Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Doesn't this perfectly summarise how confused this government is when it comes to its priorities, how mixed up the messages are that they are sending to the Australian public? Just today, in this parliament, we heard from the government and from the Prime Minister about why it is that the indexation of pensions needs to be cut, why it is that schools and hospitals need to be in the firing line of multibillion-dollar cuts and why it is that low- and middle-income Australian families have to pay the price for this government, which is saying quite the opposite thing now to what it said before the election?

We know that before the election there was no emergency. Before the election there were going to be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to pensions, no cuts to the ABC, and all of those promises have flown out the window. Yet we stand here in this chamber today debating this piece of legislation to spend over $20 billion of taxpayers' money in order to put in place a scheme which would see millionaires getting paid $50,000-cheques from the government for having a baby. This is what this government is trying to sell to the Australian public.

I stand here and say that this is a ridiculous proposition which people in the community that I represent are quite rightly angry about. They are quite rightly angry about the fact they are paying again and again through the government's new taxes, which they promised they would not introduce. They will be paying every time they go to the petrol station and they will be paying every time they go to the GP yet their neighbours, who do not need the assistance, will be getting up to $50,000 for having a baby—how ridiculous.

I want to make very clear that I am a very big believer in paid parental leave schemes, absolutely. But those schemes have got to be sensible public policy. They have got to be well targeted and they have got a be an appropriate use of taxpayer funds. We were incredibly proud that it was Labor who introduced this country's first paid parental leave program. I would also say that I was deeply ashamed as an Australian that we were so far behind the rest of the world when it came to having such a scheme in the first place. When Labor came to government, we addressed that. We got the Productivity Commission to look at the benefits of paid parental leave programs and we introduced a sensible policy which was appropriately targeted and which saw over 95 per cent of all women in this country eligible to access paid parental leave. We also know that the median income of people accessing Labor's Paid Parental Leave Scheme sits at $45,000. It is a scheme that is making sure that those who require assistance the most are those who get it. This government wants to tell us that the age of entitlement is over but it seems that is only true when it comes to pensioners; it is only true when it comes to the sick; it is not true of wealthy families who want a $50,000 government check just for having a baby.

I want to outline why it is that I believe these priorities are incredibly wrong. We know, for example, that if we want to look at boosting women's workforce participation, there are a number of very important debates that we should be having in this parliament. If we want to look at the evidence of what really makes a difference when it comes to increasing women's workforce participation, it is not giving $50,000 cheques to very wealthy families who do not need it when they have a baby; it is making sure we continue to progress an affordable, quality childcare system in this country. But at the same time that we are seeing this proposition of over $20 billion in taxpayer funds for the Paid Parental Leave Scheme, we are seeing cuts and more cuts when it comes to the childcare system.

The research shows that across Australia what parents, and particularly mothers, are often battling with is out-of-school-hours care. Unless you can find a job that lines up with the hours of school, you will find that is very difficult. Many women are falling out of the workforce because they cannot access a childcare spot. We know that the majority of jobs across Australia do not finish when the school bell rings at three o'clock. Families need real solutions. But what does this government do? This government cuts $450 million from out-of-school-hours care. There was $450 million to provide additional places to make sure that all parents, particularly more mothers, had solutions when the school bell rang, to make sure that children had more options and more support in out-of-school hours care so they could have a more enjoyable experience.

Just recently, I had the chance to catch up with my nearest and dearest friend, an old mate from high school who has three children. She had been out of the workforce with her children for a number of years. Now they are all at school, she was just offered her first job in many years. She turned to me and said, 'I do not know what I am going to do because I have been offered a job working two weekdays and a Sunday. I cannot find an out-of-hours place. The school is full and has no more places.' She has called upon the grandparents, who have kindly agreed to look after the children on one of those days. But there just was not a solution for the other day. She was going to have to turn down that opportunity for employment.

So I say to those opposite: if you are serious about coming in here and saying that you believe in increasing women's workforce participation, then when you make your contribution on this legislation to spend over $20 billion of taxpayer funds, perhaps you can outline why you support cutting $450 million from out-of-school care; perhaps you can outline whether you think that is a way we are going to increase women's workforce participation.

This is an ever-increasing problem. In the last 10 years the number of children in out-of-school care has grown by 100,000, with 30,000 more children attending in just the last 12 months. We now have 335,000 children attending out-of-school care around Australia, and this government wants to turn their back on them and make it harder; make waiting lists longer, and make more parents have to turn down employment opportunities because they simply do not have a choice.

As if that was not bad enough, all of the research also shows that, if you want to look at where support for children makes the biggest impact on decisions about returning to work, it is with low- and middle-income families. They are the ones in a really touch-and-go situation about whether they can get childcare assistance and whether it is worthwhile returning to the workforce, or whether they are simply just working to pay childcare fees. We know that these are the families that need assistance with the cost of care, and we know that without financial help many of these families will have one of their parents prevented from working.

Yet just a couple of weeks ago, in this place, in this federal budget, we saw that $230 million is being cut from the childcare benefit, a means-tested payment—unlike the Paid Parental Leave Scheme which we are currently debating—and from the childcare rebate. This Prime Minister wrote to every childcare centre across the country in the lead-up to the election telling them that a pause in indexation was a cut that would have a devastating impact on that cost of child care. We know that a $230 million cut pales in comparison to the $5 billion being spent on the Paid Parental Leave Scheme put forward here, every each and every year.

The Department of Education has confirmed that the changes to the childcare benefit and the childcare rebate will negatively impact around 500,000 families, who could be out of pocket by up to $6,000 per annum. So tell me how it makes any sense whatsoever for this government to be saying that they have to cut, and cut hard, from the programs and assistance that those on low- or middle-incomes rely upon, that they have to cut, and cut hard, and impact our pensioners, our sick and our most vulnerable, while at the same time we can have a debate in this chamber about spending this level of taxpayer funds on a scheme that is not targeted, is not means tested and will see taxpayer funds going to families that simply do not need it. How does that make any sense whatsoever?

Unfortunately that is not the worst of it. There are 500,000 families around Australia that will struggle to find that up to $6,000 per year that this government has cut in the budget in the next financial year, and there will be many more families the year after that and the year after that.

We know that modelling by Early Childhood Australia shows that the changes will leave a family on $135,000 a year up to $6,000 worse-off per child a year by 2017. We also know that a family currently on a combined income of $75,000 will go backwards by $4,143 per child. So, at the same time that a family on a combined income of $75,000 will go backwards by $4,143, as a direct result of a decision of this government, a family on upwards of $1 million can be $50,000 a year better off. This is ridiculous policy. It is policy that is not well thought out. And it is policy that shows that this government is out of touch with the priorities of Australian families, is out of touch with the measures which would increase women's workforce participation, and is out of touch when it comes to their confused and mixed up messages.

It is not just about spending an enormous amount on paid parental leave whilst cutting out-of-school care and cutting the childcare benefit and the childcare rebate; we also see that one of the biggest hits in this space will come to family day care. Family day care is a form of care that has been very popular in Australia for a number of decades. It is a form of care that can be more flexible than centre-based care because we know that in family day care it can be delivered in the home of the carer or in the home of the child in the family. We also know that it can be lined up to match with the hours that people actually work. You can have a family day carer that comes and works overnight if you do shiftwork. You can have a family day care that changes their hours as your roster changes so that your workforce participation is not impacted on. Yet we know that this government has massively slugged family day care with cuts.

Family Day Care Australia estimates that the $157 million of cuts which were announced in the budget by this government will increase fees by $35 a week. I would very interested to hear from members opposite—particularly those National Party members in this place who have a number of regional families relying on family day care when there are no other options available—why they think that slashing $157 million and ensuring that fees rise by around $35 each and every week is the priority so that they can deliver over $5 billion a year in their non-targeted, non-means-tested Paid Parental Leave Scheme. This is absurd.

We also know that Family Day Care Australia has confirmed that much of the care provided is in remote, rural and regional areas and is often in areas where other forms of child care are not available or are just not sustainable. This is really important. And that is not the only change to the community support program that will threaten the viability of the sector. It is the sudden backflip by the government that has really thrown the sector. Only two months earlier, the hapless Assistant Minister for Education announced changes to funding which she assured the sector would only impact new services that apply. But this was simply not true. How will this government explain to the teachers, explain to the nurses and explain to the police officers why their paid parental leave for millionaires is a bigger priority than new family day care services to cater for the need for affordable and flexible child care for so many families?

Unfortunately, these are not the only hard cuts to measures that are put in place to increase workforce participation. One of the most despicable cuts that this budget has put in this space is to a program that is probably little known to many families across Australia. It is the Jobs, Education and Training Child Care Fee Assistance program—affectionately known as the JET program. This program helps those who are currently on welfare payments to access child care so that they can go to work or go to training so that they get a job. If there is a government that cares about boosting workforce participation, these are the individuals that you should be wanting to help—getting people off welfare and into work. But what has this government done? It has cut this program—a program that is specifically targeted to those people who need it the most.

I simply will not listen to those opposite say that the priority should be $20 billion on a paid parental leave scheme that will benefit millionaires at the same time as they are cutting the very assistance that everyday Australian families in the electorate that I represent absolutely reply upon. This is the best example of how mixed up this government's priorities are. (Time expired)

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