Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

In rising to take note of answers given today I am going to concentrate on the answers given by Senator Scullion on child care. I say at the outset that we are very mindful of the fact that this was Senator Scullion’s first lot of questions from the opposition, but I am aware that ministers do come into this chamber with a brief for a very important reason. There is a very serious issue that has arisen today in terms of Senator Scullion’s answers. Perhaps after taking note he might want to come back into the chamber and correct the record because the ABS childcare consumer price index figure is actually based on out-of-pocket expenses. According to the ABS:

In summary, benefits available under the CCB—

that is the Commonwealth childcare benefits—

are deducted from the actual child care prices (the gross prices) in measuring the cost recorded in the CPI ...

I think I heard Minister Scullion at least twice today suggest that their difference in childcare costing was much lower because of all the benefits that are provided by this government. He went on to rattle them off. In fact, that is not the case. Those costs are based on all of those benefits being deducted. So it is most unfortunate that in the minister’s first line of questioning from the opposition he sought to mislead the Senate—I notice that question time was broadcast today—and mislead the country. Perhaps there is the need for this minister to be better briefed and to read his briefs.

Essentially, I asked Minister Scullion today if he could just simply answer one question for this chamber—that is, what was the $83.20 a week that the Treasury figures used based on? That is really quite a simple question that I thought he could have given us quite a comprehensive answer on. But the minister has failed to answer that because in fact the Treasury figures are rubbery and incorrect. This government sought to blame parents for the lack of choice, availability and affordability; it is a line that this government has run. They cannot defend their policies and they cannot defend the basis on which their costings are used and they simply blame other people. In this case they blame hardworking parents who simply want to get access to child care that they can pay for.

The truth of the matter is that the out-of-pocket childcare expenses for families have doubled under the Howard government. The ABS consumer price index figure shows that if you took March 1996 as the base, so let us say that is 100, the childcare cost index in our cities has now risen to 201.78. It has more than doubled under the Howard government. Let me reiterate that these figures are calculated on the basis of removing benefits from any government policies, so they actually do not look at the gross prices, they look at the net prices. So Senator Scullion was wrong when he gave us an answer that rolled up all of the benefits. The childcare costs do eat up more and more of a family budget. Even after the Commonwealth childcare benefits are deducted, their out-of-pocket expenses are actually skyrocketing.

This government will say, ‘But we also give a 30 per cent rebate.’ It is actually a tax offset; it is not a rebate. It is not cash that parents ever see in their hands; it is a tax offset at tax time. We know that on last year’s taxation returns parents were claiming for 2003 and 2004, so you have to wait two years to realise any benefit under the childcare tax rebate that this government gives out.

The reality in this country at the moment is that child care is in crisis. I know that in Darwin five-day-a-week long day care is averaging $220 a week. We know that childcare costs eat up about 22 per cent of the average weekly earnings. Not only is it extremely expensive and unaffordable; it is not there. Parents cannot get the childcare places that they want. They are not available. There are not enough of them in this country. Child care is not accessible and not affordable, and the fact that parents simply cannot access child care on days they want it and at a price that is not eating into their family budget does not simply make them too choosy, as this government would want to label them; it actually makes them quite desperate. We often hear that both parents have to work, and they wonder why when most of the salary of one parent is being eaten up in childcare costs. (Time expired)

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I sit behind the new Minister for Community Services and from this angle he has looked pretty good in answering questions during question time today and throughout this week. I think the minister has very adequately placed on the record the tremendous record that this government has with respect to provision of child care in Australia. It is a proud record that I think is not well attacked by a party which neglected child care disgracefully during its 13 years in office. We have doubled the number of places available to Australians in subsidised child care and we have increased the benefits available to Australians to afford child care. Our record demonstrates a growing capacity within the Australian childcare system and a greater capacity by Australians to meet what are of course rising costs in that system.

Let me take first of all the point that Senator Crossin was making about the rising costs. Of course the costs of child care are rising, and there are a number of reasons for that. One is that there has been an acknowledgement that we have not paid childcare workers enough in Australia, and a number of private and public organisations have been taking steps to redress that problem. Another is that there is more pressure on those places because today more Australians are working than ever before and unemployment is lower than ever before and, as a result, more people with young families wanting to go into the workplace also need to access child care. That is why the Australian government has boosted spending on child care so dramatically.

The points that were made by Senator Crossin and others today in question time about the unavailability of child care in particular places are such cheap politics they do not bear thinking about. Of course there will always be mismatches to some degree in any system between where particular places are and where particular need is. Nobody can create a system where those mismatches do not occur from time to time. Child care is not a mobile resource that can be loaded on the back of a truck and shipped to another city or another state at will; it has to be planned for. People need to be certified or accredited to provide those services. We need to ensure that in other respects there are the kinds of services our communities need. Sometimes the places where those services are available are not the places where the actual need occurs.

However, I think the government has done an incredibly good job at lifting the availability of child care in the places where it actually matters. The report from Treasury which was tabled recently demonstrates that average utilisation rates between 2002 and 2004 fell from 88 per cent to 85 per cent, for example, in long day care. What does that suggest? It suggests that in fact there is adequate long day care across the country by virtue of the provision made by the Australian government.

In 2005 only six per cent of parents reported having trouble accessing additional formal child care, and the share of low-income families experiencing difficulties with the cost of care has dropped from 30 per cent to 15 per cent in the years since 2000. That does not tell the story of a system in crisis; it does not tell the story of a system where affordability and accessibility are receding from Australian families. On the contrary, it suggests that the situation, although not perfect, is certainly improving.

I am particularly proud, as I said before—and the minister drew attention to this today in question time—that the Australian government has continued to increase investment in the number of childcare places. The Australian population has not doubled since 1996, but the number of childcare places available to Australians has. That says a great deal about the priorities of this government to ensure that child care is affordable to Australians.

Families earning between $30,000 and $80,000 a year with one child in full-time child care now pay less of their take-home disposable income in child care than they would have done 11 years ago under the Labor Party. That is a fact and is demonstrated very adequately. The fact is that the other figures cited in this place and elsewhere about the affordability of child care omit important information like the value of the childcare benefit and the childcare tax rebate. When those things are taken into account properly—and they are very important in making child care accessible and affordable—it paints a very different picture to that which those in this place have painted today. I am very proud of the government’s record on this matter. (Time expired)

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to take note of answers to questions today I want to go to the issue of rising interest rates and their impact in the Australian community. In the last few days, new figures have been released concerning mortgage repossession figures in New South Wales. These are important figures because they are an indication of the stress that many families are under as a consequence of the higher interest rates that we have seen over the last five years under this Liberal government. In New South Wales, the repossession figures from 2004 through to 2006 have increased by some 75 per cent. I have here the figures since 1990. What is interesting to note is that they were at their lowest over this period in 1994, when there were approximately 1,300. They were stable through until 1998, when they increased to around 2,000, and held steady until the year 2004, when they started to increase significantly.

Why is that the case? Obviously, there is a link between increasing interest rates under the Howard Liberal government and repossession rates. There has been a long-established nexus between the two figures. The reality on the ground in New South Wales—and I am sure that my colleague Senator Hutchins, who lives in Western Sydney, will be able to talk in more detail about this—is that this has a devastating impact on families when rising interest rates force families to sell. They do not just lose their home but have enormous general financial stress placed upon them.

I asked Senator Minchin today for an explanation of this in light of the promise made by the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, at the last election that he would keep interest rates low and that interest rates would not increase under a Liberal government. That was the promise. We heard it time and time again from the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, at the last election. I have asked Senator Minchin about rising interest rates on a number of occasions in the Senate chamber since the last election. What is his defence for the breach of this fundamental promise made by Mr Howard at the last election that the Howard Liberal government would keep interest rates lows? What is his excuse? It is generally a historical comparison with the years of the Labor government. Comparisons can be valid from time to time but, if we are going to reflect on history, we have never yet had an explanation from Senator Minchin about why interest rates reached 22 per cent when the current Prime Minister was last Treasurer. If we want to talk about history, let us not just compare today with the period when Labor was in power but also with the period when Mr Howard was last Treasurer of this country, when interest rates reached a devastating 22 per cent.

But my argument would be this: we are now 10 years on from the Labor government. We know that the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, is a clever politician—he is very sharp and clever. We know that the Prime Minister is very good at pulling out simple themes in order to provide an excuse for things that go wrong on this government’s watch. But 10 years? The government have to take some responsibility for things that go wrong on their watch. It is now 10 years since they were elected, and the government simply will not take responsibility. When things are good, they take all the credit; when something goes wrong, the states are to blame or the old Labor government of 10 years ago is to blame. This is a Prime Minister and a government that are running out of puff and running out of ideas and they will not take responsibility. This is an important area that impacts on families. We have seen four increases in interest rates since the last election and eight in the last five years. That represents a fundamental breach of the promise and commitment Mr Howard gave quite solemnly at the last election that interest rates would remain low under a Liberal government. We have another example of the stress and hurt rising interest rates under this government are causing Australian families in our community. (Time expired)

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the opportunity to start off where Senator Sherry left off—talking about rising interest rates. Under Labor, we had unemployment at record levels and we had interest rates at record levels. As Senator Humphries said, the reason that we have increased demand for child care is because we have so many more people in the workforce because we have created jobs by running the economy efficiently and by reducing the future burden of the children who are now in child care. We paid back $96 billion of Labor’s debt. We are putting money into a Future Fund now to pay for unfunded Commonwealth superannuation to make sure that those children’s futures are secure. What we have done is to increase childcare places. When Labor were in government, they did not have sufficient childcare places and they were appallingly distributed, and there was a large demand for it.

There are still some states that need to lift their games in terms of regulation of the childcare industry. In particular, my home state of Victoria needs to do a lot more than it has done. It has been talking about it for a long while. Let me say that it is not just the Commonwealth government which is responsible for child care. The states can also play a part. Some states have started to look at the possibility, for example, of using state facilities—for example, areas within a state school—to co-locate child care. When I was minister, I constantly called upon the state ministers for planning and the state ministers for education to see where they could assist in child care.

One of the other things that we have heard is Labor crowing from the rooftops about their new education policy for children. Mr Rudd is out there. We saw Mr Latham down in the sandpit with the children; we have seen Mr Rudd. Being in the kindergarten or in the childcare centre always makes a very good photo. But what we find is that some of the states are doing appallingly on kindergarten and the provision of early childhood education, which is the responsibility of the states. For every child who cannot get a kindergarten place, what do we see? We see an increased demand for child care. The Labor states are falling down on the provision of kindergarten for every child of four, with a large percentage of children failing to even get one day of kindergarten. Parents who are working then seek childcare places. Do not put all the blame on the Commonwealth. A large amount of money has gone into child care. We have increased the places. You can talk about money going in, but there are increases in CPI; but when you talk about the actual places you get the real picture.

There were 306,000 early childhood places under Labor. We now have 600,000 places. That is almost double the number. As Senator Humphries said, the number of children being born and needing child care has not doubled. There has not been a doubling in the number of children. We have seen a significant increase—almost a doubling—of the number of childcare places available under Labor. We have seen an escalation in the number of after school hours places. Parents concerned about their older children at school needing before- and after-school care say they want those places uncapped. But Labor has failed to commit to keeping those uncapped places for long day care. Labor has a long way to go in developing a policy. Rabbiting on about early childhood education without putting the pressure on the states to actually do something about it is no sort of policy.

To encourage women to go back into the workforce we have seen increased funding through the JET scheme for mothers undertaking training at, for example, TAFE. There are additional childcare places for them. Again, Labor has failed to talk about that. The Labor Party fails to acknowledge that we have a new childcare management scheme that will ensure up-to-date and accurate information is available on supply and demand and use of child care. As Senator Humphries has already said, there is spare capacity within existing childcare centres at a national level. There are some people who do not want their children to go to particular childcare centres. That is their choice, but they will not always get the sort of child care—for example, community child care—they want where they want it. But there are places.

Only six per cent of parents have reported trouble accessing additional formal child care. I can tell you where they will be: they will be in Lilyfield and Glebe in Sydney and they will be in Port Melbourne in Victoria—areas where you have regentrification of suburbs with high land values. There is a difficulty for childcare providers to find places to build childcare centres. That is why I have said that it would assist if the states could look at places where they could provide centres too. We have seen them in Victoria: there is a kindergarten located at the base of a high-rise development block. There are spaces if states want to put their minds to it as well.

For the Labor Party to come in here and to be critical of child care is just appalling. If you look at their record, Labor failed parents. They failed them on jobs, they failed them on interest rates, they failed them on benefits for families and they failed them on child care. (Time expired)

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to take note in particular of the answer given by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Minchin, to a question put to him by Senator Sherry. Last Friday I had the opportunity to address a seminar put on by retirees concerned about what the future holds for their grandchildren. I was among a number of speakers who addressed the seminar, which had about 40 or 50 people at it. One of the other people who addressed the seminar was Michael Crews, who is an officer of the Exodus Foundation in Sydney. I know Michael and his father quite well. Michael made the point that, from his experience and from facts that he is well aware of, any one of us is only one illness or two pay packets away from poverty. As I said, he gave that address on the basis of his experience with that marvellous foundation. It was with distress that I became aware, as we all did, of the figures released yesterday containing the rise of mortgage repossessions in my state, New South Wales. I want to particularly refer to the area where I live, out in Western Sydney.

One of the real estate agents in Western Sydney, who is on the Reserve Bank board’s liaison network, said that they had reported a 400 per cent increase from the previous year in mortgagee sales. That sounds an astounding figure. I will bring it down and make it clearer. That represents 25 homes in Penrith that were repossessed. That is a 400 per cent increase on the previous year, when six homes were repossessed. In that 12-month period, 18 families had effectively been kicked out. I am sure you and I, Mr Deputy President, are well aware of the distress, the suffering and the pain that is caused by these actions which have occurred. The dislocation of families that inevitably results from what has come about is something that we should all be ashamed of and attempt to do something about.

I was disturbed at the fashion in which the minister answered Senator Sherry’s question. I have always felt that whenever Senator Minchin replies to a question from us he actually attempts to answer it, unlike other ministers. However, today we were beaten up by facts and figures that I felt had no connection to what we were trying to highlight—and that was the fact that families are in distress.

Why are they in distress? Because since 2004 there have been four interest rate rises, I think it is. That is what is happening out in the western suburbs of Sydney. People are being kicked out of their homes. That figure of 25 may not represent many people, but that is a significant increase from the previous year. I am well aware, like many of my other colleagues who live in those areas, that the home prices have been reduced significantly in that 12-month period. I am also aware of other stresses occurring in families as a result of the actions, or inactions, of this federal government. I am disturbed, as I said earlier, at the cold and heartless manner in which Senator Minchin answered Senator Sherry’s question. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.