Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

All right! The member for Indi has understood that point. I am glad to have that reinforced. People look for child care locally either near where they live or near where they work. It is therefore absolutely possible for ABC Learning—or indeed for any childcare operator in this country—to say in respect of one centre that they do not have as many children in it as they would like and in respect of others that there are crying shortages in other parts of the country where people are looking for child care. Obviously, the government’s promise of introducing up to 260 new childcare centres was aimed at the following things: increasing supply in those parts of the country where people are short of centres and short of places; secondly, developing those new childcare centres in locations of convenience to parents. Most particularly we have looked at near or on school grounds so that parents can avoid the dreaded double drop-off and if they have children of childcare age and of school age they can have them dropped off in the one location.

Opposition members jeer at that as if that is something extraordinary—that a hardworking mum or a hardworking dad would want to drop their school-age children and their children of childcare age off at the same location. But let me tell you that that just goes to show how out of touch the Liberal Party is because there are mums and dads right around the country that would prefer that convenience.

See this speech in context