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

The shadow minister, right on cue, now makes a comment about the childcare tax rebate. Let me give her the real figures, because she should think about the real figures. When she was sitting on the government side of the chamber, the maximum that a family could claim from the childcare tax rebate for out-of-pocket costs was $4,354. We came to office and increased it to $7,500. That is a difference of $3,146 for those families who are very high childcare users. That is not the normal pattern of care, but there are families that use that much care. For those families, the maximum amount has gone to $7,500. So I would ask the shadow minister in relation to the childcare tax rebate to perhaps explain to the Australian community why it was when she was a government member she thought $4,354 was an appropriate maximum but now she criticises the government for a $7,500 maximum. Heavens above—people understand hypocrisy, and the stench of it is rising!

On the question of Building the Education Revolution, I genuinely appreciate the problem that you have raised. My advice is that there are some legal questions here. So I would prefer to be a bit careful about what I say on the public record in relation to this, but obviously I do acknowledge that there are some real concerns in your local community.

My frequent correspondent friend, the member for Gippsland, does write a lot of letters and I do my best to keep up with him. I say this to him: I am all for better empowering principles. This government has undertaken more reforms in the empowerment of principles in 2½ years than occurred in the 12 long years before, including the independent public schools trial in Western Australia. We have done more in this area than was done in 12 years before. In terms of delivering economic stimulus, we relied—because we needed to deliver it quickly—on the ways of delivering school capital that were being used at that point, including through working through state departments for the delivery of that capital. (Time expired)

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