Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Chisholm has informed the House that it is the government that allocates the places for child care. I suspect that her adviser may have handed her her aged care speech on her way down here, because nothing could be further from the truth. We make child care affordable for Australians—no matter how much anecdotal evidence is rolled out today from making a phone call here and there. One can close one’s eyes to family day care completely and focus purely on long day care places. One can phone one’s community sector and almost ignore the entire private sector in day care. The member who preceded me is welcome to do that, but that does not do this debate any service whatsoever.

There can be no escape from the simple facts of affordability. While a rise of about nine per cent in the cost of child care for one single year has been quoted, the 30 per cent child care tax rebate has been completely excluded. There has been a child-care benefit that has made Australians $2,000 a year better off in terms of affording child care, particularly those with the lowest incomes. People in my electorate of Bowman hear what is said by the member for Sydney, who obviously exists in a rarefied atmosphere between the Opera House and the mardi gras route, but she cannot put an articulate argument that the situation for child care around Australia is reflected in what we see somewhere down near Chinatown or George Street in Sydney. It is patently different, and it is an incendiary comment to say that those problems exist right across the country.

In reality, child care has become more affordable over time. The places created have far exceeded the number of women who have gone back to the workforce. I do not think anyone in this chamber would apologise for one moment that women are able to return to the workforce. As I remember it, the fundamental right of every woman was to be able to return to the workforce. And never has that goal been more successfully achieved than over the last decade. We have seen the female participation rate go from 59 per cent to 65 per cent. We have seen a 25 per cent increase in the number of women aged between 19 and 64 who are re-entering the workforce. The figures are staggering—to the point where, I am sure, even those on the other side do not believe them. We are talking about 909,000 new jobs being created for women since this government came to power—380,000 full-time jobs and 529,000 part-time jobs. I point out to everyone listening that these figures were completely incomprehensible 10 years ago and could not even have entered the wildest imaginations of the government that preceded ours.

The content of this motion really speaks to just how out of touch are some of the views from within the central couple of kilometres of Sydney with those of the other 19 million Australians, who live in completely different circumstances. I am sure that anecdotally there would be a temptation to ignore the 72,000 family day care places that have been created. There could be no better timing than the press release from Andrea Ferris of my own local council, who congratulates—and this is today, not yesterday; it is not some sort of concocted arrangement whereby this press release was dropped out to suit today’s debate—people like Lone Robson of Birkdale and Kim McIlwain and Cheryl Gould from the Redlands area, who have given family day care services for over a decade. These are services about which we can hold our heads up high and say that these are options for parents the other side simply ignores.

The claim that fees are increasing is a reflection that in certain areas there is a demand for child care. In other areas there are additional places that are unmet. Let us imagine for a moment, as I close, what would happen if we transferred the responsibility for laying out child-care centres around the country to nothing better than the government—or, worse still, to those on the other side of the chamber. Can I for a moment imagine that there has not been at one stage on the other side of the chamber a discussion between the member for Sydney, who has moved this motion, and the member for Lalor? I am talking about pharmacy geographic laws and the policy of government trying to decide where pharmacies go. Or worse still, can we do any better than aged care? Does the policy of having aged care committees determining where aged care places go make aged care any less of a challenge than child care? The simple answer to that question is that it is no better done than by the sectors themselves. The child-care sector know where child-care centres belong, and they do that job far better than one could ever hope to do on the other side.

This motion today—well meaning as I am sure it is—speaks of the lack of a big picture on the other side when it comes to child care. And it speaks of the great disservice to quality debate in this place when those opposite take isolated examples from specific communities, in particular Sydney, without a greater view and an understanding that, for the great majority of Australians, child care is available like never before. (Time expired)

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