Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Is absolutely a matter of public importance that this parliament pauses to discuss the failures in the government's child care reforms. These child care reforms are currently before the parliament. The Prime Minister has called them 'the most significant reform to the early education and care system in 40 years'. The minister responsible has also said, 'These are the most comprehensive set of reforms to child care in a generation.' So it is a pretty strange thing that when you look at the speakers list as to who is lining up to talk about these reforms, there is not a single member of the backbench opposite who will put their name down to talk to these reforms. Yet everybody opposite is lining up to talk about the critically important flaws that there are in these reforms.

If these really were the best child care reforms this parliament had ever seen, of course government backbenchers would be lining up to be associated with them. But they have gone running the other way. There are some very good reasons for that. There is a very good political reason. We have all seen, in some of the trickiest, most disgusting politics to come before this parliament, that this government has linked these child care reforms. They are holding Australian families to ransom, saying, 'The only way that you get any additional assistance with child care is if this parliament signs up to make young unemployed Australians, new mothers and low-income Australian families pay the price for these reforms.' That a disgusting linkage, which, as we know because Senator Sinodinos has told us, the government has only done for their pure political purposes.

For this speech I would like to put the politics aside. Let's not talk about politics; let's talk about the policy flaws which there are in this package. When we just look at the child care reforms, we can see, as we have seen every single time these reforms have been put forward, as we have seen in every single Senate inquiry, that there are serious issues with this policy that this parliament needs to address. It takes a certain sort of skill to spend hundreds of millions of additional dollars to make some of the most vulnerable Australians worse off. But that is exactly what these child care reforms would do. We know that as a result these reforms some of the most low-income, disadvantage, vulnerable Australians—children—would have their hours of early childhood education cut back. We also know that, just a couple of weeks after this parliament came together to talk about the importance of closing the gap, there are very real threats in these reforms to some of the Indigenous services which service the most vulnerable children in this nation in remote Australia. We know that there are very real threats in these proposals to the mobile services which offer the only access to early childhood education that many children in regional Australia have.

It is not just Labor that is putting forward these complaints about the bill; it is, in fact, every single major early childhood stakeholder in this country. It is every single one of the providers that have put forward submissions on this bill. It is every single one of the not-for-profit Australian charities who stand up for vulnerable Australians. It is every single representative of regional children, of Indigenous children, who have pointed out these flaws. But this government, either through laziness or pure incompetence, has once again introduced these reforms to the parliament without fixing it up.

Labor stands here today saying that we want to see our child care system improved. We want to see additional assistance put into the Australian child care system. In fact we want to work with the government to better streamline the system to better deliver relief to Australian families. But we will not do it at the expense of the most vulnerable, disadvantaged or regional children in this nation. We simply will not.

Today I want this parliament not to take my word for the concerns about these child care proposals, but to listen to some of the experts. I would like to quote first of all, when it comes to the threat that these proposals put forward to Indigenous children, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, who have stated:

It is like putting a square peg in a round hole, trying to jam it in and make sure it fits. We know that it is not going to because we are going to have splinters everywhere. What is going to happen to our services? In 2018 they will have to close their doors.

Shame! How dare this government step forward and say that Indigenous children, who have the most to gain from access to early childhood education, should pay the price of these child care reforms. In fact, the government's own review of these budget based funded services found in their own report that only a small number of BBF services are likely to be able to transition. Former Australian of the year, Fiona Stanley, has stated:

It will fail. Every service that I can actually think of in the children's area that is mainstreamed after Aboriginal control fails, and it fails because the services that these Aboriginal-controlled people are providing provide a whole range of other things that are very protective and culturally important for Aboriginal children and their families.

The Deloitte review of Indigenous services found that as a result of the government's reforms 54 per cent of families will face an average fee increase of $4.40 per hour. Forty per cent of families will have their access to early education reduced, but, most importantly, and what this parliament really needs to stop and take note of, is the finding that over two thirds of these Indigenous services will have their funding cut.

This is a government talking about spending over $1 billion of additional taxpayers' money on early childhood education and care services and sending Indigenous, vulnerable, disadvantaged and regional children's access backwards.

We know the mobile services that many regional communities in Australia rely on will be hit hard. In fact, the chair of the National Association of Mobile Services, Anne Bowler, has said:

The funding reform proposal will no doubt ensure the closure of up to 90 per cent of the current BBF mobile children's services across rural and remote communities in Australia.

So it is not just the Indigenous services. It is not just regional services which will close if the government gets its way. The government is also attacking access to early childhood education of many, many vulnerable and disadvantaged children through the cuts to the activity test which it is introducing. This new, complicated activity test, as it stands in the legislation which is before the parliament, will see about 150,000 families worse off.

Let us all be very clear. The research is overwhelming. We know that the most vulnerable Australian children are the very children who have the most to gain from early childhood education. It is unthinkable that this parliament would knowingly halve the access to these vital services that these children have. But that is exactly what they are proposing to do. Every one of the major stakeholders has raised serious concerns about this. The Community Child Care Co-op in New South Wales says: 'The childcare safety net actually cuts the level of support already in place. Children, especially those from low-income families, will bear the brunt of this policy change.' The Australian Childcare Alliance, the biggest representative of private childcare providers across Australia, states:

Families in the lowest income bracket, earning less than $65,710 gross per annum will have their base hours of subsidised access cut from 24 hours per week to just 12 hours. This reduction will have unintended negative consequences for the quality early learning outcomes for some of Australia’s most disadvantaged children.

And of course we also note Mission Australia has said:

Children from disadvantaged families need to have access to two days per week of affordable quality early childhood education and care as a minimum. The 12 hours per week proposed is insufficient.

There are serious flaws in this government bill, and we are standing here today to urge the government to address these flaws. The first thing they need to do is drop the cruel and unfair cuts that are included in the omnibus bill. The second thing they need to do is really prioritise.

Australian mums and dads, and Australian children, are calling on this parliament to finally act when it comes to fixing our childcare system. We have seen an entire term of parliament come and go without the government doing a single thing to improve the Australian childcare system. All they managed to do in the entire last term of parliament was introduce their dud nanny pilot scheme and then, of course, cut it because they saw that it just did not work. Now is the time that the parliament can come together and make real reforms. Labor will back the government's childcare proposals, but they need to fix these serious flaws. They need to protect Indigenous Australian children, they need to protect our regional services and they cannot cut the access of the most vulnerable Australian children.

I have a challenge for those opposite today who are going to contribute to this debate: how about, rather than standing up and running your key lines and your political attacks, trying to defend what it is you are doing to Indigenous, regional and low-income Australian children? I bet you that you cannot do it. If one of you can stand for 10 minutes and talk about why these children should pay the price, we would be very interested in hearing it. But Labor will continue to stand up and fight for those who need it the most.

See this speech in context