Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Dobell—thank you very much, Member for Dobell. Much more memorable than the previous member; how could I forget!

But, in all honesty, we are committed to child care and care deeply about children's development. Yes, we may differ on policy. Yes, we may have better ideas for execution and, as we have seen, we generally get the execution far better than those on the opposite side. We can go into history, because it is important to understand why we are in this situation at the moment. We know that Labor did not manage things well when they were in government. When I was out in the electorate for many months leading up to the last campaign I continually heard that they had been the worst government for many decades. They performed poorly across so many areas, and this is just another area where they did not get the execution right and let things get out of control. And it is not just us saying this; there were reports done by the National Audit Office, as we have heard before.

We also heard about NATSEM a far bit this week. I want to go back to the NATSEM comments in their report from June this year, where they mentioned childcare affordability in Australia in issue 35. This report highlighted Labor's failure to address the issue of child care during their six years in government:

… it is hard to escape the conclusion that they have also helped drive up prices and the cost to government. The higher prices go, the more financial assistance families will require and so the cycle continues.

Yes, they can go on about NATSEM modelling in the 90 second statements and the MPIs and everything else, but let us take on board what NATSEM said just a few months ago. Labor fail to do the work needed to fix the child care challenges and even refused, as we know, to undertake a Productivity Commission inquiry. Instead, they kept topping up child care assistance on the nation's credit card and helped drive up prices, as NATSEM has informed us.

We have had plenty of figures thrown around, as usual, by the Labor Party. But let us take a look at a few figures that they need to take stock of. The $1 billion of interest repayments per month. We know how many child care centres and schools that could buy. The take no responsibility. There is no accountability for the financial mess they left. Yes, if you want to go to more figures, we have got over $30 million a day in interest repayments. Let us talk about support. What sort of support can that by? This is where your debt and financial mismanagement hits the road. This is where it affects individual families, individual communities. This is something they just do not get.

Let me go onto the CPS in a broader sense. We know that it provides good assistance to families in establishing and maintaining services in areas where they might otherwise be unviable or otherwise unable to meet the requirements. We have heard some of the merits of the changes that we are implementing so that those in regional, remote or disadvantaged communities can be better off in this respect. I know this point was made by the minister, who visited my electorate and went to a child care centre in Grange and was warmly received. This is a valid point about how we are helping the market more broadly—how we are helping communities across the state, across our great country.

This sensible and fair measure brings support for family day care services into line with other types of child care such as long day care and outside school hours care. Just in closing, a few comments about early childhood education. I do agree with him member for Scullin on this point. We know children's development and the transition to school in those early childhood years are extremely important. There are significant reasons to support those early years, not just at home but also in a more formal sense with experienced educators, because there are significant benefits for when they get older in terms of development and their vulnerabilities. Naturally there is support required and costs money. Australian government funding is going to around $7 billion per year, covering two-thirds of the early childhood education and care costs. This is a significant investment and significant commitment to early childhood development, notwithstanding the comments of our friends opposite. In closing, let's be honest about this: we all care about child care, we are all committed to it. Let's just find the money to get on and do a good job.

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