Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and for the passion that he brings to education in this country. It's a heartfelt passion; he wants to see every child get the very best education they possibly can, and it's a pleasure to work with him. We're backing free early childhood education and care for around one million families, no matter what type of service they use. Under the plan, the government will pay 50 per cent of the sector's fee revenue up to the existing hourly rate cap as of 2 March, before enrolments dropped due to coronavirus. We require services not to charge families fees. The new system started from 6 April and will be reviewed after one month, with an extension to be considered after three months, so we're looking at six months of free childhood education and care for one million families.

The plan complements more than $1 billion we expect the sector to receive through our new JobKeeper payment to help ensure many of the 200,000 vital education workforce can stay connected to services. It means all families can access free child care. That is a lifeline for the country's 13,000 early childhood education and care services. The plan means the sector is expected to receive $1.6 billion over the coming three months from taxpayer subsidies because of the 2 March baseline that has been set, compared to an estimated $1.3 billion if revenues and subsidies had continued based on the existing system that has a significant reduction of enrolments the sector would have seen as a result of the coronavirus.

We're asking three things of the sector. We ask they prioritise children of essential workers, and, as the Prime Minister has said, every worker is an essential worker. Whether it be the doctors and the nurses in our health workforce, whether it be the people repairing the tyres for the trucks that are delivering the goods to the supermarkets, whether it be those who are working in our agricultural sector or whether it be those who are working in our cities to deliver services, they are all essential workers. We also want them to prioritise vulnerable children. As the member for Farrer was saying, we need to ensure that our children remain safe during this next six months in particular, so we want to make sure that those vulnerable children are prioritised and also that they prioritise those families who have an existing relationship with their provider. What we were seeing were families unenrolling their children from their providers. We want to make sure that they re-engage with their provider, especially once we get through this six months, so that our childcare sector will be ready to be up and running to help us get our economy rebuilding after this pandemic.

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