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

I am glad that I have been able to kick-start some debate on this issue in the chamber. I think Australian mums and dads must be sick and tired of the petty party politics that go on in this place. We have just spent almost an hour hearing about who is to blame for the ABC crisis. There is definitely enough blame to go around on both sides of the chamber. The ABC crisis would never have happened if ABC Learning had not been given the opportunity to monopolise the sector. Mums and dads around the country would not be worried about whether they can drop their kids off at their local childcare centre if companies had not been given free rein over what is meant to be an essential service. Mums and dads would not be worried about whether their local ABC centre is closing if companies were not able to profiteer from an essential service and the essential needs of Aussie families.

The government should have responded sooner. The government are creating more anxiety by their lack of transparency on this issue, keeping parents and the elected members and senators in this place in the dark on the rest of their contingency plans. The $22 million to be used to prop up ABC Learning over the next two months will only keep centres open until after Christmas, until 31 December. If the plan is more than this, let us see it. I hope there is more of a plan. I want to see it. I want the key stakeholders in the childcare sector to see it because that means we can get together and move forward.

We need to know now whether the minister will hold an emergency summit of the key stakeholders in the childcare sector, given that today the Senate voted to call on the government to hold one. We need to know within days when that summit will be held. Senator Collins mentioned that consultations will be happening and that those who were not spoken to today at a luncheon held by the parliamentary secretary—which I must point out was not a crisis meeting; it was simply a luncheon—eventually will be consulted. Frankly, ‘eventually’ is not soon enough. We need to know within days what the minister’s contingency plans are. We need the minister to commit to bringing together the brightest and best minds in the childcare sector. Those involved on the ground—the service providers, the local government associations that run childcare centres in their local areas and the small, independent operators—need to be brought together. We need to figure out how we move forward to ensure we can give parents some certainty after 31 December. ‘Eventually’ is simply not good enough.

We need to be take this opportunity to reform child care in Australia. The status quo simply is not working. We need a full investigation into how we ever allowed this essential service to be monopolised by a private company that puts the lining of shareholders’ pockets above the care of children. The company has a 25 per cent market share and that is simply not acceptable when we are talking about an essential community service. We need a full investigation as to how this happened. We need an emergency summit to move forward to ensure we can give certainty to parents and working families that their kids will not simply be left at the gate on 1 January.

Question agreed to.