Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

And this is coming from an opposition who says that our $600 is not real money. On one hand they are saying that $600 is not real money, and on the other hand they are saying: ‘Let’s go negative gearing on child care to fix the problem. If we put in some new bureaucrats to get more statistics, we will fix the problem.’

Since the year 2000, when the ATO started giving private rulings on fringe benefits tax, we have seen an explosion in corporate provided child-care places. We have seen a number of tax rulings coming to a general ruling by the ATO that, where the child-care centre is largely controlled by the employer, as in the Esso case, fringe benefits tax will not be payable on the child care provided to employees. There has been such an explosion of corporate child care that I understand even Woolies and Coles—two of my biggest scratching posts for child care—are looking to take advantage of this state of affairs within the ATO and provide child-care options for their employees, especially now that 24-hour trading is demanded by customers.

Corporate child care is just one potential option. And who introduced FBT? The members opposite. They never put anything forward to say, ‘Let’s remove some of the roadblocks to employers being involved in child-care solutions.’ Of the females that I know, the most successful ones to have managed the balance between work and family life have done so with a cooperative, understanding and fair dinkum employer. Let us remove the roadblocks for employers and lay down some incentives to get employers involved in child-care solutions—not more bureaucrats and not more institutionalised long day care centres—if there is a need. There is a multitude of options that come to bear on this.

Mothers also choose an extraordinary number of options to deal with child care for their children during the years that they need it. One of the most popular these days for the women in my electorate who earn less than $40,000 is the grandparents. They work part time and they use grandparents on a free basis.

We need to look at incentives for employers to get involved in those solutions that are acceptable to parents. We need to look at employers taking advantage of the state regulations so that if the parent is on the premises there are fewer regulations for operating a child-care centre. Those opposite have failed to address that much can be done by the state governments and by the labor councils.

A lot of child-care centres in the inner city area of the electorate of Sydney are going the way of squash courts. Squash is no longer a great sport in Australia, simply because the privately run squash courts got squeezed for space and eventually all of those premises could be used for more profitable means. So, if you are complaining about $100 a place, you have to do something about zoning areas, restricting those zonings and keeping them confined to child-care spaces or putting in a ruling that, when you free up areas for commercial space in the CBD, developers need to provide so many square metres for a child-care centre. That is the only way to make the cost of child care stay within the reach of inner city users. The simple fact is that using premises commercially will far outweigh their use as a child-care centre.

This government is doing an enormous amount in terms of child care and we will continue to do more, despite the fringe picking done by the shadow minister. (Time expired)

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