Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the requested amendment be made.

The Family Assistance Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Amendment Bill was passed by the House on 5 August this year and by the Senate this morning, and that is very good news for the 250,000 families who will be beneficiaries of this bill. However, during the debate in the Senate, the government introduced amendments to the bill, and those amendments corrected a technical drafting error in the formula that calculates the higher rate of subsidy for the second child and any younger children aged five and under. This was a technical error that was picked up during the debating process. The government has quickly put through an amendment to fix it, hence our coming back to the House in order to pass that particular amendment. The amendment ensures that the bill gives effect to the full policy intent of the measure, just as the system build is already doing. I want to thank the opposition, particularly the shadow spokesperson, for supporting this bill and supporting this amendment, and seeing that it be done expeditiously as well.

I remind the House that the passage of this bill will allow us to implement a policy so that 250,000 Australian families using child care who have the greatest workforce disincentives will benefit from reduced out-of-pocket expenses. It further supports the one million Australian families using child care so that parents, especially women, can return to work or work more hours if they choose. By increasing the subsidy for families with a second or third child, 250,000 families will be better off by an average of $2,260 per year. Families will be better off by up to $185 a week for second or subsequent children in care. For a family on $110,000—which is the median income for families who use the childcare system—if they have two children in full-time child care, once this system comes into place they will be $120 per week better off. So that's money in the pockets of those families. It also means it creates an incentive for those parents, particularly women, to do those extra days of work if they want to or to indeed go back to work if they want to. By implementing these measures, we get rid of some of those disincentives. That's the power of this bill. It is targeted at those families with two or more children in the childcare system. It is measured and built on the existing childcare scheme, which, as you know, is designed to most support those families with the least amount of means and taper off for those families who have the most means at their disposal.

The Treasury estimates this will also have a significant economic impact. The Treasury estimates the impact will be a $1.5 billion boost to the economy. That will come about because an estimated 40,000 people will be doing more hours of work as a result of removing these disincentives. This is why the Business Council of Australia CEO, Jennifer Westacott, says in relation to this bill, 'It's good for mums and dads, it's good for businesses and it's good for the economy.' I couldn't have said that better myself. This bill is good for mums and dads, good for businesses and good for the economy. It's going to make a real difference to those cost-of-living pressures. It will remove some of those workforce disincentives. It's going to add to economic growth, and, in doing so, create further jobs.

I commend this bill and this amendment to the House. I once again thank the opposition for their cooperation in being able to deal with this amendment today, and I look forward to the passage of this bill and the implementation of this scheme so that 250,000 families can be better off.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I didn't expect to be debating the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021 again in the parliament, and I don't think the government did either. This is what happens when you rush announcements, when you focus-group announcements and rush them through the parliament: you make legislation that doesn't get the detail right. The minister missed someone he should give a shout-out to: Dave from Twitter—thank you. It was Dave from Twitter who pointed out that the formula that the government put in the legislation did not accurately reflect its announcement.

One might ask why the government has had to rush this legislation, because this legislation doesn't start until 1 July 2022. So one would wonder why the government would rush through this legislation, knowing that there are still nine months until it starts. Well, of course the answer to that is all about politics with this government. The Minister for Finance, after this child care policy was announced, said: 'What will Labor do? Will Labor support it?' He put a challenge to us, trying to use wedge politics on child care. Of course, while the Minister for Finance, the former minister for education, was trying to do wedge politics on this issue, the government failed to do their day job right. They rushed it through to try and somehow wedge the Labor Party, and instead they got the legislation wrong.

It's not surprising. This government is all about the politics, all about the spin and about trying to deflect attention where there are mistakes. This has been a pretty regular example from this government. But they made a fundamental error. If Dave from Twitter had not picked this up, then we would have seen families not receiving extra support on 1 July 2022. So this is a real embarrassment for the government and it is disappointing that, once again, the politics got in the way.

One might ask: why did they think Labor might not support this legislation? Why did they try and goad us around this? That's because Labor has a better child care policy. We have a better child care policy that will help more families for longer, and that is the truth of it. In desperation, with the government not being able to compare the two policies, the government made a policy that tinkered around the edges and helped fewer families for less time. They tried to make it as complex as possible to make it hard for families to compare Labor's offering and the Liberal Party's offering at the next election.

It's so complex, for example, that they actually couldn't get the legislation right. They couldn't draft the correct legislation. This is, as I said, a huge embarrassment, but I think there is a lesson in here for the minister and I hope the minister heeds that lesson. That lesson is: please spend less time lecturing the curriculum authority about what you think should be in the national curriculum and what shouldn't be. Please spend less time picking culture wars with the universities and more time focusing on drafting legislation that will actually be good for families. Stop making mistakes when it comes to this legislation.

Of course, this legislation has had some difficulties in the Senate, but not from Labor. We're happy to support this legislation. We are also very clear that we will continue to push for our child care policy. If we're elected, 97 per cent of families using the system will get a better deal than under the current system. It wasn't Labor that put up obstacles in the Senate about this; indeed, two government members voted against this legislation. Not only is the legislation technically wrong but they've got two ministers voting against it. We know that there was pushback in the party room. (Extension of time granted) Government members disagreed with the government. There was upheaval in the party room, and Senator Rennick and Senator Canavan voted against this government legislation. So they're terribly divided, and as a result we're getting legislation that's wrong.

Question agreed to.