provider in the country, an additional 9,000 educators will be needed in the sector under these changes. Goodstart, like many other providers around the country, is concerned about the additional pressure 1 July will bring. As John Cherry outlined at the Senate inquiry just last week, 'The ability of the sector to accommodate extra demand for places next July given current staffing challenges should be of concern.' And it should be of concern. So I asked the government, 'What are you doing to address shortages in the workforce right now? What are you doing to address the concerns of educators so we can't only retain good educators in the sector but continue to provide the best start in life for our youngest Australians?' The Treasurer said there will be an additional 37,000 full-time employees created from this bill. But 15,000 ECEs and ECTs will be needed to support these measures. So I asked the Treasurer, 'Will almost half of those new entrants be qualified as early childhood educators and early childhood teachers?' The answer is a resounding no. The numbers just don't stack up.

The government has talked about new TAFE places for early childhood educators. The coalition has always been and will continue to be a friend to TAFE. We want to see more Australians in vocational education, but these extra places won't do anything to address the current workforce shortages and they won't do anything to support the current educators. It takes time to qualify as an early childhood educator. In fact, when asked about it the government conceded itself that it will take time to get those educators trained and on the ground—time we simply don't have.

Another thing we don't have from this government is a plan to improve access. With $4.5 billion of spend not one single new early childhood education place will be created under this policy. It is a shame for Australian families who currently don't have access. They won't get access under this bill. There won't be new access. The government needs to be upfront with families and explain how they plan to increase access to services when their policy will put higher demand on a system already under great pressure.

Centres are capping enrolments. They're closing rooms and they're already considering additional pricing increases as we speak, and it's across the board. It's possible, and likely, that some of the increased childcare subsidy could be lost to price rises between now and July next year—lost to inflationary pressures on fees. Be they large for-profit providers operating centres across the country or locally run community centres, the same issues are being faced by all providers. How will families send their children to the local early childhood education centre if there are no new places or services in their area?

Can the government promise that families in Port Augusta will have the same access to services as families in Mossman? And how will the families of the community in Kingston SE, for example, utilise the additional subsidies when they're still waiting to hear from the government on whether they'll deliver on the $1.8 million early learning funding Minister Rishworth promised them? There's no point in having $4.5 billion in subsidies if families who need it most can't access it for their children.

Of course, the devil is in the detail, of which we're yet to see. According to the Mitchell Institute, a third of Australian families live in a childcare desert—that's nine million Australians. Fifty per cent of those deserts are in regional, rural and remote areas. Our side of the chamber understands how important it is for families to access services, no matter if they live in our big cities or in the regions. And we know that Labor don't care about the regions. They don't care about building infrastructure. They don't care about new early learning centres in the regions. Not one extra centre will be built due to this bill.

The hypocrisy of the government is literally jaw dropping. On one side of their mouth they say they want to improve women's workforce participation and childcare access, and on the other side of their mouth they say they've axed funding from the Building Better Regions Fund for a new childcare centre hub and early intervention service in Bourke. They have a waiting list there of between 26 and 29 children, who are at risk of significant harm, and the community in Bourke was only told yesterday that the deal is off. It's a shame. There'll be no new places to benefit communities in regional cities and women's workforce participation in rural and regional Australia—not under this Labor government anyway. We've seen it time and time again, and my Nationals colleagues are all too familiar with the lack of action for regional Australia from Labor.

This government has no plan to increase access in areas that are crying out for services, areas where women and men want to return to work but can't, because there are no services to accommodate their children. Labor haven't said whether they'll continue the coalition's Connected Beginnings program, which aims to deliver 50 sites by 2025, providing much-needed access for Indigenous Australians living in rural and remote Australia. They've also yet to commit to new rounds of the Community Child Care Fund, which provides grants to services and providers in regional areas. We've heard the government bang on about how every family will be better off under their 90 per cent subsidy scheme, but how can a family be better off if they can't access a service that's near them, or if they're stuck on a waiting list for months just to get into their nearest centre? They simply won't be.

If the government really cared about improving access to care, they would address the areas struggling the most and build new centres. Four point five billion dollars and not one extra new place. Can we even trust that that figure is correct? The figure started at $5.4 billion, then it went to $5.1 billion, and now they're saying it's $4.5 billion. What is the figure? The government has changed it so many times it's hard to keep up.

We all know that Labor's track record is bad when it comes to money. They can't manage it. The bill is a structural spend and the costs are not yet properly understood. The last time Labor was in government, childcare fees skyrocketed by 53 per cent in just six years! Let that sink in. Costs are going to skyrocket again under this policy. The last CPI data, from June 2022, showed that childcare costs came down 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022. That's thanks to the work of the former coalition government and our childcare reforms—the biggest reforms in 40 years.

Labor has no plans to address rising out-of-pocket costs or rising cost-of-living pressures in child care. The ACCC inquiry they announced last month will cost a whopping $10.8 million, and it won't report back to government until late 2023, after this policy is implemented. It simply won't help to alleviate current pressures in the sector, including workforce and access. Australian families cannot wait that long. They need cost-of-living relief now. In true Labor fashion, it appears they've undercooked their policy, and it will blow out to a much larger number. Let's see the structural consequences to the budget from these measures. The government have only costed this policy for three days a week, which is the average number of days a child attends early childhood education. If the outcome of this policy is to get more children into ECE more days a week, why wouldn't they cost it for, say, four days or maybe five days? It's clear the government haven't done their due diligence on this policy, and they have done next to no modelling to show what the outcomes of their policy will be. They have not done modelling on the impact on women's workforce participation. They simply haven't done it.

Also, we know that the department's evidence last Friday in the Senate inquiry was that this bill brings confusion to the definition of 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children'. The coalition would like to see this definition the same across all policies, and there's work ahead to clarify that meaning so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have the certainty they deserve. The coalition has always been committed to our Closing the Gap outcomes, and we want to see more First Nations children attending early childhood education. Under us, the percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children attending the year before full-time schooling increased to 96.7 per cent, beating our target of 95 per cent by 2025. But there's still work to do. We want to see new early learning places for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

To summarise, the coalition calls on the government to do more to address concerns raised by educators, the sector and families. The government needs a plan to increase access. The government needs a plan to increase the pipeline of educators and retain them in the sector. Otherwise, this policy will not deliver on the promises they have sold to Australians, leaving many children and families and the sector much worse off.

For the reasons that I have highlighted above, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that this bill does nothing to address broader challenges for access to child care in Australia, namely:

(a) child care service gaps in regional Australia; and

(b) early childhood education and care workforce shortages which are preventing families from accessing the care they need;

(2) notes that the Government's child care package, which costs $4.5 billion, does not add one additional child care place;

(3) notes that child care providers have already increased fees since the Government came to office and the additional demand placed on child care services as a result of this bill will put further inflationary pressure on fees;

(4) calls on the Government to ensure that the promised savings for families will not be eroded by higher fees due to the additional demand for child care services as a result of this bill; and

(5) notes that the bill commits to higher ongoing structural spending and calls on the Government to manage its spending commitments to improve the budget while standing by their promise to deliver legislated targeted income tax relief".

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