Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to hear the member for Bowman say that the government now know, 18 months into their term, about the importance of child care, because for the last 18 months they have been ripping the guts out of it. In fact, they have cut child care by $1 billion over the last 18 months. That equates to $1,287 for every family that uses care. I say to the member for Bowman: this is not last year's issue. The parliament might have dealt with it last year. The parliament might have dealt with cutting a billion dollars out of child care in MYEFO and the budget. It might be in the past for them. But, for families that go to work today and put their children into child care, it is today's issue and tomorrow's issue and next week's issue and the week after's issue: $1 billion cut from child care over the last 18 months.

The Prime Minister claimed a couple of weeks ago that 'good government starts today'—on day 521 of the government's term. Well, for child care, it still has not started. The Prime Minister also said at the same time that their focus would be on families, that they had discovered how important families are and the reality for families. Well, as far as families are concerned, the focus is still not on them, and it will not be on them until these cuts are well and truly reversed.

With the government, the old saying, 'It's not what they say; it's what they do,' is as true as it could ever be. There probably has not been a government in the history of Australia where it is more true that you cannot pay attention to what they say at all, you cannot pay attention to the rhetoric; you have to look at what they do. And let us look at what they have done for child care: a $450 million cut to outside-school-hours care in MYEFO, a $235 million cut to the targeted childcare benefit that helps low- and middle-income families, a $105 million cut to the childcare rebate, cancellation of federal funding for all Indigenous child and family centres—all Indigenous child and family centres. These are not something that belongs in the past but something that affects those families today. They have cut programs to increase childcare places, including the accessibility fund. The HECS-HELP benefit which includes subsidies for early childhood education degrees has been cut by $87 million, and federal funding for preschool is uncertain from next year, so that $1 billion does not include the cuts that may be coming there. These total $1 billion in cuts to child care over the last year and a half.

The Productivity Commission report is a good thing. I understand that the draft came in in October last year, so we have been waiting a good year and a half since the election for the Productivity Commission report, and it is a good thing that it has been done. On this side of the House, we are well and truly looking forward to going through that report very, very carefully and working cooperatively with the government to improve services for families.

But I do say that, whenever you look at the rhetoric of the government, you have to look at what they have done. It is not just the cuts they have made; it is the incompetence that they have displayed in implementing those changes. In the family day care sector, for example, they originally said before the election that the changes would not affect any family day care providers that were already in existence. And then, when they did it, they did include those family day care centres. In fact, in Western Sydney, Family Day Care Australia says that all family day care services currently in existence in Western Sydney which look after individual educators will lose their funding—all of them, every single one, in Western Sydney. In spite of the words of the government, what they said, which was that their funding would be exempted from the cuts they were making, was not true. What they did was announce cuts to those family day care providers. Every single one in Western Sydney will lose its funding—every single one.

Then they found out, as governments do, that a small number of people in that sector were rorting the system. So they introduced new rules that prevented a family day care educator from claiming funding for their own children. Then, the day before that was due to be implemented, they realised that mistake and reversed that decision—leaving small businesses and families scrambling to figure out what they would do, only to have that appalling decision reversed the day before. The level of incompetence matches the savageness of the cuts, and I urge the government to reverse the decision.

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