Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I sit behind the new Minister for Community Services and from this angle he has looked pretty good in answering questions during question time today and throughout this week. I think the minister has very adequately placed on the record the tremendous record that this government has with respect to provision of child care in Australia. It is a proud record that I think is not well attacked by a party which neglected child care disgracefully during its 13 years in office. We have doubled the number of places available to Australians in subsidised child care and we have increased the benefits available to Australians to afford child care. Our record demonstrates a growing capacity within the Australian childcare system and a greater capacity by Australians to meet what are of course rising costs in that system.

Let me take first of all the point that Senator Crossin was making about the rising costs. Of course the costs of child care are rising, and there are a number of reasons for that. One is that there has been an acknowledgement that we have not paid childcare workers enough in Australia, and a number of private and public organisations have been taking steps to redress that problem. Another is that there is more pressure on those places because today more Australians are working than ever before and unemployment is lower than ever before and, as a result, more people with young families wanting to go into the workplace also need to access child care. That is why the Australian government has boosted spending on child care so dramatically.

The points that were made by Senator Crossin and others today in question time about the unavailability of child care in particular places are such cheap politics they do not bear thinking about. Of course there will always be mismatches to some degree in any system between where particular places are and where particular need is. Nobody can create a system where those mismatches do not occur from time to time. Child care is not a mobile resource that can be loaded on the back of a truck and shipped to another city or another state at will; it has to be planned for. People need to be certified or accredited to provide those services. We need to ensure that in other respects there are the kinds of services our communities need. Sometimes the places where those services are available are not the places where the actual need occurs.

However, I think the government has done an incredibly good job at lifting the availability of child care in the places where it actually matters. The report from Treasury which was tabled recently demonstrates that average utilisation rates between 2002 and 2004 fell from 88 per cent to 85 per cent, for example, in long day care. What does that suggest? It suggests that in fact there is adequate long day care across the country by virtue of the provision made by the Australian government.

In 2005 only six per cent of parents reported having trouble accessing additional formal child care, and the share of low-income families experiencing difficulties with the cost of care has dropped from 30 per cent to 15 per cent in the years since 2000. That does not tell the story of a system in crisis; it does not tell the story of a system where affordability and accessibility are receding from Australian families. On the contrary, it suggests that the situation, although not perfect, is certainly improving.

I am particularly proud, as I said before—and the minister drew attention to this today in question time—that the Australian government has continued to increase investment in the number of childcare places. The Australian population has not doubled since 1996, but the number of childcare places available to Australians has. That says a great deal about the priorities of this government to ensure that child care is affordable to Australians.

Families earning between $30,000 and $80,000 a year with one child in full-time child care now pay less of their take-home disposable income in child care than they would have done 11 years ago under the Labor Party. That is a fact and is demonstrated very adequately. The fact is that the other figures cited in this place and elsewhere about the affordability of child care omit important information like the value of the childcare benefit and the childcare tax rebate. When those things are taken into account properly—and they are very important in making child care accessible and affordable—it paints a very different picture to that which those in this place have painted today. I am very proud of the government’s record on this matter. (Time expired)