Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Johnston for that question. The Turnbull government is determined to do everything we possibly can to help Australian families to balance their work and family obligations and to ensure that our childcare system is geared in a way that helps every Australian family that wants to maximise their workforce participation. That is why our plan is to invest around $40 billion in childcare support and subsidies over the next four years through a streamlined, simpler and more affordable system for Australian families. In total, this constitutes an additional investment in the order some $3.5 billion in support for child care as a result of the types of reforms that the Turnbull government proposes. Our intention is to take a multiplicity of current subsidies and rebates and arrangements and turn them into a single childcare subsidy that will apply from 1 July 2017—a simpler system that will be simpler for families to navigate and simpler for childcare providers to navigate as well. We want to make sure that it is a more affordable system. We are putting in place measures to ensure the growth in cost of child care is constrained by having benchmark pricing that keeps growth in prices under control and, in terms of supporting families, by making sure that those who are most reliant on child care for support to juggle work and family opportunities receive the greatest support.

As a result, our proposed childcare subsidy model will ensure that families earning between $65,000 and $170,000 per annum will be around $30 a week better off in terms of meeting their childcare bills. That is more than $1,500 per annum in additional support for hardworking Australian families seeking to juggle work and family obligations. We are equally seeking to make the system more flexible by removing red tape on providers and trialling new systems such as the nannies pilot—all of which ensures we deliver for both vulnerable and working Australians.