Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to take a question from the member for Robertson—her first question on the day of her first speech. I listened to the speech and reflected on her commitment to her constituents, particularly her view that flexibility in child care is incredibly important for those on the Central Coast who make that long commute to Sydney and for whom Labor's red-tape mess in child care has forced costs up and made much of the child care in Robertson either unavailable or unaffordable. We went to the election with a strong commitment about red tape. We intend to honour that, and we have made a very good start.

I would like to report to the House that at the education ministers meeting last week I sat down with state and territory ministers and talked about reducing the red tape in child care. Under those opposite, this red tape has been a burden for far too long. Unfortunately, when red tape goes up, common sense goes down. Nobody in the Labor Party is the least bit interested in this, because the Labor Party treats red tape like a security blanket, something to wrap around the work that they do not do, the innovation that they do not support, the services that they do not care about.

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