Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the legendary member for Lyons for his question. In 100 days time, child care will get a lot cheaper for more than one million Australian families. We are on the cusp of real cost-of-living relief for more than a million Australian families. Child care is expensive; ask any mum or dad with children in care and they'll tell you that. They'll tell you it's essential. They'll tell you they need it. They'll tell you that the cost is going up and up and up.

I told the parliament, when I introduced the cheaper childcare legislation last year, that the cost of child care had gone up by 41 per cent under the Liberal-National government over the last eight years. But I've made a blue. I've got it wrong. I may have accidentally misled the House, because information released today now tells us that the cost of child care under the former government went up not by 41 per cent but by 49 per cent. That's their record. That's why what we promised is so important, what we're doing is so important and what we're delivering is so important. It's why the Prime Minister made this the first policy that he announced in his budget reply speech, and why we all campaigned for it, right across the country.

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