Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise very reluctantly to talk about the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Measures) Bill 2014. I am reluctant because we should not be having this debate. Both sides of the House rhetorically agree about the huge importance of investing in early childhood. The member for Parramatta put it very eloquently when she spoke about the fact that the greatest investment this nation can have is in its children, especially in early childhood investment and especially for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

We should not be having this debate on a bill that cuts assistance for child care—that represents a $336 million cut to childcare assistance in this country, with over $200 million of that cut hitting some of the poorest people in our community. Freezing the Child Care Benefit will leave over 500,000 families worse off, and these are low-income families, not rich families. I heard Liberal speakers last night, particularly the member for Bowman acknowledging that on their own figures this will represent a hit of around $200 a year for each child. In fact, I would argue that is being wildly optimistic. Early Childhood Australia has done modelling estimating that a family on $60,000 a year, well under the average wage, with one child in the childcare system will be $1,800 a year worse off by 2016-17. From a total family income of $60,000 they will be $1,800 worse off. This is a massive hit. As the member for Parramatta said, this is a massive hit on families that we need to be supporting by investing in child care. Early-childhood investment is so important, and this bill moves us away from that investment.

Unfortunately, this bill is part of a wider attack on child care by this government. This government has already stripped over $1 billion out of child care funding. This includes $450 million for outside-school-hours care, $78 million per annum cut from the Aboriginal Child and Family Centres, and $157 million cut from the community support program. Now we hear that preschool funding, through the National Partnerships Agreement, is well and truly under threat. All of these will have an impact on families trying to invest in child care for their kids. For example, the $157 million cut from the community support program represents a $35 per week hit on families. That is nearly $2,000 per annum. If you add the $2,000 hit from that funding cut to the $1,800 hit from this you have almost $4,000 in cuts to childcare assistance for families. That particular cut really represents an attack on family day care.

Those on the other side champion the fact that they are pro family day care. They are the ones who constantly support that very important part of the sector, but when you match their actions with the rhetoric, we find them well and truly wanting.

A person in my wife's mothers group recently set up a family day care centre. It was a huge challenge for her to go around babyproofing a house and to go through all the training and quality assessment. One of the reasons she was able to take on this huge endeavour was that she got administrative assistance so that she did not have to spend three-quarters of her week doing paperwork. This $157 million cut represents a direct attack on her and everyone like her who is trying to run a family day care centre and provide greater flexibility for families.

All of this represents yet another broken promise from those on the other side. Mr Abbott went to the election promising to make child care more affordable. He promised to do away with these indexation freezes—he attacked them ferociously before the election. What do we see now? We see a billion dollars in cuts, more indexation freezes and more direct attacks on families.

The Hunter Valley, my region, is among the regions that are least able to afford these cuts. It is a region with quite diverse income levels, but it includes some of the poorest suburbs in the nation—and there is a real lack of child care. On average, there is a two-year wait for child care in the Hunter.

I can talk about the childcare situation in the Hunter from a personal perspective. My wife and I are, I acknowledge, in a very privileged position. But when my wife fell pregnant with our child, we did the right thing. Once we hit the 12-week mark and we had the scan that said that everything was generally okay, we put our name down—'unknown Conroy' was what we put down—at myriad childcare centres. We put our own name down with 15 childcare centres in the region. A year later, not one of them delivered a place. I remember, on 20 December, the last working day of the year, ringing 20 other childcare centres in the vain hope someone had a spot in an infants room. Luckily, one of them came through. That was a great relief to me and to my wife, who was very keen to return to work.

We were in a privileged position—my wife returning to work was an optional thing. We were not in a position where she absolutely had to return to work. I know families where, in order to pay the family bills, the mother had to get back to work straight after they reached the six-week mark. Luckily we got a place. We have to drive about 15 kilometres to drop our daughter off before we go to work—and we manage it. But we are in a lucky position. In my region, you have to fight hard to get a childcare spot—and the funding attack in this bill only makes it worse.

Other parts of this attack are really pernicious. For example, the $78 million per annum cut to Indigenous child and family centres will have a direct impact on my region. My seat of Charlton has a large Indigenous population, particularly on the west side of Lake Macquarie.

I have been campaigning to maintain funding for the Nikinpa Aboriginal Child and Family Centre. This is a great Indigenous childcare centre. It is a brand-new centre set up under a national partnership agreement funded by Labor. The only way it survives is through that program's funding and the childcare benefit. Every single family that goes to that centre relies on the childcare benefit. Their budget is so tight that, if one of their kids drops out, they lose money. So they are really under the gun, but they are doing great work. They are opposite a primary school that has a lot of Indigenous students. Once the kids who go to the centre turn three, they get taken across the road to the primary school. They see school assemblies, they go through the library—they get introduced into the culture of schooling before they have to go there. All the research shows that, for Indigenous families, that is crucial to getting kids to go to school and to prosper in school. All this is under attack from a government that talks about child care but does not believe in it. They talk the talk but they never walk the walk.

What is worse is that all of this comes out of a poor process. When the minister gets up in question time, she talks about the importance of the Productivity Commission report. She tells us how they are the government that had the guts to get the Productivity Commission to look into child care and how Labor in government never had the guts to do that. But what is the point of getting the Productivity Commission to look at child care if you have made all your major policy decisions before they even report? Their draft report is not due for another five weeks, but we have already seen $1 billion worth of cuts to the childcare sector in the meantime. That just shows the hypocrisy of those opposite. They talk about cost-benefit analysis and they talk about in-depth economic analysis, but when there is a cut to be made they jump in with both feet.

They are using the budget yet again as an excuse for these heartless cuts. As speaker after speaker on this side has pointed out, the budget is built on sand. They have confected a false budget emergency as a basis for pursuing all these heartless cuts. The federal budget is in good shape. We have one of the lowest debt levels in the western world. Debt is projected to peak at less than 20 per cent of GDP—less than a third of the OECD average. Those on the other side have confected this scare campaign in an attempt to fundamentally reshape the nature of Australia—to make it a more dog-eat-dog society—and to attack those on low and middle incomes, those who are the most vulnerable.

This childcare legislation and the cuts it embodies must be viewed in the broader context of the attack on families which this budget represents. The significant cuts in the budget to family tax benefit part A will mean that, for a family on $60,000 a year with two kids between eight and 15, there will be a cut in payments of $6,000. These are not Labor figures; these are figures from NATSEM—a modelling organisation of high repute. So highly esteemed are they that the Prime Minister used them before the last election and stated on the public record that they are the premier modellers of family income in this country. They have stated in their analysis of the budget that a family on $60,000 a year with two kids between eight and 15 will lose over $6,000. That represents more than 10 per cent of their family income. Just imagine it: you are a family with a combined income less than the average wage and this government is cutting your family income by $6,000, or 10 per cent. That is a huge blow to families. Then you combine that with the attacks on child care—the kids in that family may have out-of-school child care—which this government has cut by $450 million.

This really is a government that does not care about families. They claim that they are family friendly, but when you look at their actions rather than their rhetoric, they are found wanting. This attack on families is even more hollow when you look at their ridiculous paid parental leave scheme, a scheme worth over $5 billion a year—which, as the member for Parramatta pointed out, well exceeds the cuts they are subjecting the childcare sector to.

This is a paid parental leave scheme that is grossly inequitable. Figures derived from the Parliamentary Library show that 80 per cent of women of child-bearing age, in my seat of Charlton, earn less than $42,000. That includes welfare transfers from the government. So 80 per cent of women in Charlton will receive less than $20,000 under Mr Abbott's ridiculous paid parental leave scheme. Why is it fair for a family in Charlton to receive less than $20,000 to have a baby while someone in North Sydney or Warringah receives $50,000? Why are the babies of Charlton worth $30,000 less than the babies of North Sydney? They are not, but it shows the gross inequity of this government and the skewed priorities.

It also shows that they are happy to rely on the Productivity Commission for some things but not for others. The Productivity Commission made it very clear that a minimum-wage system rather than a replacement-wage system was the most effective way of undertaking paid parental leave. It is the best way of providing incentives for workforce participation by women, particularly women in low- and middle-income jobs. They are the ones we really need to give an incentive to, to return to work.

We hear ridiculous rhetoric from the other side that it is a workplace entitlement. I challenge them to find another workplace entitlement paid by the government. It is not a workplace entitlement, it is a welfare measure, and every Australian woman should be entitled to the same amount of welfare for having a baby. This paid parental leave scheme does not deliver that; in fact, it goes in the opposite direction, where the richer you are the more you get.

We need to contrast this with the government's attacks on the childcare sector. The Grattan Institute, another good economic organisation—they do not always agree with what Labor does but they are serious, economic policy advisers—have found that investment in child care is twice as effective as investment in the paid parental leave scheme. As the member for Parramatta said before, it is not just the first six months of a child's life that you need to invest in. You need to invest in their entire life and you need to encourage workforce participation beyond the first six months. Investing in child care is worth twice as much, is twice as effective, as investment in the paid parental leave scheme.

That really is the nub of this debate: $5½ billion a year on a paid parental leave scheme that rewards millionaires over low- and middle-income Australians is patently unfair. It is also unfair if you look at the opportunity cost. The opportunity cost means that with the $5½ billion you could be well and truly avoiding the cuts to child care. In fact, you could be doubling what is currently invested in the childcare sector, making our childcare centres palaces, making them great places for kids to get the best start in life. Instead, we see the other side pursuing a narrow ideological agenda, where they want to attack any assistance for low- and middle-income families—just as they want to attack pensioners and unemployed people.

This is a government that claims to have a small-government mentality and be ending the age of entitlement. They are ending the age of entitlement for low- and middle-income Australians, they are ending the age of entitlement for pensioners, but they are not ending the age of entitlement for millionaires. That is the great tragedy of the Australia we find at the moment.

This is a debate we should not be having in this place. We all agree that investment in child care is great. We all agree that we want to give our kids the best start in life. I say to the Liberal-National coalition: match your words with action. Invest in child care, invest in giving our kids the best start in life, because this bill is not that. This bill is an attack on families. It is an attack on low- and middle-income kids. It is an attack on giving our kids, Australian kids, the best start in life. That is why Labor's amendments should be agreed to.

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