Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, no; we have not heard very much at all about working families from the Rudd Labor government—because they know there are going to be fewer of them. But the word of the week at the moment is ‘decisive’; everything is very ‘decisive’. And the Minister for Education and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Gillard, in fact commented that the government had acted ‘quickly’ and ‘decisively’ to ensure that parents could rely on ABC centres—until 31 December. That is what they can rely on: until 31 December.

The thing that the Rudd government and Ms Gillard—and the completely-absent-from-this-debate Ms McKew—appear to have overlooked is that children grow up quickly and decisively too. When the new school year starts, in less than three months time, a large number of ABC’s clients, up to 20,000 of them, will be moving on. They will not be requiring full-time child care any longer because they will be attending school. Many of their parents, in the normal course of things, would no doubt have booked in the next crop of children. In normal circumstances, this would not be an issue. The next group of children would be coming through to fill those places.