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

I thank Senator Hume for her question and her passionate advocacy for working Australian families to ensure that they get the best possible deal in terms of support for childcare services. An important part of maintaining and managing an effective childcare system is to ensure that you look after taxpayer dollars and ensure that funds go to those families in need and also to those services who are doing the right thing. The Turnbull government takes compliance around childcare matters extraordinarily seriously. That's why we announced a six-month blitz. I'm delighted to update the Senate that that six-month blitz has paid dividends. The Turnbull government has taken compliance action and enforcement action against 151 services across Australia in the family day care sector. We're ensuring, as a result, that this will stop about $1 billion in subsidies going out the door.

This is part of what has been a zero-tolerance approach by this government. We've ensured that regulation is more effective and enforcement is more frequent. In fact, on enforcement, over the last year we have carried out around 4,500 compliance checks across the country. That is compared with the year before we came to office, which had just 500 compliance checks being undertaken. As a result, over our period of time in office, we estimate we have stopped the loss of more than $2.4 billion in taxpayer dollars that would otherwise have been rorted by individuals doing the wrong thing in the family day care sector.

Twenty-eight individuals have been charged and a number have been convicted. We continue to make sure this enforcement action isn't just about getting people out of the system; we are also making an example, where possible, to ensure that others don't follow suit. It does stand in stark contrast to the previous Labor government. Mr President, do you know how many services were suspended or cancelled under the previous Labor government? Zero. No wonder we had such a clean-up job to do, but I'm pleased that that clean-up job is going effectively and we are better looking after taxpayer dollars.