Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)

notes:

(a)

the spiralling cost of child care in many parts of Australia;

(b)

that a large number of families cannot either find or afford high quality, local child care;

(c)

the low labour force participation rates of women with dependent children in Australia, relative to many other OECD nations; and

(d)

that families cannot claim the child care tax offset until after the end of the financial year following the year when child care fees had been paid, even though the Government has all the details necessary to process the offset earlier; and

(2)

calls on the Government to:

(a)

develop policies to create more places for children in high quality care in areas where more places are needed;

(b)

recognise that planning is needed in the long day care market to correct market failures, and make it possible for parents with young children to participate in the workforce; and

(c)

implement Labor’s proposals to allow families to benefit from the child care tax offset at least a year earlier than the Government’s scheme allows.

There has been a lot of coverage in recent weeks and months about what is happening in child care in Australia. This motion is designed to give members on both sides, because there has been constructive comment from both sides, an opportunity to speak a little about the dramatic and difficult situation in child care. We have a situation where across most of the country parents have extreme difficulty finding child care for their children and, when they do find it, it is extremely difficult to afford that care. Child care is rising at a rate between four and five times that of all other goods and services. It is rising at over four times the rate of the consumer price index. In cold, hard dollar terms that means that every family with one child in full-time care is spending well over $200 a week on child care for just that child. It is pretty unusual to have just one child in care, so you might be talking of two children in care at $200 a head or you might be talking about one preschool aged child and perhaps another child in out-of-school-hours care that might cost $60 a week or so. It is an enormous slab out of the family budget.

Annual reports from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that long-day-care fees on average have increased by over 45 per cent in the last 10 years from a weekly average of about $145 in 1996 to $210 in 2004. Of course, that average relies on some parts of the country where fees are still quite low. Conversely, of course, there are many parts of the country where child-care fees are extremely high. We are hearing regularly now of child-care centres charging $110 or $115 per day for child care. You can imagine what $550 per week coming out of an average family budget does to that family’s budget.

Since 2000 the cost of child care as a proportion of disposable income has increased for all family types except for families with very high incomes. The government’s own figures show that child-care centres and family day care are becoming less affordable over time—that is, they are using up a higher proportion of a family’s income than they did 10 years ago. In 2005—just last year—the cost of child care increased by 10.2 per cent on very high figures. Petrol and vegetables were the only two items where the prices increased at a greater rate—and we all know the reasons we have seen extraordinary spikes in the price of petrol and vegetables.

One of the problems in child care is that until very recently we found it very difficult to get the government, first of all, to admit that there is a problem. I was thrilled when some government members admitted that there is a problem in this area. The former minister, Senator Patterson, said at first that there was no unmet demand in long day care. That is plainly not true. It was very obvious when parents started coming out all over the country saying, ‘Wait a second. I have been waiting for three years for child care and I still haven’t got any.’ She was then forced to admit that there were ‘hot spots’ around the country. But when we asked questions on notice about where these hot spots were and what planning measures the government was taking to address these hot spots, the government ran a mile. The then minister was saying that it was everybody’s problem but hers—that local government should be doing this and state government should be doing that.

Just recently we still had bureaucrats on behalf of the government in Senate estimates saying that planning in long day care is just not the responsibility of the federal government—that it was somebody else’s problem. I do not think that is good enough and I do not think Australian parents think that is good enough. We are yet to hear whether the new minister has other views. I look forward to him putting on the record, firstly, whether he admits that there are shortages in long day care and, secondly, what he intends to do about them. I hope we will see a more sensible approach from the new minister. He might admit what parents have been telling him the whole way along and start to work constructively with the child-care industry and with parents to work out what can be done about these shortages.

The main reason for the very high price of child care in city areas in particular is the shortages. You have a situation where the Commonwealth government subsidises child care and there is a very restricted marketplace. It is very difficult to open a new child-care centre in a built-up area, so it is very difficult for new entrants to enter the marketplace. You have subsidies on the one hand and restricted supply on the other. Of course the price is going to go up. You do not need to be a genius economist to work out that, if you put more money into the system but you do not increase supply, the cost will go up.

The number of parents out there who require child care is a contested figure, as the government do not want to keep statistics on it. They are not interested in keeping statistics. However, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed in 2005 that over 61,000 children were turned away from child-care services because there were no vacancies, an additional 30,000 children are not in child care because the fees are too high and 22,000 children could not access child care because no service was available in their area. That is one study which shows that there are at least 110,000 kids who cannot access child care.

Previous figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggested that the figure is much higher—178,000. More recently, close to one-quarter of a million parents were saying that they are not in the workforce because of child care or related issues. That gives you some notion of the magnitude of the problem. At the same time, we know that the magnitude of the problem is not just an idle problem for the parents. It is a drain on the Australian economy, because, for every one of those parents who are not in the workforce, we are missing out on their skills, their commitment to the Australian workforce and the knowledge they have. If they want to be working and we are stopping them, it is a terrible shame.

Today I want to table a suggestion that would make the issue of child care availability much easier. The government has already announced a 30 per cent rebate, which, unfortunately, is not payable for two years after the original costs of the child care are incurred. That is a real problem for Australian parents—to be forking out in 2004 hundreds of dollars a week for child care and not being able to claim any of that money until 2006. You pay the money in 2004 and get it back in 2006. Labor has previously spoken of three ways to make this 30 per cent rebate payable much sooner for Australian parents. I seek leave to table the three proposals for the 30 per cent rebate.

Leave granted.

I hope that we will have some bipartisan support for helping parents now with the very high cost and poor availability of child care in this country.

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