Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge Senator Dodson's contribution on this motion to take note of answers , but I do want to deal with the question that Senator McAllister asked in relation to child care and the changes to child care. I just want to go through what those changes are—the necessity of the changes.

Senator Watt interjecting—

And it's great to get contributions from Senator Watt there. He's taken his orders from Albo. He's got the phone call, and he's still not on mute! I'll continue nonetheless.

Senator Watt interjecting—

No, you were hilarious, mate; we all had a very good laugh! But let's go to the more serious issue of child care and the Labor Party's claims when it comes to child care. What we were dealing with in the childcare space was a once-in-generations crisis, which we had to deal with in a number of ways. First we had to deal with stopping the spread, and then—simultaneously—we had to deal with the economic fallout, as we saw the necessary and important restrictions that were put in place to stop COVID from running rapidly through our community as we have seen in far too many countries around the world. The emergency measures that we announced for child care were never going to be the new normal. What we've heard from Senator McAllister and others, in their critique, is that they don't want us to go back to our system of childcare support that this government has put in place.

Senator Watt interjecting—

Well, I can't even tell what the ridiculous heckling at the back is, from Senator Watt. It is hard to hear myself, but I will persist. When it comes to what we are doing in the childcare space, the argument from the Labor Party—and it was backed up by their Greens partners—is effectively that there is a magic money tree, and once you put in place an emergency measure that emergency measure should be able to last forever. That is effectively the Labor Party's position and the Greens' position on a number of policy areas, including child care.

When it came to child care, we put in place emergency measures that dealt with the fact that there were significantly fewer Australians sending their kids to child care when the COVID-19 restrictions were in place. Subsequent to that we have seen—and this is something that we should celebrate as a nation—the great strides we have made in recent times, together as a nation, in dealing with this crisis. We should celebrate the fact that we have not suffered the kind of negative health impact that so many other countries have. We should celebrate the fact that we are starting to see our economy open up far more quickly than perhaps was anticipated a couple of months ago and that, as a result of that, people are getting on with business and the economy is slowly starting to turn around. We know there is a long way to go, but more and more Australians are going back to work. That is a good thing, and it is something that we in the coalition celebrate.

We don't believe, as the Labor Party and the Greens do, that government should be at the centre of economic life. We believe that government had a critical role—an absolutely critical role—and we believe that we have and are fulfilling, and will continue to fulfil, that role for as long as it's necessary during this time of crisis to support Australians, to support Australian jobs and to support Australian livelihoods.

But what we're on about now is about growing our economy and getting people back into the workforce. The childcare system that we're returning to—the system of support—is one of the most progressive sources of support that you can imagine: to have subsidies of up to 85 per cent for low- and middle-income earners, which taper out as your income goes up. What could be fairer than a system that gives by far, and by a significant length, more support to low- and middle-income earners than what existed under the Labor Party? Under the Labor Party's system, far less support was given to low- and middle-income earners. We are delivering that.

So with the emergency measures that were put in place and what the Labor Party would like to do—and this goes to what they would do if they were to come into government—there would be bigger and bigger government and endless spending. We have engaged in the kind of spending that is needed to support our economy. We'll do it for as long as is necessary, but we should get our economy going again—