Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are times in this chamber when it almost feels like being Alice in Wonderland. It's like you live in an alternate universe to the people on that side of the chamber. The things that the members on the other side of the chamber say are so fundamentally disconnected from the actual lived experiences of people like the people in my community, we must almost be living in different countries.

We have all of these members of the government—from the minister, who's turned his back on me, down—and none of them so far have addressed the research released today by the Front Project. So far, none of them have addressed a survey of 1,700 families showing that 73 per cent of families say the cost of child care is a barrier to having more children. We have the member for Higgins saying: 'Oh, isn't it wonderful! Families can have as many children as they want.' That is, as long as they're all under five—she forgot that part of the impact of the government's policy. And there was no reference, none whatsoever, to the cost of child care being a barrier to having more children for 73 per cent of families.

While we're pretending this is a debate in this chamber—for once, because they're not gagging us during the MPI, like all the other times—let's also talk about some of the other ridiculous things that were said on the other side of the chamber: 'Oh, great! We announced a policy.' Well, good, you did, after a long time suggesting that Labor was lying and making up stories about why the childcare system was broken and needed to be fixed. It would seem to me that the fundamental basis of introducing reforms is to accept that the system isn't working, because what else were you doing when you were apparently reforming it?

Let's also ask the people who spoke before me in this debate, who lauded all these families in their electorates who are going to be better off: have any of you told them they won't be better off for a year? They will be better off in 12 months because there will be a federal Labor government with a childcare policy so much better than yours that it will put yours in the shade.

See this speech in context