Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Hansard source

I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. I do appreciate that the minister is new to his portfolio, but is the minister aware that the Productivity Commission has found that child care now costs families an average of $233 per week? Is the minister further aware that $233 a week represents 22 per cent of average weekly earnings? Isn’t it a fact that families are spending almost one-quarter of their income on child care, one of the reasons why his colleague the Liberal member for Mackellar, Mrs Bishop, was furious with the Treasury’s so-called analysis?