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

What I can assure Senator Anning, all senators and the Australian public is that we take compliance very seriously. On our estimates, the range of compliance measures we've taken, in terms of tightened regulation, increased compliance checks and audits and, ultimately, suspensions or cancellation of services, have saved around $2.4 billion over the last few years and into the future, in terms of what could have been wrongfully claimed subsidies. We'll continue to take that zero-tolerance approach.

As I was indicating at the conclusion of my last answer, the new childcare subsidy, which is coming into effect on 2 July, has tighter regulatory arrangements around it that will better enable officials to control the flow of money to service providers. It has a better IT and data-integrity system around it that will better enable officials to identify where rorting may happen and shut it down instantly, and to make sure that this type of rigorous action, including throwing the book at and charging individuals, occurs where it can. (Time expired)