Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Families are the foundation of our society. As Edmund Burke described, they are the 'little platoons' that shape our communities and our nation. Former prime minister John Howard said that a strong family is the greatest social welfare system that mankind has ever devised. This is not just a philosophical worldview. Safe, stable and responsive caregiving in early childhood is foundational to healthy development. Secure attachment strengthens a child's self-esteem, emotion regulation and the capacity to form healthy relationships across their life. They are more likely to grow up with better mental health, stronger ability to cope with challenges and better social skills. The earliest relationships in a person's life matter deeply. If we truly care about the country that we leave to the next generation, then we must support and help families raise their children today.

I'm reminded of the adage that we are but dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, able to see further only because of the efforts, sacrifice and wisdom of those who came before. Our responsibility, then, is clear. We must become those giants for the next generation. Strengthening families now is how we will leave a positive legacy for those who follow. Each family has its own circumstance, history and beliefs, and the way that they care for their children reflects that diversity. Some rely on parental care in the early years; others rely on grandparents or extended family; and many use centre based childcare, either part-time or full-time and oftentimes alongside those informal arrangements.

Just over half of children aged zero to five, 51.2 per cent, are not in formal care, while 48.8 per cent are in care. This complexity matters. It tells us that there is no single model of care that fits every family. Parents deserve real choice. It goes without saying that for you to have a choice, you need at least two viable options to decide between. Currently, the only choice that this government provides and which they're offering parents is subsidised and formal child care. Even that option is increasingly constrained. Before the subsidy is applied, families face costs of around $36,000 a year for full-time care. The hourly subsidy sits it at $14.63, yet more than 39 per cent of childcare services charge above this subsidised amount. For every cent over the cap, there is no subsidy at all. This leaves parents having to pay the full cost.

It's impossible to separate this conversation from the broader cost-of-living pressures that families are facing. Over the four years of this Albanese Labor government childcare costs have risen by around 14 per cent. At the same time, household budgets are under extraordinary strain and we are seeing those pressures mount literally daily at the moment. Today around 45 per cent of a typical couple's income is required just to service a mortgage. Families are making the impossible choice between housing, work, care and wellbeing.

Raising a child is not policy abstraction; it is a deeply personal responsibility. Infants and young children rely on stable, attuned relationships with familiar caregivers to develop emotional security and regulate stress. Public policy should support parents to make decisions that fit their lives and their child's needs, not limit those choices or funnel families into a single model regardless of circumstance. Child care plays an important role in this. It's essential infrastructure, supporting workforce participation for parents and providing children with valuable learning and social opportunities.

It's possible that high-quality early childhood educators can form strong, positive relationships with children, but the research is also very clear that continuity matters. Stable relationships are critical to a child's sense of security. High staff turnover in early childhood settings can disrupt these relationships and undermine the consistency that children need for healthy social and emotional development.

Quality and workforce stability in our early childhood education settings are important, yet we know workforce shortages remain one of the greatest challenges facing the sector, particularly in regional and remote communities. At a recent press conference in Derby, in Western Australia, the WA minister for early childhood education was asked directly how the government would ensure that there were enough staff to run the new centre up there in the Kimberley. Her overly simplistic response was: 'The solution lies in free TAFE courses in areas of work that we know are in high demand.' Of course increasing access to training is important—we all acknowledge that—but we cannot pretend that that is the simple solution to the problem. Making courses free does not guarantee that people will enrol and does not guarantee that they will complete the training, and it certainly does not guarantee that they will relocate to or remain in communities in remote parts of our country, like Derby.

There are childcare deserts in this country, for complex underlying reasons. In many regional and remote communities, families are travelling extraordinary distances to access care, in some cases up to 200 kilometres in a round trip. This is not a workforce pipeline issue alone; it's a retention issue, an attraction issue and a system design issue. Vulnerable children are often the ones who fall through the structural gaps of a system that is most impacted by this oversight. Evidence consistently shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit the most from attending high-quality childcare and preschool programs, yet it's the same cohort of children that receive very limited additional funding, if any, and too often experience the greatest disruptions to this care. Without a stable workforce we cannot deliver the stable relationships these children need, and without those stable relationships we cannot deliver the developmental outcomes the evidence so clearly tells us matter.

Safety must also be at the centre of this discussion. Yesterday the Senate Education and Employment References Committee tabled its report into the quality and safety of early childhood education and care. It was established following the disturbing cases of child abuse in childcare settings. The inquiry heard extensive evidence from parents, educators, regulators and experts. Parents should be able to trust that their children are safe when they are placed in care. The report shows that confidence has been undermined by real, systemic failures, which demand an urgent response from the Albanese government.

The committee has recommended the government prioritise closer integration between law enforcement and existing child safety reforms, supported by practical measures such as better integration of the Working with Children Check register with police intelligence, the use of facial recognition to identify victims more quickly, stronger information sharing between police and regulators, and clear guidance on the appropriate use of CCTV to protect children, without unnecessary surveillance.

The whole-of-system approach is critical. Without it there is a real risk that offenders will be able to exploit the cracks in the regulatory system and go unnoticed. There should be no stone unturned when it comes to protecting our children in early education and care settings. With reports of multiple early learning centres suspended in just the past 24 hours, due to serious safety concerns, it's clear that the issue is far from resolved. Getting the basics right means that every child is safe, every parent has confidence and every childcare provider is held to the highest standard. This is all about the long-term future of our nation.

This is not just a social issue but an economic one. Research from Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman shows high-quality early childhood investment delivers significant long-term returns through improved education, employment and health outcomes as well as reduced crime. This is what nation building looks like. It starts at very early years of life. It's at the heart of the choice in child care. It's about supporting families. It's about recognising that parents know their children best. It's about ensuring that policy respects that knowledge, supports that responsibility and provides genuine choice, because, when we strengthen families, we strengthen our communities. When we strengthen our communities, we strengthen our nation.