Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Building on the Child Care Package) Bill 2019. Australian families rely on the childcare subsidy scheme to afford appropriate care for their children while they themselves are in the workforce. It is important for Australian children, it is important for Australian families and it is important for the Australian economy that parents are able to be employed. The current childcare system was introduced by the government in July 2018. Since that time, it has become very obvious that there are significant design faults within the current system and high administrative burdens being placed on families and providers. There have been delays, there's been confusion and there's been an abundance of paperwork flowing through the current system.

Registering for the childcare subsidy requires onerous paperwork to be completed. Many families, after successfully completing the paperwork, have been hit with a debt as the childcare subsidy entitlement has been overestimated, resulting in an overpayment. For families working on a budget, being faced with a debt notice by a government agency is highly stressful. The department is being forced to act as a debt collector. Robodebt notices are going to families, with many of them not actually owing any money. In Senate estimates last week, the Department of Education confirmed that 91,840 families, or 16 per cent—yes, 16 per cent—have so far been hit with a childcare subsidy debt. The system is complex, it lacks transparency, it has dodgy IT and families have been hit with debts that they can't verify.

Many families are worse off under the current system. The government's own figures estimated that one in four Australian families would be worse off under the system brought in by Prime Minister Morrison. Families who are trying to access the additional childcare subsidy, the child wellbeing payment, most of whom are vulnerable and at-risk families, are finding the new system very difficult. The number of children accessing the child wellbeing payment fell by over 20 per cent in the first few months of the new system. More recent data shows there are still fewer children approved for this payment than before the commencement of this brainchild of the coalition government.

And child care has become more expensive under this new system. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government claimed the new childcare system would put downward pressure on fees. However, what has actually transpired? The latest CPI figures show that childcare fees increased by 2.5 per cent in the September quarter, the fourth successive increase, and have now gone up by seven per cent since last September. Have wages gone up by seven per cent in the last year? I can assure you they have not. In fact, we've got under the Morrison government the lowest wages growth since they started measuring wages growth. Fees have increased by 30 per cent since the Liberal government was first elected. Here we are in the seventh year of this dreadful travesty that is the coalition government.

There is clearly a problem with the current system, despite the government for months denying that there's any problem whatsoever. And, in what is increasingly becoming their usual style—the advertising flim-flam approach to governing—the government tabled this bill without any warning or any consultation. Nonetheless, this bill does improve a couple of the technical design flaws in the system that the Morrison government rolled out.

However, there is one amendment in this bill that raises serious concern. Currently, families have 28 days after a childcare subsidy claim is submitted to provide their bank account details and tax file number. In some cases debt notices have been sent to families where the payment has been made but the details have not been provided in the time frame. This amendment will require families to provide those details at the time of the claim being submitted. The coalition government argues that this amendment is necessary so that families will not accrue a debt for not providing their details within the time frame. I'm concerned that these families, who are eligible for the childcare subsidy for early learning and care, are being denied the support they need for urgent care simply because they don't have immediate access to their personal information. The committee report on this bill reveals submissions to the inquiry were overwhelmingly concerned about the negative impact this change could have on families in difficult circumstances. It's not hard to think of a situation where a family may not have immediate access to their personal information—for example, the classic case, which I've encountered as an MP, is of a parent and children fleeing family violence or a family who has been caught up in a natural disaster, which also is a phenomenon I'm very familiar with in Queensland. As we've heard from the insurance companies, the scientists and most sensible farmers, we know that there'll be more and more natural disasters coming our way.

Early Childhood Australia, in their submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, pointed out that for families experiencing difficult circumstances this amendment would be detrimental and harsh. They explained that even though some of these families may be able to access the additional childcare subsidy immediately, that will only be possible where the family has disclosed their circumstances. In some situations the parents will not be comfortable disclosing their personal circumstances, nor will they be comfortable being assessed for the additional childcare subsidy.

This amendment makes the childcare system less flexible and less accessible for families who may already be in the midst of a stressful, difficult situation. This amendment may make it more convenient for the Department of Human Services, but where it rolls out, where the rubber meets road, it will actually increase the burden on families trying to access early learning and care for their children. This amendment is unreasonable and lacks compassion and understanding about how vulnerable families actually work.

Labor believes the bill should be amended to retain the current 28-day grace period for providing personal information to better meet the needs of families and providers, and I urge the minister to consider that. Labor notes that the coalition government is proposing to amend the bill in the Senate to provide exemptions from the new rules for families in crisis. Labor will not oppose the government's amendment but believes that the proposal put forward by Labor's shadow minister is a simpler and less complex solution.

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