Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank the members that have participated in this debate. I will take issue with a few of the silly comments that those opposite have made yet again and put the facts before the public. The government’s two key childcare measures from the 2007 budget are the primary focus of the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other 2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007. In turn, these childcare measures are key components of the government’s extra $2.1 billion investment to help Australian families with the cost of child care. I say that again: that is 21 thousand million dollars. That will take the total government expenditure on child care to some $11,000 million the next four years. This gives parents more choice about participating in the workforce and their children more opportunities for the quality of child care. This is not something that the coalition government have come new to. Since 1996 we have progressively increased childcare assistance to Australian families to the point now where it is more than double what it was in 1996. The number of places have doubled.

Through the first measure in this bill, the rate of childcare benefit will rise by an additional 10 per cent from 1 July 2007. This increase will be on top of the normal CPI indexation applying from that date, which means that families will have a 13 per cent increase on the current rate. In practical terms, what it means to a family using full-time child care is that they will receive up to an extra $20.50 per child per week subsidy for their childcare fees. More than 730,000 families who will benefit from the increase need to do absolutely nothing at all in order to receive this assistance. The Family Assistance Office will adjust their entitlements automatically. For families who are paid childcare benefit as a fee discount, their childcare service will pass the increase on through reduced fees. Families on lump sum payments instead will get a larger payment when they lodge their 2007-08 tax return.

The second childcare measure in this bill will convert the childcare tax rebate currently delivered through the tax system as a reduction in the family taxes liability into a direct payment by the Family Assistance Office. The current rebate allows families to claim up to 30 per cent of their out-of-pocket childcare expenses. That is up to $4,000 per child per year, indexed annually. However, delivering accurate payments through this tax based system has meant families have had to wait up to two years to claim their rebate. A further concern has been that families with low or no tax liability may not have been able to claim their full childcare tax rebate entitlement. Simply put, what that means is that families with such a low taxable income that they have no tax to offset this rebate against were missing out. By now putting it through Centrelink, whilst a family may have no tax liability, they will still receive this money, so it is going to be of direct assistance to very low-income earners. We expect that in addition to their childcare benefit they will receive in the order of $300, $400 or $500 per year per child. That is another $10 per week on top of the $20.50 that they may be expecting to receive for a child in full-time care. That is $30 a week less for their child care than they are currently paying. We will come to what they are actually paying in a moment, which puts a huge lie in what the Labor Party has been leading people to believe. An improved and more responsive rebate will apply from 1 July 2007. So parents and carers, once they have put in their tax return for the current year, will receive their rebate for the 2005-06 year, and then from September this year they will be receiving their rebate for the 2006-07 financial year through Centrelink.

I would like to go to some of the points made by the member for Fowler, the member for Jagajaga and the member for Richmond. They talk, as they do incessantly, about the cost. I go particularly to the member for Richmond, who rightly pointed out that the average fee for full-time child care in New South Wales is $246. We have no issue with that—that is about correct. Let us have a look at the average families in Richmond, the average families in Australia, and what they will be paying. If they have one child in care, will they actually be paying $246, as the Labor Party would have you believe? The answer is no. In fact, a couple family earning $60,000 per annum income with one child in care for 24 hours per week will have 65 per cent of those fees covered. So, on average, the fees are just under $50 a day, and 65 per cent of that will be Commonwealth funded. So $17 a day is roughly what that person would be paying: $17 for a 10-hour day—less than $2 per hour to have your child looked after with quality child care.

If a couple family is on $63,000 per annum, and perhaps they have two children in care two days a week—20 hours of care per child each week—then the actual money paid by the Commonwealth is not 65 per cent; it is in fact 70 per cent of this total. So, again, the person could be expecting to pay about $15 per day for each of those children. A single-parent family on maximum childcare benefit—a low-income earner—with one child in care for 28 hours per week would in fact have 79 per cent of that total fee picked up by the Commonwealth. And it goes right up to 81 per cent for a single-parent family with two children on maximum childcare benefit.

This demonstrates that those people who need the care the most are paying nothing like the $250 a week or $50 per day for care that the Labor Party would have us believe, and which scares parents away from going out and seeking a childcare place. They think: ‘My God! There’s no way I could afford $250 a week; that’s beyond our means.’ That is not the case. So we encourage people to talk to their family day care coordinators, their long day care providers and their before and after school care providers, because all of those services are now uncapped; there is no limitation; there is no upper ceiling; and those places are available. People need to know how much the Commonwealth government, through its $11,000 million investment in child care, picks up in order to allow parents to have the flexibility to return to the workforce.

Why did I use as examples those particular groups? It is not because they were the best; it is because they are the average. They are the groups that are most represented in child care. Only about seven per cent of the population actually has a child in child care five days a week. The average is in fact two days a week. It is important that people know these things when they hear the spurious arguments put forward by those opposite.

I will make a couple of other points about this bill. With respect to the childcare tax rebate, we have rightly pointed out that families are entitled to receive up to $4,000 per child per year. Labor have said that the reality is that families are only receiving, on average, $813. That is correct, because they only get back 30 per cent of their out-of-pocket expenses. As the member for Fowler said, if you extrapolate from that, it means that their out-of-pocket expenses turn out to be $1 per hour per child of quality child care. That is what she said. And the Labor Party want the public to believe that this is somehow too expensive. I ask: what value do you put on a quality childcare place for your child? That is what a large percentage of families are being asked to pay. The Commonwealth is picking up a huge percentage of the cost. In fact, in some cases the Commonwealth is picking up in excess of 90 per cent—up to 93 per cent—of the total cost of child care.

When the Labor Party talk about the affordability of child care, they really do mislead many in the Australian populace. In doing so, firstly, they do those people a disservice by frightening them away; and, secondly, they do the childcare industry a disservice because there are over 100,000 vacancies in child care today. These vacancies could be used by people who could then be back in the labour market. These quality childcare places are affordable because of the federal government’s childcare benefit and childcare tax rebate.

On the issue of availability, the member for Jagajaga said, as did an article in one of the Sydney papers today, that this whole claim that there are not shortages was a mockery. A particular childcare centre at Waverley was referred to. I have no doubt whatsoever that there is a waiting list for a quality childcare place at Waverley. The reality is that, if you have been in business for a long time, in any industry at all, and you have a good reputation and you have established yourself as reputable, reliable, affordable and of quality, you would expect whatever business you are in to be a strong business and that people will want your services. This particular Waverley childcare centre is no exception to that rule.

However, the facts are that within a three-kilometre radius of that childcare centre there are multiple vacancies at a number of other childcare centres. Is there a separate set of rules that applies to these other centres? No. They have to abide by the same New South Wales laws which apply to staff ratios, space available for the children, the same stipulations regarding a vibrant environment and hygiene standards. Maybe they have not been in business for as long; maybe they do not have the same reputation that comes from decades of quality service. But they have to abide by and have the same level of standards—and those centres have vacancies. Nothing whatsoever on the part of the federal government is precluding the quality childcare centre from expanding or duplicating itself. There are no artificial barriers. We have not set some sort of target and said, ‘That’s it.’ If this centre has such a long waiting list, the option is open to it to expand its services.

There are a couple of other measures in this bill which are very important and which very few people have spoken about. I refer to extending the benefit of the healthcare card to young people with disabilities and severe medical conditions. Under this very important measure, around 25,000 full-time students aged between 16 and 25 who are ex carer allowance (child) care receivers, may now apply for a healthcare card in their own right. The carer allowance (child) already applies a healthcare card in the name of the young care receiver. However, when the young person turns 16, that healthcare card is no longer available. Therefore, they will no longer have a concession card unless they qualify for a low-income healthcare card or they have access to a concession card through their qualification for an income support payment such as a disability support pension.

The new healthcare card will be valid for 12 months and will be renewable annually when young people confirm their full-time student status. This measure will make a huge difference to students with a disability or medical condition and to their families in managing their ongoing medical costs. A very practical result of this measure will be to help them continue their education in order to improve their own prospects and those of the Australian economy in general. It is the sort of thing that good economic management allows you to do—to be able to put $11,000 million into child care, to be able to provide things such as the healthcare card to people who we all know genuinely need it and who will benefit from it. These are very proud achievements of the Commonwealth government under the stewardship of Prime Minister Howard and Treasurer Costello.

I will make one last comment before I conclude. I refer again to the erroneous reporting and quoting of figures by those sitting opposite from an OECD report into Australian early childhood. The report does say that Australia underinvests in pre-primary education. That is because it ignores the participation of a large number of children in early childhood experiences gained through the quality-assured childcare system. In other words, it looks at only one layer of young children receiving this early childhood education. It does not take into account the full picture in Australia, and if it did it would have a totally different story to tell.

However, if it were to relate only to New South Wales where, interestingly enough, two of the speakers in this debate—the member for Richmond and the member for Fowler—come from, it would have to point out that that state’s Labor government spends less on preschool education than any other state of the Commonwealth. That is an appalling situation. The New South Wales government has an opportunity to remedy that next week when its budget is handed down. I will not hold my breath in the hope that a Labor government will contribute additional money to this needy area in New South Wales. Instead, it will palm off the responsibility; it will pass the buck to the Commonwealth government and the community sector and deny young children in New South Wales the right to have a preschool education like nearly 100 per cent of children in Queensland do. That is a crying shame on the part of the Labor Party. We had two members speaking on behalf of the Labor Party, crowing about the government’s underexpenditure in this area when they are condemned by the actions of their own party in their own state.

The federal government is now rolling out the childcare management system. It is improving the childcare accreditation system to ensure that directors have more face-to-face time with children and with the staff under their control. This is being done because the government wants to ensure that the children of our nation have an affordable, quality childcare place, parents have choice, the cost can be offset by the Commonwealth government’s childcare rebate and there is the assurance of a quality system of accreditation. By putting those things together, the Commonwealth shows its total and ongoing commitment to the program it established in 1996. Since then, it has more than doubled expenditure and has doubled the number of places available. It has opened up the market so there are no more restrictive regulations around where places can be and what sorts of targets can be met, which has allowed the market to flourish. That is the Howard government’s record. It is a proud record and one that we continue to build upon. I commend the bill to the House.

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