Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ballarat for her question. I know that she shares this government’s vision for a childcare sector in Australia that is accessible, affordable and of high quality—we have been delivering on all three of these areas. In terms of accessibility, we are investing $970 million to ensure that all children have access to preschool in the year prior to school. We are also delivering $114.5 million for the establishment of 38 new centres across Australia and we have been investing $12.8 billion to improve affordability for parents. We have delivered on our election commitment to increase the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. We know that this has dramatically improved affordability, with ABS statistics now showing that childcare costs to parents actually fell by over 20 per cent as a result. In total, we are investing some $16 billion in child care over four years, which is $1 billion more each and every year than the previous government did. We do this because we know that early childhood is a critical time, a time which shapes children’s development, their learning and their wellbeing outcomes. That is why we are now turning our attention to the quality reform agenda when it comes to Australian child care.

We know that the one million families who have children in child care deserve to know, when they drop their children off in the mornings, that they will get the best care possible throughout the day. We have all seen too many reports about children being injured at child care or wandering off due to inadequate supervision and we know that this is not acceptable. Recent reports found that in Queensland alone more than 2,000 services were issued with compliance letters regarding issues with quality. I can inform the House that national regulatory data show that these safety issues are not isolated. The data show that over one-quarter of long day care services were found to be unsatisfactory in ensuring that potentially dangerous products, plants and objects were inaccessible to children. They show that 20 per cent of services were found to be unsatisfactory in making sure that the building and equipment used by children were safe, that almost a quarter of services were found to be unsatisfactory in supporting each child’s need for comfort, sleep and rest, and that almost a quarter were unsatisfactory in toileting and nappy changing procedures. We on this side of the House find this entirely unacceptable.

Whilst we know that the dedicated staff out there in the sector are doing their best each and every day, there are clearly some issues that they and we as a government want to address and want to see improved. We want to improve staff-to-child ratios so that each staff member has fewer children in their care, which means that each child gets greater individual time and attention, something we know they need. We also want to raise staff qualifications so that staff are fully aware of the practices necessary to ensure safe environments for children, so that they can lead play activities and inspire youngsters to help them learn.

We need to do better for our children. Those opposite and the shadow spokesperson have accused us of being obsessed with a quality agenda. To this I absolutely plead guilty as charged. We make no apology whatsoever for prioritising safety and quality for our children and we will continue to work to ensure that Australian child care is accessible, affordable and of the highest possible quality.