Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Going to the specifics of the benefits that this budget is delivering for working families, first and foremost it is delivering more than $46 billion of tax cuts to working families over the next four years to really help take the financial pressure off family budgets. We are delivering to working families with assistance with child care, which certainly is something that so many working families facing increasing costs of child care will welcome. We are going to increase the childcare tax rebate from the current level of 30 per cent to 50 per cent—so half of working families’ out-of-pocket childcare costs will be met as a result of this budget.

We are going to double the Commonwealth financial counselling scheme to provide more assistance for those families who get into financial difficulty. The Minister for Health and Ageing has delivered for working families a new teen dental health plan, something that so many working families will benefit from as their children grow older. The education tax rebate is something else that will help working families with the increasing costs of education.

The Minister for Housing, of course, has delivered for working families with a $2.2 billion package of housing affordability measures that will help with the very serious pressures that families are facing with the cost of housing. Most importantly from my point of view, for 19,000 carers who are really doing it hard we are delivering almost $300 million to help carers of profoundly disabled children. The eligibility rules for carer payments at the moment are far too restrictive and insensitive, and under this government they will change.

Unlike the former government, this government is about making sure that it delivers the support and certainty that families need and making sure that funding is responsibly targeted to those who need it. That is why we are also introducing as key measures in the government’s fight against inflation two new income tests, one to family tax benefit part B and the other to the baby bonus, making sure that these benefits go to those families who need it most. What is important is that these measures alone deliver $900 million of savings over the next four years to help in this government’s fight against inflation.

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