Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My constituency question is to the Minister for Social Services. Minister, there are more than 36,000 families in my electorate of Robertson on the New South Wales Central Coast. Many parents are among the 30,000 commuters on the Central Coast who leave home early in the morning for Sydney or Newcastle for work and return home late at night to their families. These parents need to rely on flexible, affordable child care. Will the minister update the House on the government's progress in funding improved child care through the Jobs for Families package?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. As she would be aware, this morning we introduced a bill on family tax benefits that will provide the funds to pay for the Minister for Education's very broad, very impressive and much-needed reforms to child care. And as the member for Robertson noted, there are many families in her electorate, and of course child care is never more acutely needed than for those families who do spend time commuting to and from work. There are 9,500 families receiving family tax benefits in the member for Robertson's electorate, and 6,130 families who are presently using approved child care. And there are no doubt—in Robertson as in other electorates—many more who would wish to access approved child care but find that difficult to do. And in fact the Productivity Commission noted that there are 165,000 Australians who want to use child care more, who want to work more, but find the present system untenable.

Perhaps, for the member for Robertson, the two examples that I can give to her would be very relevant to her electorate. Now that we have the childcare reforms before the parliament—and the family tax benefit reforms before the parliament that will pay for them—it is quite easy to look at individual families in individual circumstances and work out how they will benefit from these reforms. And so, for the member for Robertson's benefit, I can give the example of a mum-and-dad family with two children, a one-year-old child and a three-year-old child. And if in that family the father works full-time and the mother works two days a week and their combined family income in 2018-19 is around about $119,000, then under the new Child Care Subsidy and taking into account the savings that are engaged in reforms to family tax benefits, that family will be $1,087 better off—and that is taking into account the great benefit they get from the reform of the childcare system, plus the savings measures that are exacted inside the family tax benefit system. That is $1,087 better off for that family who are using child care two days a week.

I can give the member for Robertson a further example, and that is with respect to a single mother with one child. A single mother with one child will find herself even better off again than the couple family. A single mother with one child in the Robertson electorate who has a child that is three years old, if that child attends long day care for four days a week while the mother is at work and the single mother's income is about $68,000, then under the new Child Care Subsidy—taking into account the decisions we have made to pay for that subsidy system inside family tax benefits—that mother would be $2,845 better off under the reforms that we are suggesting. Members opposite presided over a childcare system that was inflationary during the term of their government to the tune of 53 per cent, which would have, on yearly averages, meant $3.500 more expense in child care. This is an excellent suite of measures for the families in Robertson. We commend it to the House.