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

[by video link] I am very pleased to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021.

Of course, Labor will support these changes—just as we have been constructive throughout this pandemic. But, unfortunately, again, and like so many of the government's responses in this pandemic, it seems that they've been ill prepared and delayed in their response. Often during this pandemic, the government has seemed surprised that COVID is still with us and they seem surprised that lockdowns continue to happen. This is despite Treasury having predicted in the budget papers that there would continue to be lockdowns. Since we were last in parliament, there have been lockdowns in Melbourne, lockdowns in South Australia, lockdowns of course through that whole time in New South Wales and lockdowns in Brisbane. So the Morrison government shouldn't have been surprised and therefore scrambling for a response for how to support communities.

Of course these lockdowns come as a result of the Morrison government's failure to sort out quarantine and to roll out the vaccinations. Now we're seeing both the health and economic consequences of that around the country.

The bill before us today does provide legislation that enables support to be implemented, particularly during the lockdown currently happening in Greater Sydney. The changes will ensure that both business support and COVID disaster payments will receive tax-free treatment. As I said, obviously Labor will support this, but we are 18 months into the pandemic and it is disappointing that the government has not learnt from some of the gaps that have appeared.

One of the areas where the government just can't seem to learn that support is needed is in the early learning and care sector. This sector is critically important to the running of our nation, but we've seen the early learning and care sector in Sydney be left behind during this current lockdown because this government just doesn't seem to understand how it operates. Early learning centres are considered essential services. Through this whole pandemic, early learning centres have been keeping their doors open, and educators have been turning up to work. This ensures that our doctors, our nurses, our health professionals, our hospital cleaners, our police officers—just to name a few—can go off to do their essential work and have a safe place for their children to go to, to be cared for and to be educated. I want to take this opportunity to again thank all our early educators, all our early learning centres and their directors, and everyone who has worked so hard to support families over the last 18 months. You are all essential workers, and Australia couldn't keep functioning without you.

Right now, families in Sydney are doing the right thing. They are keeping their children at home during this lockdown, and they are not using early learning services. The government was slow to act on calls to ensure that these families would not be legally required to pay the gap fee, to ensure that, if services could, they would waive the gap fee for these families. Understandably, families in Sydney who are doing the right thing and keeping their children at home don't feel it's fair that they are being charged fees during this lockdown and exhausting all their allowable absence days. Labor called on the government to give early learning services in Sydney an exemption in relation to the waiving of these gap fees. And, of course, belatedly, the government responded. But what they've done is only a half-baked measure. While they've allowed centres to waive the gap fees, they haven't provided extra support for centres to be able to afford this financially. This has led to a really big dilemma. The government, as is the case many times during this pandemic, has put the responsibility back onto families. So services are now faced with a difficult decision. Do they give families a break from fees, perhaps stand down educators, perhaps stop paying educators and sustain huge losses? Or do they continue to charge the gap fee to ensure that their businesses remain viable? This is an impossible choice, because families deserve to have fee relief, but childcare services still need to pay rent and still need to pay wages.

It's been estimated that family fees can comprise up to 40 per cent of the total revenue for childcare services. Giving families fee relief is a big deal for many services. According to the Morrison government, the problem is that, in some cases, the services haven't lost enough income to qualify for business support. When the government introduced its COVID support package for Sydney, many early learning centres were ineligible because their income hadn't dropped by 30 per cent. According to the Morrison government, losing 30 per cent of income is not good, but losing 25 per cent in early learning is okay. The centres still have to keep their doors open and they still have to take the children of essential workers, but they don't get any extra support. I've been contacted by families and services from all over Sydney who are suffering. Some families are still having to pay fees because their centres just can't afford to give them fee relief, and other centres are giving waivers but struggling to keep their doors open. Other providers have not been eligible for this COVID payment, not because they haven't had a severe enough downturn but because they have a higher turnover, above the threshold determined by the Commonwealth and New South Wales. Many are non-profit providers. There are providers such as KU Children's Services and Goodstart Early Learning which turn over above the threshold to qualify for the business support payment. Despite a huge drop in revenue, they are now being penalised for running a large number of centres. Once again, they are still expected to keep the doors open and are still expected to take essential workers' children and care and educate them but are deemed by the government of not being worthy of support.

Providers are telling me that in some parts of Sydney attendance levels are down to below 20 per cent. This is particularly the case for outside school hours care. This is having a huge impact and I am concerned that many of these providers may not make it through to the other end of this extended lockdown without government support. What is particularly baffling about the government's response and particularly baffling about the belated ability to waive fees for families and the lack of understanding of the sector is that this has happened before and the government responded with a package. During the prolonged Victorian lockdown last year, the government waived fees for families and introduced a financial support package for early-learning services that allowed them to stay open for essential workers, allowed them to survive on low attendance and allowed them to waive the gap fee for families. There was a dedicated $6 million fund for out-of-school-hours care, recognising the significant impact that the lockdowns were having on out-of-school-hours care, but also recognising the importance that these services played for essential workers. That wasn't that long ago. That was just last year. But, as I said in my introductory remarks, it seems that the government have amnesia. They've forgotten about what may have worked in the past, they've forgotten that this has happened before and that the early-learning sector is a unique sector that needs essential support to keep going. I don't know whether it's amnesia or whether this is deliberate, but it is incredibly frustrating for families that have services saying that they can't waive the gap fees—services that are trying to do the right thing but cannot keep their doors open.

Providers want to keep their doors open to serve essential workers. Families need fee relief. The government have a playbook that they used in the prolonged Victorian lockdown. I urge the government: please talk with the sector; please listen to families and implement a support package that supports our early-education sector and ensures that early educators stay connected to this important profession, because we know that they are already experiencing a shortage of educators, who left in the last prolonged lockdown. We don't want to see that happen again. I urge the government to respond quickly and swiftly. They don't need to reinvent the playbook. The playbook is there; they just need to follow it. I urge the government to start listening.

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