Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:The collapse of ABC Learning and its effect on childcare across Australia, which requires an urgent response from the Government including an emergency summit of the key childcare providers from around the country, to ensure services to parents and children are available beyond the end of 2008.

Child care in Australia is in desperate need of an overhaul. The crisis that we are seeing with ABC Learning Centres is simply the tip of the iceberg. For years and years, we have seen the child-care sector in Australia being taken over by profiteers and being seen as an industry. Child care should be seen as an essential service. Child care should be seen as part of the lifelong learning that starts at birth. Child care is something that we as parents trust to give our kids the best quality of care so that we can go out to work and pay our mortgages. How was this crisis with ABC Learning Centres ever allowed to happen? How has it been that one corporate entity was allowed to control 25 per cent of the market? How can we say that one corporate entity should be allowed to monopolise a quarter of the child-care sector—for profit, not because we are putting the care of our children first?

Child care should not be viewed or treated as a profit-driven industry; it should be seen as the essential service it is. We have seen over the last couple of weeks a response from the government, a response from the community sector and a response from various child-care providers from around the country to try to get together to talk about what to do next. We know that ABC Learning is responsible for 100,000 long day care places around the country. We know that ABC Learning relies heavily on government funding; it was anticipated to receive up to $300 million from taxpayers through benefits paid to the company and on behalf of parents in this financial year. We have heard from the government that the response in trying to keep these centres open until 31 December this year is a $22 million rescue package. What then? In estimates a few weeks ago, I asked Senator Ludwig, the minister representing Minister Gillard, whether he could explain the federal government’s contingency plans, which they assured me they had. I also asked whether they could explain what would be happening, when it would be happening and what kind of discussions had happened so far to try to avoid the possible crisis that may happen if ABC Learning Centres were to go under—what would happen to the 100,000 children in care in their centres around the country? How do we, as a government—as elected parliamentarians—ensure that we do not leave these families in the lurch?

In response, the department said that there had been some thought given to the issue of ABC Learning folding and that some scenarios had been looked at. Since then, we have seen the $22 million package but we have not seen the details of any type of contingency plan. I have been inundated by various community child-care workers from around the country saying that they have put themselves forward as experts in the sector, people working on the ground, wanting to help the government move forward and ensure that we can keep as many centres open as possible, and yet the biggest criticisms that all of them have come to me with are a lack of transparency in the government’s plans, a lack of transparency in their conversations with government. It is a lack of transparency that led us into this mess in the first place. It is time for the government to shed light on what is really happening with ABC Learning and what types of contingency plans the government has. It is time to ensure that we involve the experts every step of the way.

Today the Senate passed a motion to support an emergency summit to get together the brightest minds in child care from around the country to talk directly to the government about the way forward. I am thankful that the government has taken the opportunity to ensure that centres are open until the end of this year, but we need to be looking beyond 2008. There are people who are willing to help, willing to put up their hands, willing to step in and keep centres open in order to ensure that kids can be dropped off as their parents go off to work and that the quality of care for our kids remains the highest it can possibly be. (Time expired)