Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. I can assure her that on this side of the House we are committed to spending record levels on child care through the Jobs for Families Child Care Package. We will support childcare services in rural, regional and Indigenous communities through programs such as the Community Child Care Fund. The status quo is clearly not working in a sufficiently fair or transparent way for existing budget based funded services with some services receiving less than $100 per child and other services receiving thousands of dollars per child.

I can well understand the concern the honourable member has for the services in her electorate. I can inform her that the government will carefully transition services to enable them to become approved to administer the childcare subsidy where appropriate. For the first time parents using these services will be able to attract a childcare subsidy and operators will be able to attract funding to support their service's viability. Importantly, the transition support we are rolling out over the coming months will ensure the business model works for the location of the service.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

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