Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

There is much discussion amongst the budget deliberations of families and the effect on families, but let us not forget that there are many government decisions pre budget affecting families, some in a negative way. In my area of responsibility as shadow minister, I feel compelled to make comment yet again on the bungled way in which the government has handled the whole ABC Learning Centres mess. We remember Ms Gillard’s promise that childcare centres cannot close in this country without 30 days notice. In her own electorate of Lalor, in Altona North a centre closed with six days notice. I have been contacted by a very distressed but eloquent mother detailing some of the problems and explaining that no parents, children, carers or affected community members were contacted, that this centre was fully occupied and recently renovated, that there is a demand for child care in that area, that all they had was a real estate agent who came to value the property and that no-one came to assess the quality of care in spite of the fact that there is an obvious market. In fact, to add to the insult, the correspondence they received from PPB listed one of the centres that could be used as an alternative form of care for parents who had their children in the Altona North centre. They listed one of the centres where this very woman has had a child on a waiting list for 3½ years.

This is the sort of mess we find when the government has said time and time again it is working ‘hand in glove with the administrators in this matter’. If it is working hand in glove with the administrators, it is either being deceptive or deliberately allowing PPB to run this less than satisfactory and quite embarrassing—

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