Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry; I mean the member for Riverina, of course, who is a good friend, and, look, he's not a bad fellow. He can't help it that he has carried his fair share of the burden over the last 10 years of the Australian people being duped.

I seem to remember there was a freeze on child care under the last government, in their first budget. That happened. That was truly an unmitigated disaster. We're not saying that, in our first six months, we've fixed child care, but, gee, I tell you what: we've certainly made some very important changes. I know the young families moving to my electorate from, particularly, Western Sydney—my electorate has been referred to as 'the nappy belt' in recent months—are very grateful that they're going to be given some real assistance. When you talk to young families in Paterson and say, 'How are you going?' they usually say, 'God, the roads are terrible,' and 'Child care is so expensive.'

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