Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

I am extremely happy to support this motion, which, as other speakers have pointed out, is long overdue. As all of us know, this fine Parliament House, this marvellous facility, contains a bar, a gym, a pool, a theatre, a billiards room and a clinic but it does not yet contain a childcare centre even though most modern workplaces with some 3,000 staff would have one. We here in this place on both sides of the parliament have always prided ourselves in providing a best practice workplace because we are best practice employers.

It strikes me as very hard for the mothers of young children to be physically separated for long periods of time from their children and without accessible child care it is very hard for new mothers to hold down significant jobs. If we are serious about giving women real choices—if we want women to have the choice of being both mothers and workers rather than just one or the other—we have to encourage the provision of accessible child care.

It seems to me that those who regard motherhood as the highest possible vocation should particularly support accessible child care lest its absence keep motherly women from the workforce or even, in the case of parliament, disenfranchise motherly women—or perhaps disenfranchise conservative women, which is the last thing that I would personally want to see happen. I would hate to see conservative women decline to serve in this parliament because they feel that it is impossible to be a member of this parliament and also to give their children the care and attention that they deserve. Good quality child care is not an issue just for mothers. It is certainly not an issue just for women; it is an issue for everyone and, if we want this society of ours to be fair to everyone and to offer as many opportunities for everyone as it should, accessible child care is absolutely critical.

I certainly would want to acknowledge the very good work of so many people in bringing things to this happy pass. I particularly acknowledge the work of the member for Sydney, who has been a long-time advocate of child care in this building. I would also like to acknowledge the work of my friend and former colleague the former member for Lindsay. This childcare centre almost certainly will not be named the Jackie Kelly centre, but I rather feel it should be because it was her ceaseless badgering of the coalition party room, even to the point of threatening to vote against the budget if this measure did not go ahead, that finally brought us to this happy pass. Of course, she would say that the centre should be larger and should offer a wider range of facilities to a greater number of families; nevertheless, as she would acknowledge from her political retirement, it is a very significant step in the right direction.

I have to say, I am very pleased to be at one with the government on a childcare issue. I think child care has been a bit of a difficult issue for the government over the last few weeks because of the significant increases in childcare fees, notwithstanding ‘child care watch’ as promised by the government. Nevertheless, this is not an occasion to quibble over wider policy. This is an issue to celebrate the fact that things do change and, even in this building, they do change for the better. I know that the member for Lindsay often felt when talking to senior colleagues in the former government that getting them to focus on this issue was like pulling teeth without anaesthetic; nevertheless, eventually they relented—they agreed to this and thank God it is now happening.

I am all in favour of grumpy old men. I think they have a place in the wider world and I think they do much good, but they should not be allowed to stand in the way of good women having a go. That is why it is so important that the parliament is doing what it is tonight. I defer to no-one in this building in my general conservatism and in my support for traditional role models, but, if we want modern women to be mothers and if we want modern mothers to make as much impact on the world as we would like, we need to have facilities like the one that this motion is going to bring about. I commend the motion to the House and again I commend all those people who have striven so hard and for so long to bring this about.

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