Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of the 2003 work and family prime ministerial cabinet submission, which included a recommendation that the Treasurer, the then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and the then minister for education report to cabinet in mid-2004 with models for the future direction of the childcare and early childhood education sectors? Is the Prime Minister aware that the submission raised concerns about the quality of services for preschool age children? If so, when will the Prime Minister provide the funding necessary to make sure that all Australian four-year-olds have access to 15 hours of early learning a week?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly do remember the policy debate inside the government in 2003. Amongst other things, it has led to policies which have contributed to a turnaround in Australia’s fertility rate. I would have thought that, if we are concerned about the long-term future of this country, turning around our fertility rate is fairly important. That policy debate led, amongst other things, to the introduction of the baby bonus. It also led to the introduction—and the member for Lilley will remember this—of the $600 a year supplement, the supplement that was not real. I can tell the member for Lilley—through you, Mr Speaker, as always—that it was very real indeed. This government’s policies in relation to the balance of work and family have been remarkably successful. The member for Jagajaga talks about the respective sectors dealing with children. I do remind her, not in an exercise in the blame game but rather—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I am very interested in this expression ‘blame game’. They love it opposite. When the Labor Party talk about the blame game ending, what they mean is that you have to stop blaming the states, all of which happen to be Labor, and continue to blame the Commonwealth, which happens to be a coalition government. I do not want to play the blame game.

What I do want to do in this country is to play the responsibility game. The responsibility game is that we have certain responsibilities and the states have certain responsibilities. We do not expect the states to shoulder our responsibilities, and, in the 10 or 11 years I have been Prime Minister of this country, at no stage have we asked the states: ‘Will you do this instead of us doing it?’ It has always been one-way traffic, normally on the basis that the states want us to pay some money to them to do what they are already paid to do.

Let me say that there are responsibilities, and early childhood services, particularly in relation to preschool, have been one of the fundamentals of that policy arrangement between the Commonwealth and the states. So, in the name of the responsibility game, I invite the former Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Jagajaga, to have a talk to some of her state colleagues.