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

Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, like you, I have been in this parliament for 10 years. We came in together—at the same time, on the same day. We were elected to this place. At that time, in 1996, we as a government had a $90 billion debt. We as a government were paying $8 billion each year in interest, which was the total of what we spent on schools and hospitals. Today, with these appropriation bills, that $8 billion in interest payments has been eliminated. We no longer pay interest. We are a net worth government. We have $18 billion in the Future Fund. We have the proceeds of Telstra yet to go in, and I am relying on Sol Trujillo to get that share price back up to $7 so that the Future Fund is even more substantial from the sale of Telstra.

We are looking forward to the surplus from this budget and the surpluses of future budgets from this government going into that Future Fund so that, by the year 2020, we can fund completely our superannuation liabilities. That means we are a net worth government. We are a government in control, with capital that we can push out into the economy when the economy turns. Although we have had a remarkable resources boom, I believe it is on the turn. As with all booms, there is a bust. I believe that, over the next two years, things in the economy will be a lot rougher. But we as a government are in a position to invest and make good any shakiness in the economy.

Whilst we have been getting all of these things in order in the 10 years that we have been here, we also have seen substantial tax cuts. Every year that we reduced the amount of interest that we paid, we could reduce the amount of tax we had to take from the taxpayer and give back to the taxpayers of Lindsay and Herbert. Today, with these bills, someone earning between $25,000 and $75,000 will be paying 30c in the dollar in tax. That is pretty much the majority of people in my electorate. They know that, when you are earning between $25,000 and $75,000, it is 30c in the dollar in tax. It does not matter; they are not going to be going over. In 1996, they probably went through three different tax brackets—42, 45 et cetera. It was an incredibly confusing personal income tax system, and there were major disincentives to taking an extra job, because you really did not see it. Once your family tax benefits cut out or your government family payments cut out and your tax rate went up, there was very limited gain in taking on extra responsibility and moving into more productivity and being of more value to your employer.

Today, with these bills, the family tax benefit will end at $40,000 rather than $33,000. Large families now include families with three kids. Believe me, with two young children at school, we look at the mums with three kids and go: ‘Wow, that’s a big family! How do you organise it?’ Everything is set up around two kids: most of our vehicles, holidays—everything that is marketed to mum. It is about mum, dad and the two kids. So, when you have a third child, it is difficult. With this budget, we recognise that and give the large-family supplement to those Australian women who have more than two children, who take that extra step in their commitment to their family, their children, their husbands, their new partners.

Importantly for me, we did something on child care. We uncapped child-care places right across the board. Where we uncapped them, we have seen an explosion of child-care centres. Family day care and out of school hours care have been uncapped. Hopefully this will lead to further family day care places and an OOSH program in every school. I say ‘hopefully’ because it is difficult to recruit family day care mums, especially in my electorate. We are losing family day care mums at the rate we are recruiting them because of the complexity of being a family day care mum. You almost have to be a centre supervisor. It used to be that you were a great mum; you did a good job and everyone else recognised that by the product. The word was basically in your children—you had raised a couple of good kids and parents would come along and say: ‘You’re a good mum. I like your kids; I like your home. Can you look after my kids in a family environment?’ In that environment they are around your feet in the kitchen and they are exposed to dangers such as a stove or a boiling kettle. They are around your balcony where they are exposed to dangers such as heights. They use stairwells. The glass that you have is clearly glass; it is not shatterproof glass.

Today, for very valid reasons, family day care has been affected by legislation which has regulated where and how in relation to the safety of children in other people’s homes. In family day care today, kids are largely kept in a restricted area of the home, away from dangers such as stoves. You need shatterproof glass. Kids need to be kept away from stairs. Most mums now have an area of their home which meets the regulation, and the children are kept in that. It is not quite the same family day care as it was, which is a loss because I think a lot of mothers like that family option. It is a very successful option. The family day care mum becomes an integral part of a woman’s support network. The children adore their family day care mum. It works up to be a very special relationship between the families and often goes on long after the children have gone to school. It is an important mix. I think we really need to look at some of the reasons and how we can expand that option, because it also offers some critical options to shiftworkers. Family day care is one area that offers shiftworkers some scope which is not available in long day care.

The opposition just carry on and on about long day care: ‘Let’s put long day care in every school.’ A long day care centre in every school would eliminate all of our current private providers. It would cost governments an enormous amount of money to operate, whereas currently the private sector is running a very efficient, positive and qualitative industry that is meeting women’s needs. It is still only one of the solutions that women need.

I was very pleased to see Peter Debnam, our opposition leader in the parliament in New South Wales, come out with a very comprehensive preschool policy that has put enormous pressure on the Labor government to fund its preschools. The Iemma government has come out with an early announcement for next year’s budget about preschool funding. As usual from a Labor government, it is being funded from a deficit. That is my concern. I know that our party can deliver child care substantially to the women of Australia with a net worth for all of Australia, without taking ourselves into deficit, debt and interest payments. Eight billion dollars in interest payments—this is what Labor is offering. It is running around in the child-care debate promising, willy-nilly, unthought-out, uncosted policies in the hope that it can grasp government from mothers who are feeling the pressure in terms of cost, accessibility and general ease of use. Mothers do not use just one option. In 12 months we use many forms of child care; we have an extensive support network that allows us to deliver to employers, deliver to our parents who may need care and deliver jobs to each of our children.

There is a joke in my family where Dad comes home and he sits down and says, ‘Mum, I’ve got a problem,’ and he gets to cogitate on that while he solves this problem. Mum comes home and if she has a problem it is because the kids have all delivered a problem to her: it is drama tomorrow and they need an outfit; it is sports day and this has not been fixed or they need a button sewn back on; little Jakey is going to that child-care centre, and you would like to go with him because he has got school this way; we have got netball tomorrow; and this reader or the library books have to be in—it is incredibly complex. So by the time you have got your kids to bed and everything sorted, and you have done all the other things that need to be done in the family, when do you get time to resolve your workplace problems? We need to really integrate the workplace and the family areas.

I commend Working Mother to the House, a magazine in America that regularly lists the 100 best companies in America for a woman to work for. Some of these companies are in Australia, and I challenge the companies of Australia to have a look at that list and at what their American counterparts are doing and to look at delivering those types of services into the homes in Australia. My personal favourite is Avon. Seventy-five per cent of the staff are women, including 52 per cent of the executive staff, and 56 of the highest-paid jobs in Avon are held by women. That is an outstanding position. Of course it has on-site child care; I do not think you even get on this list without on-site child care. These companies deliver a number of other options into the home such as flexitime and working from home. There are even some companies that deliver online and pay for your broadband in your home to allow telecommuting. They offer people the opportunity to go home and wait for the repair man to come. They offer in-home nanny services when your children are sick. There are some really innovative policies that we need to encourage businesses in Australia to get on board with. Therefore I am looking for our government’s second instalment in this area to release employers from fringe benefits tax when they deliver family benefits to their employees.

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