Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party, Assistant Minister for Children and Families) Share this | Hansard source

Today I feel like I've travelled back in time. It's as though we have regressed past the digital age back to the era of vinyl, because here today Labor sounds like a broken record, always preoccupied with spending money instead of delivering outcomes. Those opposite spend more time focused on delivering talking points than delivering for the community. Over and over, they skip and repeat like a busted old 45, reiterating the same virtue signals and trumped up attempts to blame the government for being prudent with the hard-earned tax revenue we are in charge of. This latest announcement by an opposition on the run is a cynical, focus-group-driven attempt at policy work. Mark my words, the opposition's theatrical policy has nothing to do with delivering for children and everything to do with delivering taxpayer funded jobs for teachers and preschool workers.

'But how will they pay for it?' I hear you say. The answer is: the same way those opposite pay for everything—put it on the nation's credit card and then tax us all to the hilt to pay the interest while borrowing even more money for other projects. As I get around any electorate, I haven't found a single person who wants to pay more tax. What they want is to be taken seriously. They don't want people to demonise industries they rely on for their livelihoods. They don't want to have major job-creating infrastructure projects like Rookwood Weir and the Capricorn Highway duplication blocked by politics. They want their representatives to get on with delivering jobs for them and to help address the climbing cost of living. Families are doing it tough. It's tough enough without also having to pay for the woeful economic management those opposite would provide. A household budget is a hard enough exercise without the extra taxes any government from those opposite would thrust upon them.

Having said that, preschool is, of course, an important aspect of our education system. The head start our kids are able to take advantage of is part of how we keep ahead of the rest. That is why the coalition government is committed to preschool. While investing record funding of $8.3 billion in the childcare system this financial year the coalition government is also delivering for preschool children, with around $870 million available to support preschool throughout 2018-2019. This funding for preschool is secure until the end of 2019. State and territory governments are responsible for preschool delivery, and it is not good enough for states to shirk their constitutional responsibilities. We have a Constitution for a reason and, if we don't respect it, we will leave ourselves open to ruin. The federal government will of course continue our engagement with the states and territories to discuss funding arrangements together into the future beyond 2020. With funding locked in until 2020 we have certainty and time for this work to be done properly, to ensure that future funding investments are aimed at achieving the best outcomes for our children.

By way of comparison, Labor's report card on education is very shaky. During their last term, Labor increased childcare fees by 53 per cent and allowed the taxpayer to be rorted and ripped off to the tune of between $6 billion to $8 billion as part of the white-elephant-producing Building the Education Revolution program. And Labor allowed dodgy training providers and third-party brokers to exploit VET students, leaving them with no qualifications and a mountain of debt. In one year alone, Labor tried to rip over $2.8 billion from higher education in a desperate attempt to achieve a surplus. Did it work? Of course not. Labor has failed to deliver a budget surplus since the late 1980s.

This really does come back to my previous question: who is going to pay? At this stage all we know is that each and every Australian will pay more tax under a Labor government.

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