Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

That parent who already works will find her child care $30 a week better because she will receive $30 more each week under the childcare package that has been put together. That will be $1,500 a year. That is a very significant increase in the welfare for that person. Indeed, it is a situation where workforce participation for any parent, but that parent particularly, can grow, where they will be enabled and encouraged to increase their participation. Whilst we are phasing down and ending supplements, we will be reinvesting $10 a fortnight back into family tax benefit A. The question is designed to pretend that a parent in that situation does not avail themselves of two streams of family tax benefit: B, paid for the family, which we are ending when the child is 13; and A, where we are reinvesting much of the money, making it $10 better off a fortnight. That adds up in a year. The individual parent can also choose, by virtue of the childcare package, to engage in the workforce or to work more. You are assuming that every person in that situation is perfectly passive and leaves their situation exactly as it is—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

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