Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that the previous Government:

(a) reformed the childcare system in 2018 to provide more subsidy to families who need it most and establish a safety net to cover up to the full cost of full-time childcare for disadvantaged children;

(b) in March 2022, implemented reforms to provide higher childcare subsidy for second and subsequent children aged under six, where costs double or treble for families; and

(c) invested record funding in the childcare system, including around $11 billion budgeted for the 2022-23 financial year;

(2) further notes that the Government promised to deliver:

(a) childcare reform with no family worse off;

(b) an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission price regulation mechanism to control childcare fees; and

(c) terms of reference for a Productivity Commission review of a 90 per cent childcare subsidy within its first 100 days of office; and

(3) calls on the Government to explain:

(a) why it promised its childcare policy would ease cost of living pressures for families, but is delayed until July 2023; and

(b) whether, with skyrocketing childcare costs, Australian families will actually be better off.

The coalition has a strong record when it comes to delivering for Australians. During our time in government, we doubled investment in the early childhood education sector to $11 billion in 2022-23, and we also did something that Labor never did and that is delivering ongoing preschool funding. We locked in a four-year preschool reform agreement with states and territories which drives greater participation, especially for Indigenous and disadvantaged children. We undertook the biggest reforms to the childcare system in over 40 years, replacing a complex system with one which was better targeted and measured and which provided more support to families. Under the coalition, 280,000 more children were able to access early childhood education. We abolished the annual cap on the childcare subsidy and, since March of this year, we provided a higher subsidy for up to 95 per cent of families with multiple children. This targeted support also helped to bring down the cost of care, with June 2022 CPI data showing that childcare costs decreased by 4.6 per cent.

When COVID hit, many industries, including the ECEC sector, were hit hard, and our $3.2 billion investment in the ECEC sector throughout the pandemic kept services viable and educators employed. This funding also ensured that families could continue to access care, preventing sector collapse and keeping services open, especially for vulnerable children and children of essential workers. This included three months of free child care during 2020, the waiving of gap fees in COVID related instances, and the increased number of allowable absences days from 42 to 52. We saw women's workforce participation reach record highs at 62.3 per cent when we left government in May 2022, compared to 58.7 per cent when Labor left office.

I'm proud of our record in this space, as we should be, but I'm also concerned for the future of the sector under this Albanese government because we had a plan—a good plan—and it's clear from what we've seen that this government doesn't have one. This government has no plan to address rising costs, no plan to address the lack of access and no plan to address current workforce concerns. This government has been full of sweeping statements: 'No family will be worse off. Fees won't increase. This policy won't have an effect on inflation. We'll have enough workers in the sector to meet demand.' These are all sweeping statements, but they haven't done any of the work to back up those statements.

The opposition and many others in this place are very, very concerned about this policy. We're concerned that there are not enough places for the additional children that may flood the system after 1 July next year and we're concerned that nine million Australians currently live in a childcare desert. That's nine million Australians who, if they have a child, will not be better off under this policy because they can't access care to begin with. Time and time again, we've asked about Labor's plan to address access issues, and they've provided simply nothing. We're also concerned about how educators will meet the increased influx of children from 1 July. Goodstart Early Learning says there are 7,200 current vacancies in the sector; some believe that to be under-represented and that there could be up to 20,000. That is a huge number, yet the government has no plans to fill those gaps and get new educators into the sector by 1 July.

The last time Labor was in government, childcare fees skyrocketed by 53 per cent in six years. We brought costs down, but, with fee increases expected, it's likely that some of the additional subsidies will be eroded, leaving families worse off. Labor's policy is full of empty promises and baseless statements, something I'm sure the 2024 review will shine a light on. The coalition wants to see the government do more to address concerns raised by educators, by the sector and, of course, by families. We want to see more done in terms of access in regional Australia in those communities that are doing it tough and those communities that currently don't have access to early learning centres. There is no infrastructure in some of those communities in regional and remote Australia, and we want to see that improved, particularly when there is $4.7 billion being invested in the sector.

We want to see a plan that will increase access and a plan to increase the pipeline of educators and retain them in the sector. Otherwise this policy will not deliver on the promises that they've sold to Australians, leaving many children and families and the sector much worse off. So we need more access. There is $4.7 billion but not one extra place from this government. We want to see greater access for families across the country, and we want to see infrastructure investment in more centres around the country so that more families can get back into work and send their kids to child care.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the simple question: why didn't those opposite do something about the growing costs of early childhood education when they were in government? For example, there are a couple of things to debunk in the member for Moncrieff's statements. According to the last ABS survey, 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work. Why was that the case? Because they couldn't make early childhood education costs work for them. Those opposite did absolutely nothing about it. Let's not forget that early childhood education costs increased by a whopping 41 per cent in the last eight years under the previous government.

We've wasted absolutely no time in addressing this problem. We've heard it over and over in this place: early childhood education reform is economic reform. It's an important economic reform, but it's also an issue that goes to the heart of how we value families, parenting, children and, of course, equality of access to work and choice.

We know that this reform will benefit around 96 per cent of families accessing early childhood education. In my electorate alone, the Adelaide electorate, approximately 10,200 families use an approved early childhood education provider. This reform that we have presented to the parliament will help around 96 per cent of those families, or 9,800 families. In the last month I've visited three childcare centres: the Lady Gowrie Child Centre in Thebarton in my electorate, the Plympton Goodstart and the Prospect Goodstart. I spoke with early learning providers and parents, and they all welcomed this proposal. They all welcomed our reform.

This reform is more important than ever, given the cost-of-living pressure that Australians are facing. Our early childhood education reform represents a $4.5 billion investment, and this reform does three important things. Firstly, it listens to what Australians ask for. It was an election commitment, and we delivered on that election commitment. Secondly, it's an economic reform. By cutting the cost of early education and care, it makes it easier for parents to return to work, particularly mothers. This is the type of reform that makes a difference regarding whether the primary carers work a fourth or fifth day. With the economy screaming out for skilled workers and many families needing or wanting to work additional hours, this reform means additional hours can be worked without people actually losing money. Let's face it: we are primarily talking about women's jobs here, and this reform will make it easier for women to choose when they wish to return to work or study. For the average Australian family on about $120,000 with one child in care three days a week, this reform will cut the cost by approximately $1,700 a year. That's $1,700 a year in a family's pocket. Thirdly, this reform is great for our children. All the experts tell us that early education and care is so important for a child's development. Education is transformative, but early childhood education has a particularly powerful impact to transform children's lives. All the experts are telling us this—all the studies that have been done and the research that's been done.

So this reform makes early childhood education and care more affordable, as I said, for about 1.26 million Australian families. As I said before, this is more important than ever. Let's not forget that early childhood education costs increased by a whopping 41 per cent under the former Liberal government's watch—41 per cent in the last eight years. This has been a significant burden to many Australian families who were already struggling to make ends meet.

Cheaper early childhood education is good for children, good for families and good for the economy, and we have delivered on the election commitment that we made to deliver cheaper early childhood education, when the previous government absolutely failed to do anything in this area. I heard stories of families that chose not to work that extra day because it ended up costing them more than it would have if they had gone to work. This policy basically fixes that. It allows people to make that choice to work the extra day. That's why it's a good— (Time expired)

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an incoherent motion and it reminds me of a joke from Woody Allen in Annie Hall, where there are two unreasonable people criticising a restaurant. One person says to the other, 'Do you know what? I can't stand the food at that restaurant.' The first person says, 'I agree. Portions are so small.' It reminds me of this motion, where most of the motion says, 'We don't like the policy of the government, we don't like its criteria, we don't like the fact that it is so expansive but, gee, they should do it immediately.'

It's a weird incoherent motion that, in a lot of ways, reflects the time in government in this space of those opposite. I remember very clearly when I was a backbencher in the previous term reading reports of the intense arguments going on in their party room, where a number of prominent backbenchers claimed that any kind of expansion of child care would reflect women outsourcing parenting. This was the big debate on child care in their party room and was reflected in so many ways in which they dealt with the policy area. It reflected what happened in JobKeeper, where so many people in this sector were excluded from JobKeeper when they were casual or part-time, and this contributed, no doubt, to the significant skills shortages that we are facing today. It was also reflected in their approach to the then-opposition and now-government's approach to increasing the minimum wage which had such a positive effect in the care economy. They said it would bring the sky falling down. They said it would be unaffordable. It hasn't been unaffordable; it's been absolutely critical to not only, firstly, helping people cope with cost of living but, secondly, for dealing with skills shortages. Of course, on this IR bill that this parliament is dealing with right now, which is so critical for the care economy, the opposition is fighting tooth and nail. They say that we need to do things immediately to deal with the skills shortages, that we need to do things immediately to deal with this sector, when, at every step of the way, they've had an incoherent policy, mixed messages and done everything they can to stand in front of and stop critical reforms.

Our policy in this space was announced very early in the last term. It was the centrepiece of the then opposition leader's response to the 2020 budget. Those opposite rubbished it and now they say in this motion 'do it immediately'. It was motivated by a number of things, firstly the three Ps—productivity, participation and population—underpinning long-term and sustainable economic growth. It was also motivated to help women's participation in particular increase, recognising the fact that childcare subsidies at that point proved to be a barrier for so many and of course it recognised the fact that this is a critical reform when it comes to children's early education.

I want to quote extracts from the Grattan Institute's comparison of the two policies from the period leading up to the last election. Under the coalition policy, mothers with two children in long daycare can lose 100 per cent of the take-home pay they earn in the fourth or fifth day of work, largely due to childcare costs. Labor has lowered the disincentive rates, lowered the means test taper, which is significantly less steep than the coalition's. The steepness of the taper is one of the significant reforms of this policy and it dramatically increases the incentive for participation. Again, from the Grattan Institute's comparison of the two policies, Labor's policy is broader, it supports more families and it would have a much larger and more widespread economic benefit. It would also bring down out-of-pocket costs and sharpen workforce incentives for a much wider group of families. That backs up exactly what the Prime Minister said in his 2020 budget reply when he made this policy the centrepiece. It was a centrepiece back in 2020 and it is now one of the major reforms that we have implemented.

As I've alluded to, this policy is buttressed by critical reforms likely the VET policies and investment in skills. Critically, it is buttressed by our policies in relation to skills and workforce conditions. It is only through all of those holistic approaches to this sector that, on the one hand, we're going to get more people working in it, and, on the other hand, we're going to reduce the taper rate and make it more affordable for a whole raft of families.

This reform is absolutely critical for families and for the broader macro economy at a time we are facing rising costs. This is one of our government's signature policies. For so many on our side, it was a matter of great pride when it passed through this parliament. It formed the centrepiece of the PM's response to the previous government's 2020 budget and is a centrepiece of this government's agenda. Now they say, 'We don't like it, but why haven't you implemented it immediately?' Well, Labor has achieved more in six months than the previous government did in a decade. It has legislated key childcare reform and is now responding to the skills and wages challenges.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a new member of this parliament, it's interesting the way the straw man argument is used when it comes to debating these things: 'Those opposite—they don't like what we've done; they don't like what we've done.' We actually supported the bill. When this parliament works really well, it is when offers of amendments and suggestions to improve existing bills get made, and I'd like to be part of that. But this motion doesn't say that the subsidy bill is a bad thing. This motion says that there could be improvements made to it, improvements to allow access, particularly in regional and rural areas, and improvements to create a workforce that can help us make sure that we can staff these places.

A report earlier this year from the Mitchell Institute showed that around one-third of Australian families, nine million Australians, live in a childcare desert—that's where you can't even get child care. I've been through this myself. When we had our first child, my wife wanted to get back into the workforce as soon as possible. We struggled to find a childcare place in Shepparton, and Shepparton's quite a large centre. We eventually got something, but, if we had have been out somewhere smaller in my electorate, such as Nathalia or Murchison, we would have had no options. That affects productivity. My wife, Lisa, who's a professional in the dairy industry, which is a critical industry to us, wouldn't have gone back to offer her skills to that particular industry. We're not saying that subsidies aren't important and that the substance of that part of the bill is bad; we are saying that we need to add to it by helping to create more childcare places, particularly in areas that don't have them, childcare deserts.

I've consulted with some people around my electorate on this subject. That's what you have to do as a local member. You go and say, 'Okay, this is the substance of what it is; what do you think?' Ronni Druitt is the CEO of the Goulburn Regional Pre School Association, which does a lot of this childcare stuff. Ronni said: 'You can quote me, Sam'—I should refer to myself as the member for Nicholls—'government can build as many childcare facilities as it wants, but the sector does not have any educators to fill roles. I had one childcare service in Cobram where I had room for an additional 20 children but could not offer those spots as I had limited staff.' She went on to say that places such as Avenel have no child care and that the closest child care is in Seymour, and it's full. Murchison, Rushworth and Colbinabbin don't have any child care at all. At Strathmerton, kinder is getting many enrolments, but there's no child care available in spots close. An amendment to this bill to address the childcare desert and to put some funding and incentives towards building some new facilities would be a great addition.

Ronni Druitt also went on to tell me about the information available on the Australian Childcare Alliance, which is the apprenticeships incentives that the previous government put in place. She said that the incentive program was fantastic. They got a lot of apprentices and educators learning how to be childcare educators, but that ended on 30 June 2022. As far as we're aware, there's no ongoing funding for that. If someone can tell me that that program's going to continue, it's a program that the previous government put in place that people in my area are saying worked, that would be good to look into. We believe in child care not only because of the productivity that I talked about of having all sorts of people go back into the workforce but also because of the socialisation that those young people get. The future of work is understanding and empathising with each other's humanity, and being able to communicate with people and solve problems. You develop that as a young person by having interaction with other people. You become empathetic, you learn about their lives and learn about communicating with them and that happens in child care. I'm sure everyone here is very empathetic and all had good childcare experiences. The member for Hawke, I'm sure, would say that. We're not against child care. We just want more of it, particularly in parts of the country, like the one where I live, which are the regional and rural areas. We're supportive but there can be improvements.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the member for Nicholls' desire to reach across the aisle and work together on this because we can all agree that early education is really important for kids, for parents and for our society. So I say to the member for Nicholls: get on board. Get on board with our call for a minimum wage increase. Get on board with our Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill to ensure that we can have multi-employer bargaining. I say to him: get on board with our fee-free TAFE places and get on board with our 20,000 additional university places for those jobs in critical skills areas. We do have a plan and we think that the coalition should get on board.

I want to thank the member for Moncrieff for this bill because it gives us an opportunity to talk about the critical reform that the Albanese Labor government is bringing in to ensure that child care is more affordable for more families. It is a plan and a strategy that the then opposition leader committed to at the very beginning when he spoke in his budget reply speech about how important this piece of policy is for us. We just want to remind those opposite about the increasing costs of child care that they oversaw—41 per cent in eight years. That meant that it was more expensive for families. They were having to make decisions about the number of days that they would work and whether or not to go back to work at all. We want to make sure that we are making child care more affordable because we know it is good for kids, because they get access to that great early education. It's good for families because parents can decide to go back to work or pick up additional days. It's good for our economy because of the increased productivity. Early educators are absolutely critical to that.

I do welcome the coalition's recent desire to make the industry more attractive to our early educators. It's just a shame that they didn't show that interest when they were in government. They are right; we are facing a workforce shortage in the early education sector. But it's not something that has come about in the last six months since we've been in government. This is a workforce shortage and it has been brewing for quite some time. If we look at the qualifications that are required to be an early educator, a bachelor of early childhood education takes four years full-time; a cert III in early childhood education and care takes one year full-time. So even if, on 22 May, we did everything we could to attract more early educators to the sector, we still wouldn't have them in there at this point. The reforms needed to attract more people into this industry needed to happen years ago. Some of those key reforms that would have made it more attractive to early childhood educators would be to increase their wages. You would think that's a simple proposition—an increase to the minimum wage—but they refused to back that. You would think that having multi-employer bargaining to ensure that early educators were able to bargain for better pay and conditions would be a simple proposition for them to back but, again, they failed to back that. When they want to talk about the workforce shortage in early childhood education, where are the actions that match their rhetoric? They've gone missing.

But I do want to thank them for some of the plans that we have now started to put into place to attract early educators to the sector—some of the plans that they created but never implemented. They are now part of our National Children's Education and Care Workforce Strategy Implementation and Evaluation Plan. Part of that will be practical steps and action to support the attraction and retention of staff and to improve the quality and sustainability of the workforce in this sector long term. We are also delivering almost 1,500 additional university places for early education teachers as well as fee-free TAFE places. This is going to make a real practical difference to the sector.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

RTH () (): The Labor Party has been banging on about fee-free TAFE places for the best part of two decades. The reality is that every state Labor government—and at the federal level—come in and say, 'We're going to save TAFE,' and, four years on or eight years on, they're still trying to save TAFE, with no extra results. In my state of Queensland, I went out to the TAFE in Redcliffe the other day, and they're not even offering diploma-level courses at the moment. It's all certificate levels. I thank the member for Moncrieff, the shadow minister, for putting forward this motion today. One of the best things that we can do when, hopefully, one day the member for Moncrieff is the minister will be to cut red tape, because red tape kills small business and it makes it very difficult for providers. Red tape costs a lot of money, and that pushes up the cost of child care. I was talking to a provider in my electorate today about this, and they were telling me how much red tape was involved and what has to be sent off to the Department of Education in Queensland each week. I imagine it would be the same around the country.

Child care is important. As a father of three sons, all now in their teenage years, I remember how important child care was when my wife was working even part time. We needed that child care when she was at work. It plays an important role in helping young kids develop the social skills to mix with other children.

The coalition have a strong record in child care. Why? Because we doubled the amount of childcare investment to $11 billion in 2022-23. From March 2022 we provided a higher subsidy, of up to 95 per cent, for families with multiple children in early childhood care and education at once, which has helped with workforce participation and allowed cheaper access. The coalition also helped a lot of Australian families access more affordable child care by removing the annual cap on childcare subsidy. We saw women's workforce participation reach record highs of 62.3 per cent in May of this year, which was good news. Under the previous Labor government it was down in the high 50s. Under the coalition, 280,000 more children were in early childhood education.

Recently I hosted the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in my electorate. We had a roundtable for women. Invited guests were women leaders in my electorate, including people from business, including one from child care, education, faith communities, medicine—I had a couple of doctors there—digital marketing and fitness. They were women of different ages, different life experiences and different education levels. Everyone in the room was remarkable in their own right. And they didn't all vote a certain way. They were just people that I've met as the federal member for Petrie in my time in the job. For any federal member—as you'd know, Deputy Speaker—their job is to listen to what local people in their electorate are saying. The topic of child care was relatable for all the women in that room. There were women with young families, grandmothers, mothers with adult children but also women who were married without kids, and they could all understand what each of them were saying.

I've spoken to childcare centres in my electorate, and they are struggling with regulations, as I explained before—red tape that is forcing up the cost of child care. So I'd say to the current government, but also the opposition, that that's something that does need to be improved. Many educators have raised low wages, mental health issues, no appreciation and the increase in red tape as their top concerns. I want to use this opportunity to thank every childcare provider in the electorate of Petrie and every childcare worker in the electorate of Petrie for what they do.

In relation to the cost of living, we know that cost-of-living relief was needed, and it was a missed opportunity by the Albanese Labor government in their budget—a completely missed opportunity. They did nothing to help reduce the costs of living for people in my electorate each day, particularly since these changes don't even kick in until July next year. They expect people just to wait around another eight months. So I would say that the current government needs to do better. Six months into the job, time's up. It's no good blaming former governments or anything like that, like we see the current Prime Minister doing daily. It's time to step up and lead. Thank you.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak today on the member for Moncrieff's motion firstly as the member for Swan but also as a mother of two children under the age of five. Like many Australian families, my husband and I work. We do our best to share the parenting duties and spend quality time with our children while balancing both of us having successful careers. With my new role as the member for Swan, there have been some challenges around being a fly-in fly-out parent. I'm very lucky to have an onsite early childhood education centre here at Parliament House. I would like to acknowledge the great work that the educators do here at Capital Hill Early Childhood Centre and all the work that early childhood educators do across Australia. For me, early childhood education is a matter that's very close to my heart.

When deciding on where their child should go, a parent has so many parameters to consider: when their child should start; the size of the waitlist; the proximity of the childcare centre to home or work; the skill level of educators; the physical surrounds and vibes; how many days their children need care; and, of course, the fees. For me, deciding on where my children would go to child care was one of the most emotional decisions I've had to make as a parent. I wanted to make sure that my children were in a place of love, learning and care and one that I could actually afford while returning to a demanding job.

The member for Moncrieff talks of reforms that the previous government started in 2018. Well, my son started early childhood education in 2019, and I can say from personal experience that the reforms did not go far enough. I know that other mother groups across my electorate and in my state would concur. There are over 11,000 children that are aged under four in the electorate of Swan. These children belong to more than 7,600 families like mine, who strive to give their children the best start to their life. What we know is that childcare costs have gone up by 41 per cent over the last eight years, which was during the coalition's reign. Nationally, 73,000 people who wanted to work did not look for work because of the rising cost of early childhood education. So while I appreciate that the member for Moncrieff wants to note that the previous government tried to improve early childhood education, there shouldn't be a commendation for these efforts, because the numbers did not stack up—not for me as a parent, nor for those in my community. Early childhood education policy under the previous government simply was not good enough.

Under Labor's policy, 6,900 families—that's 90 per cent of families—in Swan will be better off. A family with a combined income of $120,000 will save $1,780 in the first year of our policy. And we got to work doing this in our first budget. We spoke to communities, listened and passed the cheaper child care act. We're not rushing this process, but we are acting quickly and working with providers and implementing changes to the childcare subsidy scheme. I know that the member for Moncrieff would have liked it to have been done earlier, but the truth is that the coalition had nine years of government where we saw childcare fees skyrocket while they racked up a national debt of almost a trillion dollars. They were elected in 2013 and took five long years to implement some reforms which simply did not go far enough. Meanwhile, the federal Labor government sees this as a targeted cost-of-living measure which is good for children, good for parents and good for the economy. When these changes are implemented, 90 per cent of families across Australia will get access to a greater childcare subsidy rate. The maths of this bill is simple, and this will go to families that work, study or are volunteering within their community. I thank the member for Moncrieff for allowing me and my colleagues the opportunity to share why Australians are better off under Labor's childhood education policy, and I look forward to seeing our proposed changes rolled out in July 2023.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.