Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion. Studies have shown that Australian parents pay almost four times as much as their international counterparts for child care. This often forces parents, primarily women, out of the workforce and leaves children without a head start in learning at an important age, that very young age when it makes all the difference. The child care subsidy is means tested, but for many families child care often remains far too expensive. This results in what has been referred to as the 1.5 earner model, where, usually, the father works full-time and the mother part-time. It's also estimated that Australian families sending their children to child care pay on average between 30 and 40 per cent of their household income to do so. The OECD average is 11 per cent and we are paying on average between 30 and 40 per cent. That is way too high. This results in the sad fact that just 15 per cent of three-year-olds in Australia attend early learning. It's not just child care; it's early learning at an age when the child's brain is like a sponge; it picks up many, many things. It's the easiest time in life to learn. The more they learn at that point, the more they'll cope with their education when they get older, the more likelihood they have of employment and the more likelihood they have of a higher education. It makes an enormous difference if children are learning at that age.

Those figures that I just gave about the difference between OECD and Australia result in the sad fact, as I said, that only 15 per cent of three-year-olds attend early learning, compared to an average of 69 per cent in other developed countries. We are lagging way behind. Too many children are missing out and too many are not getting the early learning opportunities because parents just cannot afford them. We need to take a good look at our Child Care Subsidy System and consider how we can better help families with their rising living costs. I'm very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, and the member for Kingston, Amanda Rishworth, have done so. They have put together a package that will assist families. It'll assist mums and dads to get the child care that they deserve.

Labor has always been at the forefront of such important social reform. In fact, it was the Whitlam government in 1974 that announced Australia's first right of access to child care for every family in Australia. This was groundbreaking reform back then, and today we on this side of the House want to continue improving access to and the cost of child care for Australian families. The good, big reforms that help and assist people have always been announced by Labor and implemented by Labor, whether it be Medicare, universal health or the NDIS, and the list goes on and on. The proposal that the Labor Party has at the moment is, again, one of those major reforms that will assist families. It will assist mums and dads but, most importantly, it will assist children to learn and enable them to take part in the process. All the science and all the educational professionals tell us that the earlier a child starts learning the better off it will be for their education in years to come.

In my electorate of Adelaide, for example, families have seen costs rise by four and almost five per cent over only the last 12 months, while wage growth in this country is currently at its lowest in history. It is unacceptable to see a four to five per cent increase in child care costs and a wage growth of zero. These figures show clearly that the support of the child care subsidy, which is indexed to the CPI, is failing to keep up with out-of-control fee increases. Addressing the child care subsidy seems like an obvious way to lighten the load. It will help in productivity. It'll help parents going back to work. It'll help children in their education.

I hear from so many families in my electorate about how they are struggling to pay child care and to make ends meet. I've also hosted a childcare forum with providers in my electorate. Everyone is unanimous that the system needs reform. What's more, the current childcare system is not designed to get everyone back to work. Many women across all income levels want to go back to work, but they do more hours only to find that it isn't worth it because they don't take home enough pay. It's about time we fixed this. This is a fundamental and important reform that would help us recover. (Time expired)

See this speech in context