Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about this government's lack of attention to detail. Today the lack of attention to detail is not only in its talking points, which in 18 pages do not mention health or education, but it's also in child care. Today I received this, which tells me that childcare costs in the City of Wyndham, in my electorate, went up 5.5 per cent in the last 12 months. CPI averaged about 1.6 per cent across that time. This is an outrage. People in my community know that everything is going up except their wages, but this demonstrates it so clearly. This government's rhetoric about making child care more affordable is an absolute farce when you look at the facts. The facts of the matter are: in my electorate, child care costs went up by 5.5 per cent. Wages aren't going up. CPI is nowhere near five per cent—in fact, that's more than double CPI. This government has lots of things to include in its talking points. On child care it could also include why it removed the 15 per cent margin that was going to allow people to predict their incomes and not face being overpaid and then possibly receiving a robo-debt notice. This government needs to pay more attention to the details of the real lives of Australian people and less to what's happening everywhere else in the world.