Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Ten minutes is a very short time to traverse some of the very significant issues touched on in this very important inquiry by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services into balancing work and family responsibilities. The inquiry took some 18 months. There were 25 public hearings in all states. Over 200 witnesses made submissions at those hearings and on top of that there were some several hundred written submissions. It is a great pity that the possibility of coming to some bipartisan conclusions at the end of this lengthy process was derailed at the very last minute, despite the magnificent efforts of the secretariat. It is a pity that the report that comes before you, even though there is consensus about a range of very important issues, came to different conclusions and recommendations. I want to touch on some of those.

Despite great social changes, women’s labour force participation continues to be far more sensitive to the presence of children than men’s, thus reinforcing the historical role of women in our society as bearing the primary responsibility for managing family life, although that is changing. Though the traditional family model of the male breadwinner at work and the female homemaker at home looking after the family now represents only the minority of couple families—around 30 per cent—it is of course women who have had to make the major adjustments in balancing work and family life. We spent a lot of time debating and considering those issues and the barriers that prevent their full participation in the workforce.

It is fair to say that, in the submissions to the inquiry about the barriers to women’s workforce participation, child care was probably the most commonly raised issue of all. Cost and availability figured highly, as did the need for greater choice and flexibility in child care. I agree with some of the proposals that were alluded to in the remarks of the chair, including the need for greater flexibility and greater choice in childcare provision. I think we have to move away from the one-size-fits-all model.

I continue to be amazed at comments made by senior Treasury officials and even comments made by both the Treasurer and the minister. They seem to imply that there is not a crisis in childcare provision. In fact, a recent Treasury report claimed:

... contrary to popular perceptions, there is not an emerging crisis in the sector; supply is generally keeping pace with demand and child care has remained affordable.

I think part of the problem that we have in responding to issues of genuine community concern is the apparent ability of bureaucrats at all senior levels to walk around with their ears closed and not hear what the community is saying. It is a pity these Treasury officials did not come along and hear what the witnesses were saying or did not read the submissions.

The point of view expressed to our inquiry backs up the recent findings of the Productivity Commission. So you have two reports—one from Treasury and one from the Productivity Commission—coming up with quite different conclusions. The Productivity Commission report released just a matter of weeks ago was certainly in accord with the views that we were hearing. As the chair of our committee said in the news the other day:

CHILDCARE is neither cheap nor easy to find, and the cost and scarcity of places keeps women out of the work force ...

She is absolutely right.

The Productivity Commission report confirms the view not only of the chair but of everybody who participated on the committee. The report found that parents of almost 200,000 children who needed additional child care were unable to get it. The most common reason parents were seeking additional child care was work related. The main reasons parents were unable to access additional formal care were: lack of available places, 33.6 per cent; the child care was not flexible enough to meet their needs, 30.7 per cent; and it was too expensive, 16.4 per cent. I urge the Treasurer and the minister to look at those findings in the Productivity Commission report because they certainly confirm the submissions received by the committee.

We know that the average fee for centre based care is now around $233 and that the average weekly fee in family day care is $214 per week—and they are averages. We know from submissions that, in the inner city at least, child care can cost as much as $110 a day. In the last couple of days, recently released ABS data shows that childcare costs have increased substantially more than the CPI—even more than the price of bananas and fuel over the past five years. We all know as politicians the pressure that fuel and fruit costs have had on the average family household budget because we hear about it constantly from our electorates. Increases in childcare costs are outstripping increases in the price of petrol and fruit.

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