Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare) Share this | Hansard source

On the first point: I am more than happy to chase up the IT issues on the contracts. I would agree that we absolutely want to ensure that the contracts are finalised. The member would be aware that such is our commitment to these budget base funded services that we massively increased the funding for them in last year's budget. We want to make sure that we lift the quality of care right across Australia, and this includes where these budget base funded services operate, which is in the most disadvantaged, most at-risk communities. So I will personally look into why those contracts have not been finalised. But I want to put on the record that this government has shown through last year's budget that we recognise that these services need to be improved. We want to make sure they are improved. We know that this is the best start in life that many of these children have. For members who are not aware, the budget based funded services are services which the government funds in their entirety. We build them, we pay all of the fees, and that is because we know, through all of the international and domestic research, that this is one of the best opportunities that we have to break the cycle of disadvantage. So our commitment there is strong.

With regard to childcare rebate funding in the budget, members should see that the forward estimates indicate that we anticipate spending some $20 billion over the next four years on early childhood education and child care. To put this into perspective, this is some $13 billion more than the Howard government committed. It is quite phenomenal that there has been a massive increase. We are proud of this. We know that it is really important in order to assist families with affordability and accessibility of child care at the same time as we are going about lifting the quality of child care across Australia.

In relation to our earlier announced election commitment with regard to the childcare rebate cap, the government policy remains in place. We have not had any changes of policy to that, and there have been no announcements that go along with that, so we would anticipate that that is where the government's resolve remains.

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