Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to talk about the need for action when it comes to child care in my electorate of Wannon. We currently have a childcare drought in the electorate of Wannon, and we need urgent action when it comes to child care. The government has talked a big game about universal child care and various things that came out of a Productivity Commission report, but the fact of the matter is that what we actually need is just child care delivered into our region.

There are many, many quick ways in which the government could do this. It's for both federal and state government. For instance, one of the things that I campaigned for very heavily during the last election campaign was the opportunity for us to get a new childcare centre with a capacity of up to 120 at the Deakin campus of Warrnambool. My hope is that the state government and the federal government are working on that and we're going to get an announcement soon. This will be a game changer. If we can get that sort of commitment to numbers, in the 120 range, it would be fantastic. Not only that; it would then allow for research and development to take place in and around the childcare centre so we can make sure that we're continuing to do very important work when it comes to child care. We've seen this take place at Wollongong University, and it has been very successful. What it has done more than anything else is enable us to continue to have a supply of early childhood educators so that, when we have a childcare drought, we can make sure that we've got the workers that we need. The biggest issue that we have in our region is making sure that we've got the workforce.

I would love to see the Victorian state government and the current federal government commit to that site—commit to building that 120-capacity childcare centre at the Deakin campus in Warrnambool and also put the money in there so that we can do R&D and workforce development in and around that site. That would go a significant way to starting to address the childcare desert issues that we have in the electorate of Wannon. Once again, we've had a lot of talk; let's see some immediate action, because that's what we are really looking for.

Another significant issue that I want to talk about today is the need for us to get the provision of doctors, of GPs, in regional and rural areas right. The Prime Minister talked a big game before the last election when he used to pull out his Medicare card and say, 'That's all you'll need to go to the doctor.' Well, we all wish and hope that people can just use their Medicare card when they go to the doctor, but the reality is that, even though he campaigned with that little green card, saying that would be the reality, that's not what we're seeing on the ground. We're seeing more and more pressure on local GP clinics. We're getting to the stage now—and we've seen this happen, when it comes to dentists—where GP clinics are saying quite clearly, 'We can no longer see any more patients.' They're basically saying, 'We can carry our existing workload'—but, given the way that this government is funding GPs and given the pressure on the system at the moment, we are not seeing them growing, we are not seeing new GPs setting up businesses, and, sadly, we're not seeing an honouring of the commitment that all that you will need, when you go to the doctor, is your Medicare card. The Prime Minister has to come clean—he hasn't on the $275, which was meant to come off your electricity bill. He has to come clean and admit he's also got it wrong when it comes to Medicare.