Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, ideally it would be great if a parent could stay home and raise their children in the early years between zero and three, because, as I said in my maiden speech, there is no greater bond than that of a child and a parent.

An opposition senator interjecting—

Well, that's not your call; that is not the call of the senators here in this chamber. That is the choice of the parent. That is not a choice of the government, and that's the difference between the people on this side of the chamber and the people on that side: they want the government to step into the classroom, the family home, the bedroom and tell everyone how to live their personal lives. No. We live in a Western democracy where we respect individual rights and individual freedoms, and we do not want the hand of government reaching in and taking away our children's youth.

What I love about Labor is that they always make out that they care about the children, but this isn't about the children; this is about Labor increasing their union membership. You never hear Labor talk about raising the pension, because they don't want the pension to replace superannuation. That is all about looking after their rivers of gold in the superannuation fund. The only part of the union movement that's actually growing is the childcare industry, and that's why you're pushing it. At the end of the day, if you can keep a child at home and if you can keep a parent at home, you're going to halve the congestion on the roads, you're going to halve the pollution and you're going to increase the quality of life for young children and their parents.

An opposition senator interjecting—

That is a choice. What we would like to do is to provide a choice. Dorothy didn't tap her shoes together and say, 'There's no place like child care.' She said, 'There's no place like home.' I guarantee you, when people grow up, they don't pick up the phone and call their childcare guardian from when they were at child care 20 years ago. They talk to mum and dad. This party will always stand up for the rights of the family and will always try and encourage a bond between the child and the parent.

An opposition senator interjecting—

Yeah, sure. Great. Because you guys know everything!

Now I just want to address the issue of deaths in custody. Obviously, there has been an increase in the number of Aboriginals incarcerated, so what we need to do there is try and close the gap. It's something that hasn't got a lot of talk, but I think it is worth noting that a report by the Productivity Commission found that state and federal governments spend $33.4 billion on services for Indigenous Australian to help try and close the gap. That works out at $44,000 for every Aboriginal Australian compared to $22,000 for every non-Indigenous Australian. So I do think that there has been a genuine attempt by governments at all levels to try and close the gap.

The other thing I think we need to point out as well is that people often quote the deaths in custody as though they're homicides. It's important to note that deaths in custody doesn't mean to say that they were killed in custody. The biggest cause of deaths in custody was natural causes. The next one after that was suicide. The next one after that was accidental. Then there were six deliberate, unlawful homicides, which is obviously still too many. There were six in prison custody and eight in police custody.

I have a friend who works in a watch house and they have to a check on the prisoners every 15 to 20 minutes, so there is a genuine attempt at looking after the prisoners. I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not saying everyone gets it right all the time. But I really don't think that we should be inflaming this situation by playing needless identity politics, which Senator Wong was doing before. I thought it was quite tawdry and uncalled for— (Time expired)