Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011. This is amending legislation. It makes a number of administrative amendments to family assistance law: strengthening debt recovery, empowering the secretary to do certain things and improving compliance and administration of the childcare benefit. It will mean that unscrupulous operators cannot operate in the market and it will protect the markets from the same. It will improve the accountability of the childcare market and also make it clear that, if a childcare operator restructures, they cannot continue to operate in the market without consequence. It will make sure that mums and dads who send their kids to childcare centres while they attend work know they have the best operators possible caring for their kids.

Meaningful reform I think is at the heart of our agenda with respect to child care. I think this is extremely important because mums and dads who send their kids to child care want to make sure their kids are cared for by ethical, moral, highly educated professionals who not just provide child care but engage in the education process and improve the socialisation that child care provides for young people before they attend school. The rapid growth in the childcare industry has provided many benefits to families and to our economy, but of course there have been some problems and this legislation seeks to overcome them. At the risk of sounding Orwellian, not all childcare operators are equal, not all state regulations are best practice and not enough scrutiny has been undertaken with respect to the childcare industry to make sure that young people receive consistent, appropriate and the best early learning experiences they can be offered.

The unprecedented and shocking collapse of ABC Learning Centres across the country in 2008 exemplified some of the problems in the industry. The industry grew rapidly under the watch of the previous Howard coalition government without appropriate regulation and the consequences were there for all to see. The ABC collapse could have been alarming and disastrous. It was the federal Labor government's quick and decisive action that ensured that childcare centres remained open across the country that saved the day. In fact, 90 per cent of centres remained open when most could have collapsed entirely. About 100,000 families benefited from the government's timely and effective action at the time.

Since 2008 we have introduced a range of measures to ensure the financial viability of childcare providers is strengthened, and I will take this opportunity to outline some of those. These include strengthening the approval process, providing additional notification of the closure of centres and establishing a new penalty regime to have consequences for unscrupulous and unethical childcare operators. Until the 2010 budget we had invested $18.2 billion in early child care across the forward estimates, and that was increased in the budget last night. In 2010 that was $11 billion more than the former Howard coalition government, whose commitment to child care was wonderfully exemplified by the fact that they ripped $1 billion out of the childcare sector in almost the first act they undertook upon election in 1996. That was really an act of economic and familial vandalism of the sector. It had consequences in terms of not just economic development but productivity. In 2008, we delivered on our election commitment by increasing the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent, from a maximum of $4,354 per child to $7,500 per child per annum. The Howard government had made it so that you could only claim it on a yearly basis or you could knock it down to quarterly, but we changed that and made it on a weekly and fortnightly basis. For a family with long day care needs earning about $55,000 a year, out-of-pocket childcare costs went down from about 13 per cent to seven per cent in 2010.

This is not some esoteric piece of legislation that does not have consequences right across the country. That is evident from the fact that, based on the latest figures that I could obtain, there are 869,770 children in child care across the country. That is 627,980 families with parents working and building our economy while their children are in child care—and there are 13,899 childcare services creating jobs across the country. The legislation before us will improve accountability in the childcare industry and will protect the market, as I said, from unscrupulous operators.

We have also invested another $273.7 million in the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care. We think it is important that there be nationwide consistency with respect to childcare centres—an arrangement which improves educator-to-child ratios, introduces educator qualification requirements and includes a new childcare rating system. Indeed, contrary to what the previous speaker, the member for Farrer, said, it goes about reducing the regulatory burden by establishing a single regulator.

These reforms are very much based on and exemplified by international research into the first five years of life, which points to the importance of shaping the learning experience and social development of our young people. Indeed, I was pleased to see the press release issued by the Hon. Kate Ellis, the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare, on 12 April 2011, stating that a new report from Early Childhood Australia highlighted the importance of our national reforms to early childhood education and care. The minister welcomed the report and made the point that we are working with the states and territories to 'lift the standard of care across the country'. The report 'clearly makes the case for quality in child care' and is at one with our position on the quality reforms for the childcare sector.

There is little doubt that those on the opposite side of the chamber have manufactured hysteria and faux outrage as we have trumped them in this area of policy reform. They really have forgotten—but the childcare sector has not—that they failed miserably in this area when they were in power. The sector welcomed reform back in 1996, but the coalition came to power and just ripped the heart out of the sector. The sector was left desperately trying to recover, contacting and lobbying coalition members repeatedly. The coalition had failed them and were unsuccessful, much as they were unsuccessful in the aged-care sector during the 11½ years of Howard coalition rule.

We are not going to be cowed by the white noise that those opposite not just perpetrate but also perpetuate, like the previous speaker. We are going to forge ahead because we think this is a meaningful reform agenda. This legislation is part of that agenda, improving accountability, consistency and quality. We want to make sure that parents have peace of mind, that employers and employees have certainty and, most particularly, that our young people have the kind of quality early childhood and care experience they deserve.

Finally, I noted in last night's budget announcements that, under the portfolios of Mr Garrett, the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, and Ms Ellis, the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare, there was $32.4 million for an early childhood reform agenda, and I think that is important. There is $9.2 million for the recognition of prior learning package to assist early childhood workforce access training, and $23.2 million over four years for the Australian Early Development Index, to be met from existing resources. That brings the total to $28 million in relation to the AEDI for the next three-year cycle. I think that what I have outlined here in my speech shows the high priority that we put on early childhood education and how important it is, and not just for our economy. It is an absolute fact that the previous coalition government spent about one-fifth of our OECD competitors on early childhood education. It is a great shame that we spent about a fifth of what the Americans, the New Zealanders, the Canadians and the British spent. It seemed that the Howard coalition government had a real blank in this area. They just could not understand that this was an important part not just in helping mums and dads but in helping the economy. So a national quality reform agenda is absolutely crucial for early childhood education and care. This legislation, though amending legislation, is important. It is to be recognised that it plays out not just nationally but locally.

Finally, I want to say that the best demonstration of this that I can think of in my electorate is the commitment we made to the Yamanto Early Learning and Care Centre, where the minister came out and made that announcement with me and we opened it together—a $1.6 million commitment. That is the best childcare centre in terms of facilities in the Blair electorate. Its collocation beside the Amberley District School means greater convenience for families in the growing suburbs in the south side of Ipswich, not far from where I live. It is about two kilometres along the road from where I live—in fact, it is on one of my running routes, and I run past it regularly. It is a well-attended childcare centre. That is a demonstration locally of the national approach we have undertaken since we were elected in 2007.

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