Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Minister for Education. Will the minister explain what measures the government has taken to improve access to occasional child care in this year's honest and considered budget?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Earlier you ruled that we had pushed argument to its limit. I think that pushes irony to its limit.

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

That is not terribly amusing, either.

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

I am pleased to have a question from the member for Wannon who has fought very hard for his constituents on the matter of occasional child care. I visited his electorate in 2011 and met with UnitingCare. They had lost $15,000 in funding overnight without any consultation with the then minister. The service had been forced to reduce hours and raise fees. So I am pleased to reiterate the coalition's commitment to reinstating the $12.6 million in funding for occasional child care slashed by the former government. This will assist parents, particularly those in rural and remote areas such as Wannon.

There are many reasons why families might need to access occasional child care—casual work, illness, unexpected life events; sometimes for rural and regional children it is the first important form of socialisation before school. Thousands of Victorian families rely on this form of child care operating from hundreds of centres across the state. Earlier this year I wrote to state and territory education ministers seeking their support for participation in the program, along with a commitment from them to meet 45 per cent of the cost as they did under the previous arrangement. I look forward to this form of child care getting back up and running after the previous government increased the cost to parents for child care, overall, by 50 per cent.

This is a government that stands up for what we know to be right, not what we know to be easy. I think the worst thing that any of us can be accused of in this place is believing in nothing. I sat on the opposition benches for six years while two successive Labor prime ministers delivered five successive budget deficits, trashed the national accounts, trashed our economic credibility and ran up a billion dollars in interest payments every month—all in a desperate attempt to buy votes. It was a desperate attempt to buy votes by buying things the country did not need with money the government did not have and, with respect to the deal with the Greens, to impress people they did not even like. They were a Labor party that believed in nothing then and which believes in nothing now. By contrast, we stand here to make the difficult decisions for the good of the nation. I encourage members opposite to support our reinstatement of this vital form of child care.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the notice paper.