Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

No, no Office for Women. It was revealed in Senate estimates that the Office for Women did have some input, but they weren't listened to when it comes to early education and care.

We are looking at really trying to address the workforce disincentive rate, a term that's come up as a result of how expensive our childcare system is and the way that women are losing money or not making any money because of the cost of child care on the fourth and fifth day. We've put forward an alternative. The response from the government is that the current settings are right, and apparently women should be grateful because this budget builds some roads. Well, they can't be grateful in my electorate, because you're not building roads in my electorate! You're not investing in roads in my electorate, so not only do women have unaffordable child care but they actually don't have any new roads to speak of when it comes to driving. Unfortunately my electorate is missing out again. They don't get any new roads and they don't have affordable child care. This really hasn't been good for women, or men, in my electorate.

What Labor has announced is that we will make child care cheaper for 97 per cent of families. That is our plan for the first three years, and then we are going to look at our very ambitious plan to move to a universal 90 per cent subsidy system, and we'll be tasking the Productivity Commission to do that work.

In addition to this, we know that a lot of young people have been doing it really tough during this Morrison recession. It's been a really difficult time and I think we underestimate the hit that young people have taken and the consequences of that. The consequences from the global financial crisis are still being realised by people that were young and just trying to get into jobs during that global financial crisis. They are still having the impact today. That was highlighted by the Productivity Commission. We know that this recession is so much worse, so much more difficult and that this is going to be very hard. And what we've seen is the government, during a recession, making it more expensive to go to university, more expensive for young people who perhaps are finishing year 12 and are thinking: 'I just can't get a job. I'm going to better myself.' Well, the government has made it more expensive to go to university. While the hiring credit has been very much lauded by the government as the panacea, Treasury officials have confirmed that, once you put the spotlight on these things, it's only expected to create 45,000 jobs—just 10 per cent of what the government said it would do. The government claimed 450,000 jobs, but of course it's only going to deliver 10 per cent of that, if that. We know that the government has a track record of not being able to deliver these types of schemes. We've seen that with mature workers, where take-up has been very poor.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this because I don't think it will deliver even 45,000 jobs. The proof will be in the pudding. You need to watch what the government do, not what they say, because they are so full of spin. They want to turn up at the marketing opportunities, cut the ribbons, puff out their chests and say, 'Aren't we doing well?' The truth of the matter is that they have a problem with delivery and they have blind spots, and this budget does not set Australia up for the long-term.

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