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

I'm proud that the Albanese Labor government is delivering for the Northern Territory after only nine months in office, and if you take into account the summer break it's pretty good going. At the last budget, the government made good on its election commitments, across the Northern Territory, with funding allocated to much-needed projects, as promised. Almost $2.5 billion has been committed for NT infrastructure, with $740 million invested in sealing more of the Tanami and Central Arnhem roads to improve safety, travel times, freight efficiency, connectivity for those communities, flood immunity, safety, and social and economic development. There has been $440 million committed in equity financing for planned regional logistics hubs in Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs—right up the track of the Territory.

Territorians will also see $332 million go to a strategic roads package to bring better economic and social opportunities to remote and regional communities right across the Northern Territory. In my electorate of Solomon, we have announced $1.5 billion in federal equity financing for the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct near Darwin. This project, which is focused on assisting emerging clean-energy industries, will also help our nation find new export opportunities for green hydrogen and critical minerals, and environmentally sustainable jobs. In Palmerston, $11.6 million will fund an Indigenous health facility for the Danila Dilba Health Service. This was one of my key priorities. If we're serious about closing the gap, we need to have culturally appropriate health services, which we know are proven to make a difference. Another big priority for me was a youth engagement hub. We no longer have the Youth Shack in the northern suburbs of my electorate, and $5 million will fund a brand-new, fit-for-purpose youth engagement hub co-designed with young people. We didn't forget about senior Territorians, with $1 million allocated to a men's shed that will be very centrally placed in the Marrara precinct. This joins a $3.6 million commitment to the Scott Palmer Services Centre, which I've spoken about many times in this place. It will support veterans and first responders that are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.

There is much more by way of us fulfilling our promises to my community, Territorians and those around the country where those promises were made. Whether it be for our businesses, our students, our young people, our fishers, our veterans, our first responders or our multicultural communities, the Albanese government is delivering for Darwin, for Palmerston—my electorate—and for the rest of the Northern Territory. I am so proud of Labor's big vision for our nation in this budget. Like those commitments that I just articulated, they are good for our nation. A stronger Northern Australia means more secure Australia.

I want to spend some time talking about a vital social and economic priority—that is, early childhood care and education. Labor's cheaper child care is a good example, among many others, of how Territorians benefit from the budget. The government is investing $4.7 billion over four years from 2022-23 to make early childhood education and care more affordable for Australian families. The government's reforms will mean that 96 per cent of Australian families with children in care will be better off, and that other four per cent will be no worse off. As all parents know, child care is one of the biggest budget-busters for working families. The national daily average cost of child care is $120 a day—that's huge, over $600 per week. It's a national story that reverberates across my electorate and the Territory as well. But in Darwin's CBD, care can jump up to $141 a day, or $700 a week—that's massive—and a fifth of the people in Darwin live in what is called a childcare desert, making it almost impossible to secure a spot. Nationally, 35 per cent of Australians live in a childcare desert such as this. That figure is 86 per cent for regional residents of the Northern Territory—meaning almost nine out of 10 people are struggling to afford child care.

In the Top End town of Katherine, ably represented by my friend the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, six children compete for every available spot in care. Also in the electorate of the member for Lingiari, in the Barkly region, further south, 11 children vie for every spot. That becomes impossible for families. That's forcing these families to make tough decisions about their participation in the paid workforce, and that has a big impact on the national economy because we're in the middle of a worker shortage, as all honourable members know.

Further south, in Alice Springs, Benecia Acevedo had to wait 18 months to get her son, Xavier, into child care. That's despite joining a waiting list while he was still in the womb. Before he was even born, he was on a waitlist. She said:

I have been very lucky … I have friends who have deferred going back to work for up to three years.

Those parts of the country representing total childcare deserts, with less than 0.3 places per child, overwhelmingly cover regional areas of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. As Hannah Matthews and Peter Hurley of the University of Victoria recently noted in The Conversation: 'Of the 1.1 million Australians with no access to centre based day care within a 25-minute drive, almost all are outside major cities.' This is a frustrating situation for these parents living in regional Australia and is, frankly, not acceptable. It's even less acceptable for women because we know women are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to childcare. It is still overwhelmingly women who decide not to return to work, because childcare costs are too high or they can't secure a spot for their children. This is an equity issue as well as an economic one. Women like Territorian Maddie Staff feel pressure to work, which makes child care a necessity, not a nice thing to have. She recently said in an ABC interview:

Realistically, I need to go back to work. I only have 12 weeks maternity leave and with rent prices and the cost of living in Katherine, it is just not feasible for me to be a stay-at-home mum.

In the worst case, she considered leaving the Territory entirely.

This knock-on economic effect of the childcare drought is felt in regional areas right across our nation, and it's contributing to our difficulties in facilitating keeping people in our regions, where they would otherwise prefer to be. It's holding back our regional economies both in the Northern Territory and nationally. That is why, from July 2023 this year, the Albanese Labour government, our government, will alleviate this pressure by lifting the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with an income under $80,000 per annum and increasing subsidy rates for families earning less than $530,000 per annum. People might say that is a high figure, but, just like publicly available health care and publicly available schools, early childhood education is a part of what we should be providing to Australians. The government will keep the higher subsidy rate for families with multiple children aged five and under. Our plan for cheaper child care will make child care more affordable to around 1.26 million Australian families. No family will be worse off. As I said before, 96 per cent of families who use child care will be better off.

These are real benefits for Australian families, particularly with the cost-of-living pressures families are experiencing. A family on a combined income of $120,000 with one child in care will save $1,780 in the first year of this plan. Childcare costs have increased by 41 per cent over the previous eight years, and that's a burden to many Australian families already struggling to make ends meet. According to the ABS, last year 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work, because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them and their families. That's unacceptable with the workforce shortages that we've got.

Cheaper child care supports parents and carers, especially women, to enter the workforce or increase their workforce participation. It creates opportunities for thousands of skilled workers currently locked out of our economy. To attract and retain these workers, our childcare plan also entitles providers to discount fees for early childhood education and care workers. I'm particularly proud that this reform provides additional support to First Nations children and families accessing early childhood education and care, which is a massive deal for families in the Northern Territory.

To help close the gap in educational outcomes for First Nations children, our plan provides for 36 hours of subsidised early education and care per fortnight. Nationally, currently only 4.3 per cent of children in early education and care identify as Indigenous, despite being 6.1 per cent of the population of children in those early years. That's not good enough. We need to do better. In the Territory that figure is of course much higher. These simple changes will benefit around 6,600 First Nations families, boosting the hours of subsidised care Indigenous children are eligible to access. This is important if we are going to close the gap. This is vital. In 2021, the percentage assessed as developmentally on track went backwards for the first time. We need to turn this around as soon as possible.

The Albanese government has also introduced reforms to help get more Indigenous children into early education. We know that access to high-quality early education and care can massively impact a child's readiness for school, and that's why our policy is good social policy and good economic policy. It's good for addressing youth unemployment, which is such a big issue across many parts of Northern Australia. Our policies are the right ones to set up Indigenous kids for a brighter future. As the Minister for Indigenous Australians, the member for Barton, said:

Getting Indigenous children into early education will benefit them for the rest of their lives. It will make a difference to Indigenous children across our country.

The government will also invest $10.2 million to establish the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership between the Australian and the state and territory governments and Indigenous representatives. The partnership will be co-chaired by the Secretariat of National and Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, or SNAICC, as it's abbreviated. They do a great job. It will help drive the development of community-led policies and programs that Indigenous families need for their children to thrive. Our plan is good for mums, it's good for all parents and it's good for First Australians. It provides cost-of-living relief as well as integrating more parents who want to do paid work into the workforce. This is a signature Labor reform, which the Australian people supported at the election and which the early childhood and care sector also supports.

I'm proud that at this election, won by this side of the House, the federal Labor Albanese government made clear funding commitments to the Territory that the Albanese government is already honouring only nine months into our term. Ours is a government that does what it says—that delivers for the Northern Territory. We get the Northern Territory, we care about it and we are delivering for it and for Australia.

With my remaining time I would also like to pay tribute to our heroes in the education sector. Last Friday, 10 February, I attended a mass to open the school year at the Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School in Palmerston. I'd like to acknowledge the school's principal, Stephen Versteegh, and its deputy principal, Rebecca Evans, who I think just may be the NT's first First Nations principal-and-deputy-principal team. It's quite remarkable—a real sign of progress. I would particularly like to highlight the amazing work of Margie Flynn, a staff member who has been with the Catholic education system in the Northern Territory for over 50 years. That's absolutely extraordinary. She's very active in the parishes and regularly visits the women's prison. Margaret went to school at St Mary's in Darwin, which in those days went to the equivalent of year 10. After finishing the last two years of boarding school in Adelaide, she trained as a teacher. She started at Bathurst Island, which is part of the Tiwi Islands, where she spent 10 years teaching. When Margaret came back to Darwin, she taught at St Mary's and the Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School in Casuarina and then spent 30 years at O'Loughlin Catholic College as well as working at the Catholic education office. She worked alongside the late, great Dr Michael Bowden OAM and his son, the long-time principal—until just recently—Rhett Bowden. He's now principal over on the Tiwi Islands.

Margie was a classroom teacher, a teacher-librarian and college chaplain. She served students and her fellow staff, with very few breaks, from 1969 through to December, just a few months ago. What a humbling example of a life of service Margie is for all of us! When I spoke with her at the mass to open the year at Sacred Heart in Palmerston, she said she was still going to continue to help out at O'Loughlin and on the Tiwi Islands. It's a great credit to her.

I have always respected teachers, and have reflected on one this week—one of our best teachers from Darwin, Henry Gray, who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the Australia Day honours list. One of my younger brothers is also a teacher, and I know the difference that he makes; I've heard that from parents themselves. He has worked in primary school education in Alice Springs, in Broome and in Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land, and he is now making a difference to young Victorians in lower socioeconomic area schools.

I also know the difference that our children's teachers make. Our kids, Sally and Frankie, are doing pretty well in school. Their biggest teacher, though, is their mum, my wife, Kate. I thank her for that and for the love and guidance she provides to them, and also the rock that she is in our family when I spend such a long part of the year down here. I always love getting across to the kids' school when I can and thanking the teachers for the excellent work that they do. I encourage young Australians to get into teaching, because teachers have a massive role in bringing through our next generation of Australians as they face the challenges of the future.

Daily, I am in awe of the incredible talent, passion and determination of Territorians from all walks of life. It's my great honour to represent them and to keep delivering for them. We hold a special place in the life of our nation, being the capital of northern Australia and being at the fulcrum of the Indian and Pacific oceans—also, having, as we do, Timor-Leste, where I've spent a lot of time, and Indonesia as our close neighbours. It is a humbling role to represent our great city, which withstood serious enemy attacks in the Second World War and the incredible force of nature that Cyclone Tracy and other cyclones and natural disasters have been in the past—and will continue to be in the future.

We are the forward operating base for our nation. We've all looked forward to the release of the Defence strategic review, to see where we will take our relationships with our allies and security partners, and the role that Darwin will inevitably play when it comes to making sure that our region is peaceful into the future and is secure. That's the greatest role that we have as a government. As a member of the executive, I take that work very seriously and also in making sure that our veterans and first responders are looked after. I want to make sure that every Territorian has what they need to reach their full potential. As I've gone into some detail about just now, that includes making sure that our families are supported and that our kids have the best care and education possible so that they can reach their potential. A big role as part of that belongs to our teachers, and I salute them today. I thank the House for its time.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:24 to 17:48

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