Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is really disappointing to be standing and speaking about a piece of legislation, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Jobs for Families Child Care Package) Bill 2016, that is such a lost opportunity, and that is why we cannot support it in its current form. I acknowledge my shadow minister and her sincere offer to work with the government to fix some of the flaws in this legislation. It is hard to support a piece of legislation that is going to leave one in three families worse off, particularly when we are talking about families of below school-aged children.

It is interesting to be standing here not as someone who has children in child care. I have children in their 20s so this takes me back to several of decades ago. I think it is worth noting every mum, every dad asks themselves deep questions about child care: is it the right thing to do? What kind of child care is right?

I think child care means different things for different families, and unfortunately this bill does not address the needs of a variety of families.

Let me talk a bit about what child care means to me. We call it child care, yet it is early education. We know now—the research tells us—the amazing development that happens in the brain between zero and five years of age. We know that this is when children have exponential growth, if it is fostered and if children's brains are allowed to flourish in a supportive and safe environment. We know that that will have benefits going forward for decades and decades, for their whole lives. In fact, that means that there are benefits for society. So it seems very short-sighted to me to introduce legislation that is going to make it harder for the most-disadvantaged children to get the supportive, educative preschool environment that we know would deliver enormous benefits.

When I look at the issues being raised here, with one in three families worse off, one issue is that those impacted by the activity test will find it really difficult to access early child care. We have talked about the number of hours that children will be entitled to. It is currently 24 hours. That gives some families a respite from the challenges of raising a child in an already difficult environment. It is also giving children a respite from families. This has been looked at by the Productivity Commission. They acknowledged that children at risk of abuse and neglect benefit the most from high-quality early childhood education to improve their life chances, yet it looks like this same group of children will be most disadvantaged by this legislation.

We know that many children and families face really complex problems with lots of interconnected causes, but all the research tells us that, if children can attend a high-quality, integrated early childhood education and care service, that allows them access to a range of services. It can improve children's cognitive development and learning in the short- and long-term. It is very short-sighted to deny families and children that opportunity, when an investment at this stage can forestall further investments and greater investments many years down the track.

In my own family's experience, it was thanks to quality early child care that my son's speech impediment was picked up. My son is now 22, and he travels the world performing on stage as a musician. He lives a life that many 22-year-olds would dream of, but he does not do it with a speech impediment, and that is thanks to his quality childhood teacher at preschool picking up that he was not pronouncing some of his consonants properly. It is really well known that children who have speech impediments have a much higher likelihood of ending up in the juvenile justice system. The research is in; the University of Sydney has done a lot of work in this area. Knowing that we as parents had quality child care gave me enormous confidence. Something that could have impeded his transition to school, his confidence at school and, therefore, his ability to really thrive at school may not have been picked up without that. It is wonderful to know that quality child care can do that. But it is so disheartening to see that, in this legislation, we are going to make it so much harder for all families to access that sort of support.

Spending money on early childhood actually has a significant boost to the bottom line as well, with the research showing economic returns from early childhood investment of up to $16 for every dollar invested. That is a 16-fold return—$16 for every dollar. It is a massive return on investment. The highest return that you get is for vulnerable children, yet here we are with a piece of legislation that, because of the access test and the activity test, is going to make it harder for those children to access it. What is more, there does not seem to be any additional safety net put in place to prevent disadvantaged families from slipping through. So that is one problem I have with this legislation.

The other area that concerns me is workforce participation. We hear a lot from those on the other side about self-employment and people running small businesses. It is no surprise that many mums now work from home, run their own businesses and are self-employed. That does not always equate to a steady, even income. Women choose to do that because it is the only way they can juggle family responsibilities. If you think of my electorate on the outskirts of Sydney, where it is a two-hour commute to and from the city each way, you can see why mums would choose to try to establish themselves and work from home; often that means self-employment.

This legislation has a workforce participation test that is going to make things even harder for those people. If you do not have a steady income, it is going to be really hard to justify what you are doing on a regular basis. Anybody who works for themselves—the other side seem to think they have the exclusive right on this; if that is the case, they should know this—knows that it is not always the same amount of work every week. It ebbs and it flows. So it seems strange to me to put into legislation something that makes it even harder for people with casual work or who are self-employed—those sorts of precarious work situations—to access something that actually helps them do that work. Is there not some irony in this? It is one of those catch 22s that we see all too often in ill-thought-through legislation from those opposite.

Let us also talk about the amount of access to early childhood education. I want to touch on this in particular. The minimum number of hours are being cut from 24 hours to 12 hours. For some people, 12 hours will provide only one day of early education, and we know that, as a minimum, it needs to be two days. In spite of spending an additional $1½ billion dollars, we are actually going to see kids going backwards. That is why this is such a lost opportunity.

It is not just me saying this, speaking as a mum who has agonised about the sort of early care that her children would have. Like many mums and working mums who had to make decisions, I have been through a range of child care, from family day care to long day care to preschool to parent-run preschools—the whole gamut of things. With two children you try lots of things to try to get the right combination. This family assistance legislation should be assisting families as they make those really difficult decisions. It is such a shame that it has taken several years to get to this point and be left with such a lacklustre solution, which is not a solution at all for one in three families.

Let's look at the other people who are saying this if you do not want to take our word on it. The organisations that have called on government to make sure that vulnerable and disadvantaged children continue to have access to at least two days a week of early education include the Australian Childcare Alliance, Early Childhood Australia, the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia, Family Day Care Australia, the Early Learning Association of Australia, the Creche and Kindergarten Association, UnitingCare Australia, Mission Australia, Anglicare Australia, Gowrie Australia, the Benevolent Society, Social Ventures Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, United Voice and The Parenthood. You might say, 'Oh well, you'd expect those organisations to say that sort of thing.' Let's look at the providers who also think that it is vital for the educational outcomes of the children they care for—the ones they are preparing for an easy transition to school; the ones we do not want to see fail in kindergarten and their first year of school when it would cost so much more of taxpayer dollars to uplift them to the same standards. Of course, thanks to the failure of the other side to support Gonski, the kids who are now entering child care will not have the benefits of Gonski.

The providers who see that there needs to be more than 12 hours of child care include the Affinity Education Group, Goodstart Early Learning, KU Children's Services, Early Childhood Management Services, SDN Children's Services, and Bestchance Child Family Care. In my electorate we have providers from a range of the organisations that are providing child care in the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains to children who absolutely deserve to get the best possible education. What is more, their families deserve to have the support they need so that they can either continue working or know that their child is having the benefit of a safe and secure environment. It is not just those families who benefit from it; the whole society will benefit from knowing that we have done the best by our children.

This is not something that will affect me as a parent. My children are beyond that, but it will affect me and many others as grandparents. If you fail to properly support families to pay for quality child care, you are forcing them to fall back on other supports. Of course, we know grandparents are the ones who are picking up a lot of the slack in this area, not necessarily because it is absolutely their first choice. Most grandparents tell me they love looking after their grandchildren from time to time or a day or two a week. Most of them, though, say they do not necessarily want to be the full-time carer for a grandchild. That is not what they planned in life. My mother has played a huge role in helping to raise and care for my children and she still does that for my niece and nephew, who are only in primary school, but as legislators we cannot shift the burden to that part of society as we seem to do so often, saying, 'The government's saying there's not enough money to do more than this. Let's just make the community pay it.' The community is pulling its weight in so many ways. From what I see, the majority of the community is what the other side would call 'the lifters'. They are pulling their weight, they are volunteering, they are looking after grandkids and they are contributing to society in a range of ways. Any flaw in this policy is only going to put a greater burden on that age group. I have to say that I am not sure my children would love having me as the carer for their children. Perhaps in the interests of my children's sanity, we should relook at this package.

This side of the House is very happy to try to fix these flaws. It is not too late. It is not too late to take a principled decision and say, 'You know what, the youngest part of our society is actually a great place to invest, supporting the educational outcomes for the youngest children in our society so that they have easier transitions into primary school and mothers feel less guilt about going to work.' This place knows all too well the pressures of working parents and how important it is to know that, when you are working—I do not think it matters whether you are male or female—your children are being cared for and educated in the best possible place. Sadly, this legislation does not help achieve that. I urge the government to think again on this. It is one thing to split the bill, but it is another to go forward with such a flawed piece of legislation.

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