Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on the MPI. Policy reform is very difficult. In the area of childcare policy Labor has introduced no reform for at least six years—probably even nine; time gets away. I can remember that in opposition and then in government all the Labor Party did was criticise the reform process that the National and Liberal parties undertook—that is, to have a Productivity Commission investigation and look at how we can support the most families accessing child care and early learning for parents returning to work and for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and at the same time have a strong, viable sector. We were always there for the children. We always are there for the children.

Labor, unfortunately, is there for the childcare unions, to some extent the educators, and to some extent the political argument. Make no mistake: we support the educators too. We value what they do. We know that early learning is not babysitting. We're absolutely on board with all of that. All I have ever heard from the Labor Party when it comes to childcare policy is negatives, negatives, negatives, but never one single positive policy. I'm not saying they didn't exist; I'm just saying I could never see them and still haven't seen them in this MPI. Most of the speakers have talked about the universal access to preschool, which is a national partnership agreement between the Commonwealth and the states. It has nothing to do with the childcare rebate that we pay to parents to support them when they go back to work or where they have their children educated in early learning. It's a completely different proposition. It has been wheeled into every single argument.

There's been a lot of nonsense talked about the minister and the budget papers. There has been no recognition of the facts, which were that the national partnership agreement was extended by us—it was extended by me as childcare minister—because it ran out. Like all national partnership agreements, it ran out. Conveniently, the Labor Party latched on to it as if it was a continuing agreement. We funded it. We continued it. Remember, child care and early learning are the preserve of the Commonwealth government through the subsidy support rebates we provide. Preschool is the preserve of the state governments, because it belongs in the school system. But we helped bridge that gap. The current minister—who undertook the very, very difficult reforms that came out of the Productivity Commission review—extended that national partnership agreement on universal access to preschool until 2019 and worked with the states and territories to make sure it was rolled out properly and to make sure every child who was entitled to get that got the support that they needed. It isn't just about handing money to the states. I can assure the Labor Party that if they ever get into government they won't be doing it either; they will be wanting results.

Getting back to the actual childcare reform itself, the difficult proposition was this: childcare fees were going up and the rebate was going up. There was an inflationary component in that. If you're operating a childcare centre and you know the rebate for your parents is going up, you might continue to put your fees up. We saw some really incredible price spikes. What we also saw was the maximum rebate going to parents on the maximum income. That didn't make any sense, because we know that the parents on the higher incomes sometimes can afford to pay a little bit more. I'm not making judgements about every family. Every family deserves support, and they get it through this government's childcare package. What we've done is increase the subsidy from around 72 per cent to 85 per cent for the more than 370,000 families using child care and earning less than $67,000 a year. Do not lecture us about withdrawing money from child care and about not supporting parents. It's that group of parents who are probably entering the workforce, who have got all sorts of bills happening around them and who have incomes of $67,000, and we've increased the subsidy by more than 10 per cent for them.

What we've done is make ourselves pretty unpopular with some people on the higher incomes, who were used to the ever-increasing childcare rebates. We've made ourselves pretty unpopular, but we've made the hard decisions. Senator Birmingham, as the childcare minister, has made the hard decisions. He has worked this policy through and has presented it to Australian families. Obviously, there were issues at the beginning, but I'm surprised at how small in number those issues have been. The activation that the Labor Party has desperately tried to get from all of the childcare unions and everyone else to speak against our policy has failed miserably, just like their childcare policy did.

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