Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Siewert for the question. The purposes of this bill have been widely stated and restated by the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Services, the Treasurer and the finance minister, as well as others, on numerous occasions. There has been a significant savings challenge left to this government, not only to bring the budget back into balance but to fund the legislated spending measures left in place by the previous government. It was issue number one.

The second point is that the government made clear, and stands by, as Senator Birmingham has so effectively outlined, the view that child care in country this country needs to change to support people, primarily women, being able to get back to work. That is something that this government is exceptionally proud of. As a father—many people in this room have young children—I can say that for the people I know who are not as fortunate as me being able to change the child care system to ensure more people can get back to work is a positive for this country.

Thirdly, as was outlined yesterday, this government is committed to the delivery of the NDIS, but, unlike the previous government, we are committed to paying for it. So the savings measures that are being put in place are to leave the billions of dollars of funding gap left in place by the previous Labor government, who printed bumper stickers and named organisations but did not find a way to pay for these critical services.