Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Adelaide proposing that a different matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's refusal to promise that it will not cut child care assistance to Australian families.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government have already shown that they are not the government that they said they would be when comes to Australia's childcare system. Less than six months ago when we raised concerns that the now government's Productivity Commission inquiry would just be a forerunner to mass cuts and means-testing of childcare assistance, those opposite cried innocent and went out of their way to ease concerns that the Australian public might have and so the Australian public saw promises like this one:

Libs promise not to means-test child care rebate.

That is a pretty black and white statement right there, a very clear statement to the Australian people, a statement that was made over and over again by a number of different members who now sit on the government benches. Yet surprise, surprise, time and time again over the last few days the assistant minister has refused to repeat this promise. Now why would that be?

Before the election, those opposite were lining up to assure the public that they would not cut or means-test the childcare rebate. Has anybody heard the government promise not to means-test the childcare rebate since the election? Has anyone heard the government even guaranteeing not to cut the childcare assistance that families are currently relying on. No, all we hear from this government are tricky weasel words. Just months ago the Liberals were happy for the Australian public to be promised that the Liberals would not means-test the childcare rebate, but now they are absolutely not happy to repeat those words. Prior to the election, the assistant minister who now sits at the table stated that they had no intention of making any changes to childcare payments. That is what they told the Australian people.

But that was then. Now they have a very, very different story. In fact this week we have heard the very same assistant minister say that every dollar is up for review and even go as far as to say that, yes, the rebate is on the table. This is not who they said they would be.

Colleagues may wonder what has brought on such a quick and drastic change in the words that we are hearing from the very same assistant minister. There is one clear reason and it is the one that every Australian family is right to be concerned about, and that is when this government released the terms of reference for their Productivity Commission it contained only one definitive point. There is only one very clear promise in these terms of reference about what they will do. They will not deliver any more money for child care. Slipped in at the end of their terms of reference, the government has directed that in the future for any recommendation for Australian government policy settings the commission will only consider options which fit within the existing and current funding parameters.

We all know, it is pretty simple maths, that the only way you can fund new programs without additional money is to cut existing assistance, and the minister at the table absolutely knows that too. Without any extra money these promises looking at things like funding nannies, funding au pairs, increasing the hours of operation, or any other shiny hope that this government seeks to put out to attempt the Australian people with, is only possible if it comes at the expense of the support that low- and middle-income Australians absolutely rely upon currently. They deserve to know. They were not told before the election but we are demanding that they are told now which families will have their childcare assistance cut and by how much will it be cut. They have already told us one thing just six months ago and the complete opposite now, but it is right that they are upfront with the Australian people who absolutely rely on this assistance from government to help balance their work and family and to help pay their childcare bills. They deserve to know.

But we know that when it comes to childcare policy, every promise that this assistant minister makes, every project that she says she is considering and every proposal that she suggests comes with a very clear flipside, and that is a cut. Any new project which she suggests will only be funded by cutting an existing program, and these cuts will have to be deep because they are looking at the whole range of new areas and new promises they are putting out there for the Australian people. What are they going to cut—the childcare benefit, the childcare rebate? We do not know, but this parliament deserves answers to those questions. As an article by Rachel Browne and Daniella Miletic in today's Sydney Morning Herald points out, no matter what your view on different types of care is, so long as this review is locked in to one limited bucket of money, all this review can possibly do is pit family against family and divide the sector.

But of course this is not actually the only negative impact that this government will have on the sector. We have seen a surge in childcare use since the Labor government increased affordability assistance and increased the childcare rebate from 30 per cent, where it sat under the previous Liberal government, to 50 per cent under us and when we increased the cap from $4,354, as it sat under the Liberal government, up to $7½ thousand dollars under us. What is interesting is that this had an incredibly dramatic effect on the impact on demand for child care and it saw a surge of new families flock to the system. In fact so many families were then flocking to the system looking for places that we now have a massive 1.3 million Australian children in care per year.

But we also saw a remarkable growth in the number of centres. Under the Labor government there was a 35.9 per cent increase in the number of long day care services, yet we know that, despite this huge growth, there are many Australian families who are still on waiting lists and who are still struggling to find a place.

The Assistant Minister for Education had a little bit to say about this too before the election. Before the election the government said one thing, yet once again they have very strangely entirely changed their tune. Before the election the assistant minister argued that policy uncertainty deterred investment in much-needed child-care services. You need to have policy certainty if you are going to increase the number of places available and help parents on waiting lists, so how might this government go about delivering that? What they have done is said that every single dollar in the child-care system is currently up for review. What sort of impact does the government think that that is going to have on waiting lists? How many investors does this government think are going to seek approval and invest their funds into new child-care centres and places when they have absolutely zero guarantee of how much government funding they will get at the end of this review? I would like to hear an answer to that question because I fear that too many Australian families will be placed on increasing waiting lists because the government have not thought that through at all.

We heard in question time today that there are now many examples of areas where the government have been prepared to say one thing about child care before the election but have since changed their tune. On the Thursday night before the election, just a couple of days before election day, the coalition released their child-care policy on their website. That policy includes the very solemn commitment, which I will quote word for word:

… the Coalition will honour funds contracted from the EYQF…

That is pretty simple, pretty straightforward, pretty black and white. But when asked today whether the government will honour funds contracted from the Early Years Quality Fund the minister was not prepared to say that they will. In fact, we know that this $300 million commitment to ensure that more early childhood workers across Australia receive higher wages is something that this government have already broken and walked away from.

If the government care so much about what the Productivity Commission says about child care, I suggest they look at the most recent report that the Productivity Commission did into child care, which points out that, unless you increase wages for the workforce, you will not have the workforce available to be able to meet demand for child care. If the government value the Productivity Commission's views on child care so much and if they are already breaking their election commitment, exactly how do they plan on meeting that and increasing wages for those passionate staff members who day in and day out look after our children and are being trusted with Australia's future?

We need to be very clear. This government have misled every Australian family. They have not been the government that they said they would be. They were incredibly clear in saying 'Libs promise not to means-test childcare rebate'. They were incredibly clear in saying, 'We will honour funds contracted from the Early Years Quality Fund.' Minister, it is week 2 of parliament. Just how many election commitments are you racing to break before we get to Christmas time? When it comes to the child-care sector the Australian public deserve better. We have worked long and hard to increase quality, to increase affordability and to increase the sector. We cannot afford to have this assistant minister, who is so clearly out of her depth, throw it all away.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to address this matter of public importance in the parliament today on child care, an area that matters very much to every single member, whether they be on the government, the opposition or the cross benches. There are many aspects about what we are doing with our Productivity Commission inquiry that are not political at all. Deputy Speaker Scott, if you as a dedicated rural and regional member have studied the terms of reference we recently released, you would have seen that every possible concern that could be raised by anyone in the sector about a range of issues—whether that be, as the shadow minister picked up on, educators' wages, flexible and affordable care or special benefits for vulnerable children—is captured by our terms of reference because we are completely serious about doing this properly.

I appreciate the shadow minister's various rhetorical flourishes. She did issue a release. I think the first paragraph encapsulates the slightly ridiculous nature of what is going on around this matter of public importance debate today. The first paragraph of her release of a few days ago states:

The Abbott Government must guarantee that no family will be worse off as a result of the Terms of Reference for a Productivity Commission review …

I can actually guarantee that no family will be worse off as a result of the terms of reference of a Productivity Commission review. I think that underscores the point. What we are doing is releasing the terms of reference. We are not releasing the final outcome. We are not releasing policy, which we will do at the end of this process. We have given the Productivity Commission until October 2014—which is quite a short period of time given the breadth of work that they have to undertake, but I know they will do a good job—to come back with some recommendations. I remind the shadow minister and her colleagues that this is where we are at. We are at the beginning of a long process. It would be a bit bizarre if there was a secret agenda to means test various rebates and to cut various support for families and we constructed an entire Productivity Commission review with terms of reference that I consulted on for six to eight months. If we constructed this whole exercise just as a smokescreen to do the things that the opposition have accused us of, it would be quite ridiculous.

As the Treasurer reminded us in question time today, the Labor Party often gets the numbers wrong. I want to remind the shadow minister of the numbers she spoke about when she was minister. On the back of major changes and reforms that the then minister introduced into the sector, the minister for child care, the member for Adelaide, in July 2011 told us in relation to the cost impact on parents as a result of these changes:

What we've seen is that the average increase will be some 57 cents per week this year and that will rise to $8.67 per week in 2014-15.

So 57c a week is where we are supposed to be right now.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not true.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shadow Minister, I appreciate you continuing to interrupt—I did not interrupt your contribution—and it worries me not if you continue to interrupt, but I can show you the direct quote in which you said costs would rise by 57c a week. I highlight this not to embarrass the shadow minister for saying something that was quite patently ridiculous at the time and is becoming ever more so—she is already out by a factor of 10,000, I think—but to make the point that if she cared about the cost to families, then she would not have sat on her hands as the minister in this place for as long as she did. She was minister for three to six years and she did absolutely nothing about the fact that costs were going up 44 per cent for families; she would have ignored the constant calls that came to her, and to members of the then government backbench, saying: 'We can't afford child care. It's at a price we can't pay in the area that we want for the hours that our working lives determine.' That never seemed to get through; that message never got through to the Labor Party.

As the shadow minister at the table has just said, 'We've tripled this, we've doubled that, we've got this many dollars, we've got this many children', but it is always about the big picture numbers; it is never about the absolute impact on families. It is never about the fact that families simply were not being served well by the system. Every time I travelled around the country, which I did as the shadow minister, I visited hundreds of childcare centres and held hundreds of focus groups with connected families. The member for Riverina understood exactly what the concerns were in the rural city of Wagga Wagga. They were similar to my rural city of Albury, similar to the far west of New South Wales—my colleague the member for Parkes is contributing to the debate, but the member for Tamworth has talked to me about the issues in his area.

We have picked up on that and we have responded to it, and that is what this Productivity Commission inquiry is all about. The reason it is important is if you are a government and you seek to serve the interests of the Australian people, then you must care about the impact on families of accessible, affordable and available child care—or the lack of it. Every time I went to a meeting and I met with a family—usually it was a woman who would stand up and say, 'Look, I can't do the job that I'm trained for, work the hours that I want to work in the place that I need to work because I can't find the right child care.' This leads directly to underparticipation in the economy.

When we talk about the Productivity Commission, we very much recognise the productivity aspect to this. It is about participation in the economy and about the need for us to harness the talents, the incentives, the ingenuity of every single working Australian. It was remarkable how many times I heard the same stories in those meetings, although I also had them emailed to me and letters sent to me. The typical example was somebody who was trained as an accountant but was working as a bookkeeper, or a woman who might have trained as a lawyer and was doing some paralegal work part time. They knew, if they had to be at the doorstep of the childcare centre at 6 pm to pick up their child, they could not guarantee that in the job that they might previously have done that they could make it in time. As we know, those childcare centres shut the doors and you get a big fat fine for being late. You do not want to be late; you do not want to be late for them and you do not want to be late for your child. You want to be confident when you go to work that your child is being nurtured in a safe, secure environment, that there is a high quality of education and that the people the government funds and supports for the service are doing the best possible job.

That leads me to the educators in the sector, because it would not be right to not mention the hard work of the educators who work in child care. The Labor Party often accuses me of not caring about a relatively vulnerable low-paid workforce. We talked about United Voice during question time, after the member for Lalor tried to present the case that United Voice was making about union recruitment in the Early Years Quality Fund as a sound one, when in fact it is not. But the point that I make about educators is the union United Voice approached me—it would be almost two years ago now—and said, 'We need to do something about the wages of the early childhood workforce'. I said: 'I understand completely. I understand how tough it is, and how long the hours are. We've got the body established; we've got the Fair Work Commission.' The then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, had created, with billions of dollars of public money, the Fair Work Commission in order to do exactly that. I asked: why not take the case to the Fair Work Commission? But instead, the union United Voice chose another approach, a political approach, and I will have more to say about that later.

The fact is that the equal remuneration order that was recently lodged with the Fair Work Commission could have been lodged months ago and could therefore have supported not a two-year temporary increase in wages for just a few, but a long-term sustainable wage increase in the sector if that indeed is what the independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission, finally determines. I must make that point, because I will not accept the accusations of the opposition that we are not interested in the wages of the early childhood workforce.

I want to end with this: the policy settings of today are so different from a generation ago. I have three children; they are 21, 23 and 25; they were in all of these different forms of child care 15 to 20 years ago. I have observed how the working world has changed, how the interaction between what you do in the workplace and what you do in the home is so different. You cannot knock off at five o'clock, pick up the children, go home, cook dinner and put your feet up in front of the TV because everything merges together. There are some good aspects about the way that work and family merge, I am not denying that—we should run work friendly workplaces and allow our staff to slip out and watch their children play sport and so on—but the fact is the childcare policy settings do belong to a generation ago. What we want to do with this Productivity Commission inquiry is make sure we design a system that works for the future, that looks after families and that recognises their needs. And, just back to the subject of the MPI, we in the government are not about making it harder for families or making it more costly for families; what we are driven by is making it easier for families.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a party that said one thing during the election campaign, but, since it has been elected, is now walking away from many of the commitments it made to the Australian people. It is slowly sneaking and crab-walking away from those commitments that it made in the very, very important policy area of early childhood development. It is sneaking away from that commitment not to means test the childcare rebate and to give a guarantee to Australian families—a simple guarantee, a few words—that parents will not be worse off when it comes to childcare costs as a result of the implementation of any policies that derive from this childcare review.

Households in Australia, they budget from week to week. In my electorate, the costs of housing are astronomical. After the mortgage is paid or after the rent is paid, there is not much left. Families rely on the support that the former Labor government gave them when it came to child care. Decent, hardworking Australians rely on the reforms and the support that Labor introduced to make child care more affordable and accessible to more people. The proof of that is that, for the first time in Australia, under a Labor government, the number of children in child care hit one million. That was a resounding demonstration that we got it right when it came to making child care more affordable and accessible and improving the standards and quality of the services being delivered throughout the country.

The government are saying that they will review the system. I do not have a problem with a review. There is nothing wrong with a review. But the issue here is that the government will not guarantee to hardworking, decent Australian families who currently receive support through the childcare rebate and other measures that those supports will not be cut. The government will not give that simple guarantee to those families, who are extremely worried, who budget from week to week and who rely on the childcare support that is given by the government. The government will not give a simple guarantee that those families will not be worse off as a result of any policies implemented through this review. I had a number of phone calls during the election campaign from constituents who were extremely worried about child care and the affordability of child care and wanted a guarantee from the Labor Party that we would not be tinkering with the childcare rebate. Of course, we were able to give that guarantee.

The shadow minister has quite eloquently outlined the concerns in this area. Those opposite are promising to expand the reach of child care, but the pool of money dedicated to ensuring that that expansion occurs is not going to grow. So, through some form of magic, there is going to be this delivery of extra services that is not going to cost the Australian taxpayer any more! We all wait to see how they are going to deliver that. That is why families are concerned and worried.

Labor in government made child care more affordable, through increasing the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. Before Labor came into government, the childcare rebate was set at 30 per cent. Thirty per cent was available, up to a total of $4,354, and it was paid on an annual basis, so families had to struggle through with those childcare costs until they got to the end of the financial year and were finally relieved with a payment from the government. Labor saw this as an unworkable system, so what did we do? We listened to the concerns of parents and we reformed the system. We increased the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent and increased the maximum from $4,354 to $7,500 per child. We made child care more affordable and, in doing so, we made it more accessible. And we not only paid it annually; we paid it on a fortnightly basis, so we made it much more accessible to families.

In terms of availability, we instituted grants to help local governments deliver more childcare places in local communities. We improved standards by delivering the National Quality Framework, to improve the education that our kids receive in early child care. There is a wealth of research and information which now clearly demonstrates that, the earlier a child is placed in structured training and structured education, the better their long-term welfare will be. Labor delivered on that commitment to families to structure child care. (Time expired)

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I heard that there was to be this MPI on child care, I thought it must have been proposed by our side to outline the way forward in cleaning up Labor's mess. It never actually occurred to me that this MPI, 'The government’s refusal to promise that it will not cut childcare assistance to Australian families', would actually have been asked for by the previous minister with responsibility for child care, the member for Adelaide. The member for Adelaide should actually throw herself on the floor of this House and beg for forgiveness for what she did to this sector. The member for Adelaide, in her capacity as the previous minister, presided over and approved increases in the cost of child care of over 40 per cent. She brought in the National Quality Framework, stating that it would have an impact of around 57c a week, despite anecdotal evidence that it was going to be at least $5 to $20 per day.

The previous minister was asked to speak at a breakfast meeting with the childcare sector here in Parliament House, and she stood up there and said the usual things—a lot of platitudes about how good it was to be with them and everything—and then she said, 'This government has made child care more affordable.' We just heard the member for Kingsford Smith say that too. The only reason there were not guffaws was that there was such a big collective intake of breath as people looked at each other with incredulity, trying to figure out what the hell had just been said. These were the things that the previous minister presided over.

We just heard the member for Kingsford Smith saying that, during the Labor government, the number of kids in child care hit over one million and that the system works. The member for Adelaide was the minister who said: 'We need 260 new childcare centres around the country. This is what we are doing. This is a reforming government. We're going to build them.' After 38, it was: 'Job done. It's all over. Two hundred and sixty? Don't worry about it. We didn't actually need them. We only needed 38.' What was it about the former Labor government and putting a big number out there and then producing a very small one? Let's be very happy that the former minister actually built 38 and did not close 38. That would be the ultimate irony with these people.

This former minister produced over 300 pages of new regulation and red tape for the sector. With that 300 pages came 1,000 pages of explanatory notes. That does not reduce costs. That adds red-tape burden for childcare centres. That makes it harder for you to run your business. That makes it more expensive for parents to bring their kids into child care. All those things were cost burdens put onto the childcare sector by the then minister. The member for Adelaide also cut $2.6 million in funding for occasional care. So the track record of Labor and the member for Adelaide is absolutely abysmal.

I was a single dad for the blink of an eye, and I had two little girls in child care. I know what quality child care is. I knew when my kids had had a good day in child care or had had a bad day in child care. The people in child care do fantastic work. They should be respected for they do. They shouldn't be given platitudes, they shouldn't have been given false promises of pay rises when they had no intention of actually delivering.

What we will do is recognise, first and foremost, that child care is important and that the system is broken—that system needs review. We will charge the Productivity Commission with the task of looking at ways to make the child care market more flexible, more accessible and—wait for it—more affordable. I think the use of props was probably a little bit overdone and that one! That should be enough for the member opposite. That really should be enough for everyone opposite. The Productivity Commission is an unbiased third party sitting up here trying to make it more affordable for people, more accessible, more flexible. That is what we will do.

We will cut the carbon tax to the child care centres. We will make it easier for them to turn on their lights. We will make it cheaper for them to run their businesses all the way through. We will cut their red tape for them, making it cheaper to run their business all the way through. That flows through to every parent who has a child in care.

We understand the needs of the sector. We welcome this inquiry and say it is long overdue. We will clean up Labor's mess. I thank the House.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, would like to speak on the matter and actually speak to the link between the wages for early childhood educators and the quality of care children receive. So far in the two speeches we have heard from the government side we have heard that the care and they really value and respect the educators. Yet we have heard no commitment on funding to increase their wages. Before the election the coalition said it would honour funds contracted to the Early Years Quality Fund, but today they are walking away from it.

The industry is in crisis. A third of the workforce is leaving every year. That is roughly 180 workers a week. That is why the former Labor government worked with industry to set up the early childhood education fund to boost the wages. This is creating a skills crisis within the industry. Quality educators are leaving and they are leaving for very real reasons. When you speak to them, particularly the ones in my electorate, it is not because they do not love the work; it is simply because they cannot afford to work in the industry any more. Take, for example, a couple of the early childhood educators that work in Castlemaine who I spoke to just a few weeks ago. To supplement their income—the low wages that they earn in child care—they are taking on casual work in the KR Castlemaine bacon factory. They are doing this simply to supplement their income because their wages in child care are too low.

Just in case those opposite are unaware of what an early childhood educator currently earns under the award, it is as little as $19 an hour, yet these are skilled workers. These are professionals with a qualification, and their wages simply do not match those in other industries that have similar certificates and qualifications. I think it is a very good thing that the sector chooses to educate itself and that they are meeting the needs of the quality framework. This is great to see for our youngest children, our youngest Australians—that they are getting the quality education and care that they deserve. All the research suggests that the years that most matter to children's development is zero to five. That is why we need a well-trained, qualified education resource helping children develop.

The other example I wish to share with you today, Deputy Speaker, is that of those who work at Brett TAFE, another centre which is also seeking extra funding. In this centre there are a number of young women who work that have their qualifications and are quite proud to be educators, yet they talk to me of stress about buying their first home—because their wages are so low, they are concerned about entering into mortgages. This is the problem with paying professionals low wages. We need a government to partner with industry so that the cost is not passed on to parents.

It was mentioned previously that perhaps it should be pursued through Fair Work, a move that I support. However, if Fair Work awards a wage increase and there is no government funding on the table then that wage increase will be covered by parents. This is why it is time for government to partner. This is why the previous government established the fund of $300 million to kick-start government investment. It is time for governments to start investing in the wages of our early childhood educators, to partner with the providers and to partner with parents in order to give them the security that their kids will receive the best education.

Productivity Commission, which we referred before, has already made the recommendation for wages to grow. For the sector to grow, wages need to increase. To stop people leaving, we need to increase the wages. It comes down to a matter of what is right. If you have a certificate III, if you have a qualification, if you are a professional, you should be paid a professional wage. That is why the previous government moved to create the quality fund and what this new government should not walk away from the commitment and continue to provide this money that is desperately needed for a sector those losing—I will state is again—180 qualified educators a week because of their low wages.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to address this matter of public importance today. I am the mother of a seven-year-old child. Like so many mothers and fathers across our nation, I have struggled with both accessing child care and with the cost of child care. I had to work and I was lucky to find a child care centre that was close to home and that gave my son the wonderful care and attention he needed. It was not easy, however, and I know so many mothers and fathers across this nation know this feeling. I used to drive from work to the child care centre at a quarter to six or 10 to six every night with that absolute sick feeling in my stomach: would I make it before six o'clock; would I get in the doors in time; would I incur a charge of one dollar per minute because I was late; would I inconvenience the child care worker who had to stay back?

This is a drive that thousands of mothers and fathers make every day with that same level of anxiety. Then, at a time when small children should be having their dinner, going to bed, I, like so many other mothers would be struggling to get home, unpacking the shopping, feeding my son and getting him to bed at a reasonable time.

For parents with two or more children this daily struggle is even more difficult. For many families the cost of having two or more children in child care is just prohibitive. For two children, it can be well in excess of $200 a day, subject to childcare assistance.

Across Australia nearly 120,000 parents say they just cannot access employment because they cannot find suitable child care. This is not just an issue of access but one of affordability and flexibility. We, unlike members opposite, understand that many parents do not live and work in a Monday-to-Friday nine-to-five world. We do not live in a Dolly Parton world. This is a system that is not working and that is why a Productivity Commission is so important. Unlike members opposite, we recognise that families are seeking greater choice, greater flexibility and greater affordability.

Let us consider Labor's record when it comes to child care. It is not a good one. Labor has no credibility on child care. We all remember the promise to end the double drop-off. The plan was to build 260 child care and early education centres. The only drop-off we saw was that 222 centres were dropped off the list. Only 38, as we heard, were ever built. We all remember the promise to make child care more affordable. Under Labor, hourly fees in long-day care centres rose by 44.2 per cent between 2007 and 2012. We all remember the promise to make child care more accessible, yet Labor cut $12.6 million in funding for occasional care—a cut that hit rural and regional areas particularly hard.

We are very proud of our Productivity Commission inquiry. There is one major difference between what Labor did over the last six years and what we are doing now: we do not think we know best. We are asking parents—mothers, fathers, grandparents—and everyone involved in the childcare sector to give us their views. I would encourage the community working in child care—mothers and fathers—to put forward their ideas. I say to the people in my electorate, from Belmont to Waurn Ponds, from Ocean Grove to Colac: you have a say.

I also want to address briefly a deceptive comment made by the member for Kingsford Smith. I reiterate, as has been reiterated today and yesterday in this parliament: we have no plans to means test the childcare rebate. The continuing statements to the contrary are a deception and we make that very, very clear. I was very pleased, however, to hear from the member for Kingsford Smith that 'we don't have any problem with the review'. Well, to members opposite, why have you not conducted a review? We are very proud of the review that we are conducting. We are listening to the parents of Australia and we are very proud to do so.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to ask whether any of the speakers on the government side actually realise they are in government. What we have heard from them today, again, and what we have heard for the last week-and-a-half in this parliament, is the constant carry-on about this side of politics. The Liberal Party is now in government. When you are in government you do not get to do what you did in opposition. You do not get to stand up here and define the problem as you see it and blame the other side. I understand that in the first month of government you try to rewrite history but, having been in opposition for six years, I would think you would want to start writing history of your own.

Time in government can be very short. You might get three years; you might get six years. But, for God's sake, do not waste it trying to rewrite history. It is your opportunity today to write your own history and have an impact on families. If you believe what you are saying here, that child care was such a disaster for the last six years, then why on earth was the shadow minister sitting on the end of chair taking a salary and spending six months developing terms of reference so that she could undertake a year-long review? If things are so bad in the childcare sector that you say it is an emergency then why don't you act like there is one?

Do not come in here and try to rewrite history. Write your own. If what you are saying is true, and families need you, then work for them. Do not play the politics—do the job of government. Families do, as my colleague said, sometimes live from week to week. But they also make choices about their life. They make choices about which one of them works and for how many hours. They consider the cost of child care. They make all sorts of decisions about how they live their lives. To put them in a position where statements are made before an election and then after an election they are left in a position of uncertainty for over a year is nothing less than cruel.

The shadow minister referred to what happens to investment in those terms, but also you put families under incredible strain. Families who have children know that next year and the year after they will be applying for childcare services but they do not know what is going to happen because this government, in spite of this terrible 'emergency' that they saw for six years in opposition, thought the appropriate response was to spend six months developing terms of reference and then have a one-year review.

I know the Prime Minister said he was going to slow the pace of government but this is catatonic. Before the election we had a mishmash of quite contradictory promises. Nobody could make sense of this. 'An increase in flexibility and accessibility'—a great aspiration and I am sure it is an aspiration, certainly for the next year. 'New funding for nannies and au pairs'; 'a capping of places'—it is hard to imagine how capping places does not put the price up, by the way; 'not means testing for the rebate'; and 'dropping standards'. It is an interesting collection of promises.

What we hear now from this government is that there is a new one which is that they will not increase the funding. Keeping the funding the same is an effective cut. But let us leave that side. They are not increasing the funding, but they are increasing flexibility and accessibility—no new funding but, presumably, more places, different places, different hours. They are providing funding for nannies and au pairs, but no new funding—no new funding but new funding for nannies. It has to come from somewhere, so where does it come from? Which families who currently receive assistance for child care will lose it because the government are going to give more money to some? More money to some and no additional funding means cuts—it seems perfectly obvious.

They are capping the number of places. No additional funding, more money for nannies and no additional places—it does not make any sense. Which person who gets childcare assistance now is going to lose their childcare place because the government are going to give more to others? It is really time they came clean. Families need certainty in the same way that business does. It is no different; they need certainty. It is time the government gave it to them.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak on this matter of public importance. To the member for Parramatta, yes, there has been a change of government. The coalition are in government now and that is exactly why we are going out to listen to parents, industry and providers to find out what they need and what they want to fix up the mess that child care has become. Having caused some considerable angst in the childcare industry, those opposite are clearly trying to cause trouble by raising this topic today. Rather than working with the industry and the government to uncover solutions for the childcare industry, they are only interested in trying to cover the mess they have left behind.

Labor, under the previous government, said that changes to child care would impact on fees by only an extra 57c per week. This is extremely laughable. Earlier this year and on previous occasions the assistant minister travelled to the Parkes electorate and heard evidence firsthand from parents and childcare operators. The actual increases were more likely to be in the region of $5 a day and in some cases parents experienced increases of up to $20 a day. This is a significant amount of money for a young family trying to make their way in life.

Labor's approach to child care has been piecemeal and inadequate. On this topic, I have an interesting read that I would recommend to everyone: Maxine McKew's autobiography. In that book she spoke about her time as parliamentary secretary and at some length about implementing the changes under the national quality framework. It is apparent that the former parliamentary secretary had good intentions but there was clearly a lack of understanding of the impact of these decisions on parents in the region, and indeed on those employed in the industry.

I am extremely glad that the assistant minister in charge of child care at the moment is from the regions. She is clearly aware of the importance of access to child care in country Australia. As opposition shadow minister, she visited facilities in my electorate in Coonamble, Dubbo, Mudgee and Narromine. I would like to briefly discuss a few of these issues that are so important in these and other places in the electorate of Parkes. In some areas, we have an urgent need for additional childcare places. The booming town of Mudgee, for instance, is undergoing a period of rapid growth. The availability of child care is a serious issue and it is impacting on suitably qualified people moving to that area. Compared to metropolitan areas, there are fewer options for parents when choosing childcare services. Flexibility and availability are key to effective childcare arrangements in growing towns like Mudgee.

We also have the serious issue of workforce shortages, an issue Labor failed to address over the last six years. Labor also failed to recognise the significant difficulties that the childcare industry has in small regional towns. Efforts have been made by this government to at least understand these issues in places like Coonamble. In regard to education retirements, a childcare worker in Coonamble does not have access to professional development. Indeed, it is 160 kilometres to the nearest TAFE to undertake training to upgrade qualifications. In many cases, some of the older workers are leaving the industry rather than taking up the challenge of upgrading to diploma level.

I welcome the government's announcement today that we will now have the first public examination in 20 years of child care and early childhood in Australia. The needs of parents have changed markedly in the last 20 years. Parents are no longer only employed for the nine-to-five working day. I particularly welcome the Productivity Commission inquiry into the needs of rural, regional and remote families. The community and childcare sector have been invited to make submissions. I look forward to hearing the recommendations from the Productivity Commission inquiry. What is interesting about this issue is that from the smallest towns to the largest growing cities in my electorate, the most traffic coming through my office in terms of correspondence and representations is from parents concerned about getting access to adequate child care and from people who want to relocate to towns like Dubbo and Mudgee and have nowhere for their children— (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance from my background as a union organiser looking after limited hours day-care centres, as a parent with two kids who went through child care and with one still there three days a week and also living across the road from a childcare centre. I could focus on that horrific road accident called ABC Learning that happened under the watch of those opposite, but instead I will briefly go to Labor's record before moving on to the real issues that have been touched on tangentially by those opposite but in no great detail. Let us look at some facts: record funding under Labor for early childhood education and care; an increase to the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent; improved affordability of care, resulting in a 30 per cent increase in the number of children in care—with the number now over one million. I know occasional care has been an issue, but those opposite forgot to mention the fact that there has been a 30 per cent increase. Back in 2004 under the Liberals out-of-pocket expenses were 30 per cent of your disposable income. Under Labor in 2012, it was down to 8.4 per cent. Most importantly, we delivered that $300-million boost to wages.

As touched on by the member for Bendigo in her speech, the horrific fact is 180 educators per week are leaving this sector. Anyone that has kids in care, and this was touched on by the member of the Corangamite, trusts their children will be looked after by these educators. We know it is not a childcare service. Children are our most precious burden. Children are hope distilled. So to hand them over to strangers, you need to rely on a quality framework to make sure that educators are trained up and that there are checks and balances. Then you need to make sure that they will be there in the long haul because, as anyone knows, if your child is in care and—be they 15 months, three years or four years—changes educators, it can be quite traumatic. All of a sudden when you drop them off it is a much more traumatic event because they are not given a warm, helping, familiar hand; instead it is the hand of a stranger. What is the best thing we can do for childcare? We can invest in quality training and remuneration.

I heard horrific stories during the Big Steps campaign organised by the United Voice union such as the reality of people having to take another job on the weekend just to be able to consider the possibility of getting a housing loan. People were working five days a week, ridiculous hours. I work across a road from a childcare centre. I know that they are there from six to six. I know that horrific rush, as a member of parliament, of trying to get there before six o'clock. But, I tell you what, I would not begrudge paying the extra dollar if it went into the pockets of a childcare worker. I know the member opposite talked about the inconvenience of being there after six. Think what it is like to have a job where you cannot afford to get a loan to buy a house, where you have to get a second job when you are a professional educator with quality standards, where you have to pay for your own professional development and you cannot be considered for a loan and so are consigned to a lifetime of being a renter. Imagine that. That is the Walmart theory of labour. That is not the Labor Party's vision of labour in Australia. It has not been the vision of capital in Australia's approach to labour since the Harvester decision back in the early 1900s.

Surely the people that look after our most valuable commodity, our future, our children, those people that are designing our planet for the future are worthy of some extra remuneration. Surely those opposite that have backgrounds in childcare centres, either taking profit from owning them or from having kids working in them or from having spouses that own them, would understand that we should wherever possible invest in remuneration. That is the best use of government dollars when it comes to the childcare sector.

Those opposite are waving around and trumpeting this review like Chamberlain getting off an aeroplane. I know what 'review' means if you have not committed to any more money for childcare. If you are going to throw money to nannies, au pairs and the like, that is fine but it has to be new money. Do not steal from those that are already suffering in this sector. (Time expired)

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance. The premise of this MPI is, I have to say, quite absurd. It is the latest in a line of quite desperate actions that the opposition is trying to beat up. Today is the fifth day that this parliament has sat and every single day we have had some grand, confected outrage from the members opposite. You would think they would be grateful that we are getting on with the job of governing and fixing up the mess that they left behind. But no, every day it is a new scare, a new attempt to spook the Australian public. It is not working.

The latest is to tell Australian parents: your childcare is at risk. What nonsense. What a load of rubbish. Nothing could be further from the truth. I point out that this comes from the party that foisted a huge raft of reforms in the guise of the national quality framework on the childcare industry without proper consultation. This comes from the party that said that the NQF would impact on fees to parents by no more extra 57c per week, even when evidence was given that the changes were sparking fee increases of around $5-$20 a day.

I have a number of childcare centres in my electorate of MacPherson on the Gold Coast and I recently received an email from a very concerned constituent in my electorate. They were talking about the rising cost of fees for childcare. They went through and provided quite a lot of detail in their email to me, some of which I will read out to you today: 'When a childcare centre is initially built, it is designed around regulations which prescribe class sizes for each age group; limits on class numbers; the number of toilets, basins et cetera for each child and each age group; and teacher-pupil ratios for each age group. As such, childcare centres are best described as having been specifically built around these prescribed ratios and size requirements. The new regulations brought in by the Labor government altered each of the above ratios and limits, which severely impacted on the childcare centres' capacity. For example, a childcare centre that was once licensed for 74 children will only be able to be licensed for say 60 children.'—due to the changes I have just indicated—'The impacts of this reduced capability are: for owner operated centres, the owner of this facility still needs to derive the same income in order to cover the mortgage repayments. But with fewer attendees, fees have to increase. For operator leased centres, the operator that rents the facility from a landlord still needs to pay the landlord the same rent. But with fewer attendees, they will necessarily have to increase fees. Parents with kids in childcare will get higher fees.' So communities are quite concerned about what the costs of child care are going to be as a result of the policy implementations of the former government.

We in the coalition government have positive plans in relation to child care. We have asked the Productivity Commission to conduct the first public examination of Australia's child care and early childhood learning system in almost 20 years. Unlike when Labor came to office and forced the NQF on the childcare industry, the inquiry process will include extensive public hearings and the Productivity Commission will invite submissions from both industry and parents.

I really cannot understand why a comprehensive review by an independent body like the Productivity Commission has resulted in such absolute hysteria from Labor MPs—including the former minister, the member for Adelaide, who really should know much better. The member for Adelaide would have done much better to listen to the industry, when it warned that Labor's NQF, with its 300 pages of new rules and 1,000 pages of explanatory notes, would only add significantly to the costs of child care. She should have thought more about the impact on family budgets of her own government's costly reforms. I can assure her and all Australian families that the coalition is committed to making the childcare market more flexible, accessible and affordable. That is what the Productivity Commission inquiry is all about. Labor should be supporting our approach, not irresponsibly trying to whip up hysteria with frivolous MPIs like this one.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded, one hour having passed.