Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

and that is why we are very pleased to have the nannies pilot. We are very pleased to receive the support of those like the Police Association and others who we are working closely with now to work towards implementation of this plan.

I want to commend those opposite who have been engaged with us in working on the Jobs For Families childcare package. Although it is quite clear they do not agree that you actually have to pay for things that you want to do in government, at least we have broad agreement on the package of measures that we are seeking to reform the childcare system with. There have been constructive discussions on that. I am not seeking to in any way impugn the support of the opposition on those measures, but I think there has been genuine discussion on them. I thank the member for Adelaide and the member for Jagajaga, in particular, for their engagement as we work through those processes. But the Jobs For Families package, at its heart, is trying to give the 48 per cent or thereabouts of families who have said—not only in work conducted by the government but also in other places—that they want to work more. That could be a few hours a day, an extra day a week or going back to work altogether. We want to be able to make that choice more achievable for those families. To do that, you have to have quality child care. As those opposite will know, we have maintained the support for the national quality framework.

An honourable member interjecting—

If those opposite want to turn something where there is clearly bipartisanship to support families into a partisan slanging match, that will reflect on them. What I am saying is that we are working together, at least on the expenditure side of this matter. For those families who want to work more, who want a different set of choices for their families, we are working to ensure that the changes to the childcare arrangements will enable them to do just that.

The other area which we are focused on very strongly is the childcare safety net and the opportunities here are very significant. The childcare safety net package deals with some of the most disadvantaged children in our society and right across the country, whether they are Indigenous children or those from incredibly disadvantaged backgrounds, or children at risk, or families fleeing abuse, or families involved with family domestic violence, or children with profound disabilities—in all of these areas there is additional support and more targeted support for those families. There is more support for families in remote and rural communities who need this support. This is what this package delivers. It provides a subsidy which supports the mainstream of families to exercise their choice to be able to work more. That is not a welfare payment. That is a subsidy provided to the providers of services to reduce the cost of child care. You only get the subsidy if you are seeking to consume the service.

The other thing we have done in that process is to apply a tougher activity test to that. We all understand the value and importance of early childhood education and we have spent more in this package than the federal government has ever spent in this area to support that goal. That is what we have done, but we have also gone further in terms of the universal access commitment of funding to the states—something that was not in the forward estimates from the previous government and had to be funded as a new measure in this budget, just like with the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. In this package, we are supporting mainstream families to exercise their choice to work more and to be able to support themselves more, to achieve the financial independence they want for their families.

For those who are seriously disadvantaged, we are giving them more support too through this package and that is facilitating a choice for those families they may not ever have realised they had, and that is a good thing to do. We are extending the reach of this program to support those families who currently cannot get access because of the nature of that work. That is why the Jobs for Families package will deliver jobs for families. (Time expired)

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