Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hope you can all hear me from one of Melbourne's finest suburbs, St Kilda. I'm very pleased to be representing this local area, and I thank all of the staff and all of the people in the parliament who have helped make this virtual contribution possible. These really are historic times that we're all living in right now, and I know that the efforts of many to make our democracy tick over are very much appreciated. So I start my contributions by saying thank you. I also would like briefly to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I'm calling from, the Boonwurrung people, and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

This pandemic really has tested many of us. It has brought out the best in many Australians, and we've seen our frontline workers really do more than their fair share in this pandemic. But, unfortunately, it hasn't brought out the best in some members of our government. Unfortunately, I would say that the minister responsible for this area has had some really disappointing decisions that have been made. I'm very pleased to see the shadow minister in the chamber with us this afternoon, because she has been a consistent voice of reason throughout this entire pandemic and someone who has stood up for educators, for parents and for people in my electorate, who are some of the hardest hit in the entire country. So I want to thank her for all of her efforts.

This bill, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Improving Assistance for Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Families) Bill 2020, is one that the Labor Party does support. But, just as the second reading amendment put forward by the member for Kingston, the shadow minister, says, this issue is far bigger than just this bill, and there are serious issues in our early childhood education and childcare sector that we need to be addressing right now. Despite the government opposing the wage subsidy from the very beginning of this pandemic, despite the government pushing back against the suggestion of the Labor Party and the broader labour movement that we needed a wage subsidy, I think all Australians were relieved when the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced there was going to be a wage subsidy during this pandemic. At the time Australians were relieved that that wage subsidy was going to last until at least September. But, unfortunately, despite the government committing to the wage subsidy, JobKeeper, being around until at least September, only four days after making that promise, the first group the Prime Minister decided to take the JobKeeper subsidy away from was our early educators and childcare workers.

There are many people around the country who are really struggling because they're being left off receiving the JobKeeper subsidy. In my electorate we've had job losses in the university sector and in local government, and arts and entertainment is one of the hardest hit industries. But there is a certain sense of cruelty to pick on this industry and to pick on the workers who, throughout this pandemic, have put themselves on the frontline to look after our children, to make sure they are having the experiences that they should be having at this time, only to be told that their job security and their JobKeeper subsidy was going to be taken away. Unfortunately, it's a reflection of the government's attitude to this sector and to the workers in this sector, who really deserve a whole lot more. We didn't get everything right at the last election, but I would say that our policy to support the workforce, to support our early education and childcare workers with a much-needed pay rise and with the respect that they deserve in their industry, is in stark contrast to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer breaking their promise to support the workforce all the way up to September. It couldn't be more stark, and it couldn't be a more important time for the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to be supporting this female dominated workforce.

The other point I wanted to make was to show how important our early education sector has been in this pandemic. In the great electorate of Macnamara, the biggest local council authority is the City of Port Phillip. Last year they decided they were going to look at potentially taking council out of the council-run childcare services in the City of Port Phillip. It was a really frustrating time and it was a really disappointing move by the council, because the council-run services are really good, and the council supported services, the community-run services, are also of an extremely high quality, with two services in my local electorate having an 'excellent' rating—and it is quite rare to have that in services so close to each other. These are extremely high quality services that are relatively affordable compared to some of the local for-profit providers. The City of Port Phillip decided to look at potentially privatising of some of their services. This was a move that divided the council. After this move was announced, a group of local parents and educators, along with union representatives and the state member for Albert Park, my good friend Martin Foley, and I got together and decided to push back against the City of Port Phillip taking themselves out of the council-run services.

I am so pleased that, in the last couple of weeks, the City of Port Phillip announced that they will not be proceeding with this plan. The Save Childcare in Port Phillip group had a decisive victory in standing up for their local community and reversing the council's decision to take themselves out of the council-run childcare services. The council reversed their decision because they recognised the importance of our early education sector in these times. At the moment child care is not just about giving parents a chop-out during the day; child care is a pathway back to work in these extraordinary times. Child care and early education are crucial to our essential workers being able to make sure supply lines and healthcare services are available to the broader community. Our childcare and early education services are the linchpin that keeps society together. I think that was reflected in the City of Port Phillip's decision to maintain their commitment to early education and child care. But, unfortunately, it hasn't been reflected in the federal government's decision to rip JobKeeper away and provide uncertainty to our workforce and to our staff, who are doing a herculean job over this period.

I want to acknowledge the member for Kingston, who joined me at a roundtable in my electorate where we met with a combination of council-run and community-run services, family daycare providers, union representatives and a really impressive and committed bunch of early educators, who all shared the shadow minister's commitment to the sector. They were speaking not about their own welfare but about the welfare of their industry and the welfare of their colleagues.

I just want to reiterate a point that's been made to the government a number of times. The Labor Party hasn't been seeking to undermine the government's effort; we've been seeking to stand up for the interests of those in the industry. Throughout this pandemic the government seems to be consistently forgetting that we need certainty for our workforce, and we need certainty for our providers and parents. In the last month or so Victoria has experienced probably the darkest and hardest days in our state in a very, very long time. I can see that a lot of my colleagues are joining in virtually today. As MPs and representatives in this place, we are deeply concerned about our communities, we're deeply concerned about our elders and we are concerned that this pandemic has stretched people's patience and has taken so much away from so many.

The least we can do is provide the certainty that the government showed at the start of this pandemic to not only make sure that young families have the support they need to get their kids into early education services but also to make sure that staff and the workforce receive JobKeeper. Instead, despite all of the turmoil and struggle that we've seen in Victoria, the government has disappointingly decided to snap back to the Liberal Party's politics of old and to take certainty away from our workforce and our providers. It's been really difficult to watch and really frustrating, at times, for families. The Labor Party supports this bill, but, to be fair, we believe that the government needs to do much better in this sector.

The government fought against the JobKeeper subsidy from the very beginning, reluctantly introducing it after much pushing by the broader labour movement. JobKeeper has made a deep and profound difference to the lives of Australians. It was extremely disappointing to have JobKeeper removed from early education services, especially for Victorians. Members of the Victorian community can't even have friends and family over for dinner, yet the government wants to reduce the only thing that's keeping them above ground—their JobKeeper support payments. I think the Leader of the Opposition is a hundred per cent right in saying that the circumstances of this pandemic need to be taken into consideration when the government decide on the sort of support they are giving to the Victorian community and the Australian community. Now is not the time to be taking away. Now is the time to be supporting Victorians and now is the time to be supporting people in our workforces right across the country, and it is absolutely the time to be supporting our early educators, because for too long they have worked too hard for too little and have been underpaid and undervalued in our society. I think that we, as a parliament, need to not just take steps to support families but take more profound steps to support our early educators.

As a political tragic sometimes, I was watching the Democratic convention, in the background, over the last week, and one piece of policy that stuck with me was from Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, when she spoke about child care. We often talk about infrastructure and how crucial it is. The more roads we build, the more train lines we build, the better it can help support businesses and the better it can help support companies to move freight, to trade, to move products. Well, child care is the infrastructure for families. It is the infrastructure for our families to be able to get back to work. It is the basic foundation that we need to be setting up in our society to make sure that parents, and especially women, can return to the workforce.

We are the poorer for putting up barriers to women returning to the workforce. Throughout this pandemic, there have been too many Australians out of work. We need to be doing everything we can as a society to make sure that there are pathways back to work for Australian workers. While it has been wonderful, personally, to be able to stay home and spend more time with my family, it is a cold hard fact that women do more than men at home in our country and they do it without pay. As men, we can absolutely do better at this and it's something that we need to do better at. But as a society, we need to make sure that the pathways back to work for Australian women are not blocked by unaffordable childcare and by the sorts of barriers that we're talking about today.

We need to be supporting our early educators, we need to be supporting families and we need to be supporting people throughout these extraordinary times. What that looks like is certainty. What that looks like is making sure that we do not snap back—that we are assessing the pandemic on the times that are before us. In Victoria, now is not the time to be making families who are doing it tough try and stretch themselves to get back into unaffordable child care. Now is the time to be pushing for reform in the sector. Now is absolutely the time to be supporting our childcare workers and early educators. Now is the time to give them the respect and admiration that they have been due for, for a very long time.

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