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

As the shadow minister for early childhood education, amongst other things, I rise in this debate to provide the coalition’s general support for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009. The bill essentially provides for a number of what seem to be general housekeeping amendments to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999. The Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care has generally already outlined the main changes being made by this bill, and the coalition will support it.

I would like to have a closer look, though, at one specific change being made. That is the amendment that will enforce the provision in the bill which imposes civil penalties on childcare operators who breach their obligations in relation to when and how they notify their intention to cease operations, specifically breaching the rule that requires 30 days notice to be given before a centre can close. This is an important amendment.

We have seen over the past few months a situation where a large operator, ABC Learning Centres, collapsed leaving many thousands of parents, carers and, most importantly, children facing great uncertainty. They faced a situation where they did not know if their centre would close, change ownership or remain open. For many families with children in care this type of situation did cause great deal of stress. In a very real and personal sense, this stress was brought home to me recently when I was contacted by parents from the ABC Learning Centre at Altona North in the electorate Gellibrand, located just five minutes from the electoral boundary of the Minister for Education and member for Lalor, Julia Gillard.

ABC Altona North was one of the ABC Learning Centres which was deemed to be unviable under the ABC Learning business model. It became part of the 241 centres in the ABC2 Group which was controlled by the government appointed receivers, PPB, and for which a buyer would hopefully be found. Last month, on 15 April, PPB announced that, of the original 241 centres in the ABC2 Group, buyers had been found for 210. Altona North was listed as ‘new operator identified—negotiations continuing’. On 5 May it was announced that Sydenham Preschool Trust would take over the Altona North centre and operations would continue as normal. However, on 8 May, parents at the centre were informed that the centre would close as of 15 May. Parents were given seven days notice to find alternative care arrangements. An email that I received from one of the mothers at the centre sums up her distress. She said—and this is not a full quote:

The closure of this centre and the provision of one weeks notice represent an exceedingly unacceptable situation. I fail to understand how it can be allowed to happen in this country.

The process that was undertaken to reach this decision has been thoroughly unacceptable:

• Neither the parents, children, careers nor affected community members, that are part of this creche have been involved in this decision or contacted to provide their opinion/thoughts. To make a decision about the future of this creche based solely on property value, head account, and financial records is to treat this as solely a business transaction and to ignore the human element.
• Even in reaching a commercial business decision, options such as our willingness to pay higher fees or contribute time and other resources have not been canvassed.
• The centre is fully occupied and recently renovated. I cannot accept that there is no means to profitably sustain its operation. I suspect that it has been decided that it not sufficiently profitable to continue; which is a level of greed that should not be tolerated in this society.

Communication throughout the period has been inadequate:

• The only means of communication provided has been printed emails left in my son’s pigeon hole at creche. Decisions have been made that have a huge emotional, financial and logistical impact on my family and not a single person responsible or involved in this process has had the decency to address this issue with me in person. No one has had the integrity or strength of character to talk to me directly.
• Based on the assurances given in the communications provided to us we have made decisions that have now put us in a worse position. We have rejected places at other creches where we would be happy to send him; where our waiting list position had finally resulted in an offer for care, and we are no longer on the waiting list.

The alternative childcare options and support provided during this process have not been adequate:

• That someone could consider one week’s notice sufficient to allow a family to make such a significant change is absurd. To think that I’d be happy to place my child in any child care centre is unacceptable.

That is just a glimpse of part of the frustration and the distress caused to one mother in one centre who received very little notice that it would cease operations.

The Minister for Education has said publicly on numerous occasions that centres cannot close without giving parents 30 days notice, and yet here is an example of a centre which was being assisted by government funds and run by the government appointed receiver giving parents seven days notice to find alternative care. Needless to say, the tightening of the provisions to impose civil penalties on operators who breach this 30-days notice requirement is a good thing and will be welcomed by parents. I wonder, though, what would have happened if Altona North had closed after this legislation was passed by the parliament. Would the civil penalties have been imposed on the minister, being the person ultimately responsible for the closure?

It is my view that this bill should have included a provision to ensure childcare operators provide 30 days notice to parents of children attending a centre which, for whatever reason, has to close its doors. We know how these closures affect families; we saw the evidence of it on the news every night for weeks. The children are the reason that these centres exist and in this industry more than any other there needs to be stability and certainty.

Over the past few days I have been working on an amendment to this bill that would specifically provide for the notification of parents. However, in discussions with the parliamentary secretary last night, I was assured that the department already has the power to specify the form, manner and way in which the childcare service provider must notify that they are ceasing operations. The department has apparently already trialled a form for such notice, and the parliamentary secretary assures me that the standardised notice of cessation forms will ensure parents receive at least 30 days notice. I accept her assurances and will therefore not be moving an amendment to that effect.

However, it must be noted that the case of Altona North ABC shows that the parliamentary secretary and the minister really have not been on top of things and they have not ensured that what they promised parents has been adhered to. The minister has said time and time again over the past six months that there was a legal requirement for services to provide at least 30 days notice to parents before closure, but exactly what has been done to ensure that is enforced? Nothing that we know of.

While I take the parliamentary secretary at her word on this matter, I will be monitoring very closely the operation of the new notice of cessation forms to ensure that the government’s rhetoric matches the outcome at least on this occasion. The Rudd government has shown a somewhat dismissive attitude to the childcare system, seemingly happy to hide behind the ABC situation rather than provide genuine national leadership on the future direction of the industry. Such a dismissive attitude is exemplified by the very quiet binning of the government’s promise to build 260 childcare centres around the country.

For those who remember, there was such fanfare in 2007 when Labor’s Affordable Child Care Plan—not my words, words used by the Labor Party to describe the policy—was announced and we were told that under this plan 260 additional childcare centres around the country would be built. After 18 months, the government has budgeted, at a cost of $114.5 million, for 38 centres. Of those 38 only five or six are at any type of planning stage—not one has yet been completed. The coalition has called repeatedly for the Rudd government to answer the questions: who is going to pay for the other 222? Where will they be built? How much will they cost? Will they contribute to the problem of oversupply in some areas? Exactly when will the promise be delivered in full? These are very valid questions that need to be asked.

This government makes the very simple criticism that any questions asked of its policies are negative, not helpful and un-Australian. That is not so. I say to members opposite: it is a fundamental responsibility of opposition to look at and scrutinise the policies and expenditure of government to ensure that they are in accordance with the interests of the Australian population and with what the government has promised it would do. To do nothing, to blindly pass every single bill and decision without comment or scrutiny, would be letting the Australian people down. The opposition would not be doing its job in our system of government of doing its bit to hold the government accountable. That is irrespective of which political party is in government. To have a strong, healthy democracy that delivers results and solutions for the Australian people and Australian families and, in this instance, Australian families with children in care, the opposition must be on its toes and doing its job. The government needs to accept constructive criticism because that will only help it do its job better. We know anyone without any checks and balances in doing their job is likely to do a lesser job than they otherwise would.

On budget night, Julia Gillard’s ministerial statement on education contained a quiet, two-line reference saying that:

The remaining up to 222 early learning and care centres will be considered when the child care market is settled and based on the experience of the priority centres.

For an issue which formed such a significant part of the government’s early childhood policy, this is certainly a significant backflip. The collapse of ABC Learning has raised all sorts of demand and supply issues within the childcare industry. In order to provide some certainty in the childcare market, the industry’s main requirement now is to have some idea where the demand hotspots and chronic undersupply are actually located.

The government has not helped this uncertainty; in fact, it has contributed to it by refusing to release the childcare vacancy data which was last released publicly under the Howard government in April 2007. I will take this opportunity, as we canvass a range of childcare issues in this bill, to once again implore the minister and parliamentary secretary to do something about providing an indication of vacancy rates in the childcare sector. This is one of the most crucial things the government can do to help with the future planning and viability of the sector. The sector has effectively been flying blind without these figures since April 2007. Alarmingly, the utilisation rate in long day care in the 2006 childcare census was 74 per cent, down from 85 per cent in the 2004 census. That is a dramatic drop in just two years. Now it has been three years and we do not know what the situation currently is.

As I understand it, the government will no longer conduct the census, as it collects very similar data through the new Child Care Management System. I note that the parliamentary secretary announced on the fifth of this month that the CCMS is now fully operational. If that is the case, surely this means that the government can now provide an accurate indication of utilisation rates within every centre across the country. While I concede this does not present the full story on oversupply and undersupply, it is an important and significant indicator. There is growing anecdotal evidence that there is an oversupply in some areas, just as there is a shortage in others. What the industry needs is a clearer picture.

You really have to wonder why the government continue to be so very, very reluctant to reveal the data on vacancy rates. They collect it electronically every single week. It seems to some of us that their reluctance is tied in with their promise to build these 260 new childcare centres. So now the government in the budget papers, on what they considered to be their very clear and unequivocal election promise, have created even greater uncertainty. We have seen a promise of 260 centres and now we have seen a backflip on this promise. The actions of the government, by refusing to release the vacancy data, are contributing to this uncertainty and instability. They have indicated that they may revisit the issue of the 260 centres when there is greater certainty in the childcare market. But if they do not help create greater certainty by releasing vacancy data then they will not be helping the industry and they certainly will not be helping themselves get back on track with their election promises. The two-line reference on budget night seems like a pretty good ‘out clause’ if you ask me. I do not believe the government have any intention of revisiting that particular election promise.

Despite the concerns that I have raised today over the government’s handling of child care generally over the past 18 months, the opposition will support this bill because it is essentially a housekeeping bill. I thank the parliamentary secretary and her office for making some of the departmental officers available for a briefing and also for the written reassurances on the issue of the 30-day notification for parents. I commend the bill to the House.

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