Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

When we announced our childcare plan in my first budget reply, the government said that there was no issue of childcare affordability. Do you recognise a pattern here? We put forward a policy idea. The government says it's nonsense and that it's trying to provide a solution to which there's no problem. Then, they creep their way halfway down the track. It sounds familiar in the context of what we've seen this week. We've put forward an idea of cash incentives: a $300 payment to everyone who is fully vaccinated. They said, 'No, we can't go there,' but we know they were examining it themselves. They're examining lotteries and they're examining other things. Lieutenant General Frewen told us that just before question time. We know that that's the case.

So the fact is that child care has followed that pattern as well. Under this government childcare fees have increased by more than 36 per cent and 138,700 Australians are not working because they cannot access child care. Of that, not surprisingly, 92 per cent are women. UNICEF did a recent report, entitled Where do rich countries stand on childcare? It ranks countries on their childcare policies based on affordability, access, quality and parental leave. Overall, where does Australia rate out of 41 countries? It's 37th. Just to explain it really clearly to the government: that's not a mark of 37 out of 41, like in the top percentile here. That's where 36 countries are doing better than us and we're coming in at 37. There are only four countries that are doing worse than us when it comes to these issues. UNICEF also found that we were one of only eight countries where child care consumes at least a quarter of the average wage—only eight countries.

Labor's plan that we put forward is good for working families, it's good for the economy and, importantly, given that over 90 per cent of human brain development occurs in the first five years of life, it's good for children as well. This is an investment in our country. What did they say when we announced our policy? They said it was going to cost too much. What was the cost? It was $6.2 billion—there's that figure again—over four years. It's a fully costed, good policy to boost productivity and assist our economic development. It's not welfare policy, it's about the three 'P's that you can do if you want to grow the economy: population, participation and productivity.

Obviously it's good for participation in the workforce, particularly allowing women to participate fully in the workforce. And it's good for productivity: at the moment, because women aren't able to participate fully in the workforce we have all sorts of gaps, which in part explains the gender pay gap in this country of 13 per cent. If we want to boost productivity we need to make sure that we value those employees, that they can work five days a week and not make the decision just to work two or three days a week because if they work a fourth or fifth day then the income in their pockets actually goes backwards for so many working women. That's bad for our economy.

Apart from participation and productivity, obviously, population is the third P. At this time, due to the circumstances of COVID and the issues with our borders, our population isn't increasing in the way that it was projected to do so. Of course, those opposite are never ones for consistency when it comes to policy. Those opposite were the founders of the baby bonus—a cash payment to have a baby. This policy is about population growth. By allowing people to earn their own income, being able to work and fully participate, people will be encouraged to have the confidence to have a first or an additional child. So it's good for all of the three Ps, but of course it has been opposed and rejected by those opposite.

Part of our policy—the front of it—was getting rid of the child care subsidy cap. It limits the amount of childcare subsidy that some families can receive in a year. That's one of the two measures that are in the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill. When we announced it, they said it was irresponsible and it shouldn't be done. But now they've got legislation before the parliament saying it should happen. This is in the same term! This isn't ten years on or five years on; this is the same Treasurer, the same Prime Minister, during the same term of parliament. When we said it, they stood up here and opposed our policy. They said it wasn't necessary. They said getting rid of the cap would be a bad thing to do, but that's the first thing that they've done.

The second thing they've done is to increase the childcare subsidy rate for families with multiple children under six years of age. They didn't want to adopt our whole policy; they adopted one half of it, and just for multiple children are they improving the rate. The fact is that when families have children many of them do have multiple children in child care at once. But what's a very common scenario is that a child goes into child care and then, two or three years later, following up, the family will have another child, and they'll go into child care as the first child is going to school. That's a very common scenario. Under this government, though, you're on your own unless you have multiple children under six years of age who are all in child care together. This is a policy that will certainly be good for multiple births, but for the great majority of families who have children not at once but one by one this is a very short sighted policy.

The government has missed this opportunity. If you have that policy, whereby you have to have multiple children in child care at the one time, then when the first child goes into child care you're not getting any increased support, and then when your second child is in child care you might get some support—or with a third child you might get some support. But, if you have the second one in child care, once the first one goes to school, you're back where you were at the beginning. It is just bizarre that they think this is a sensible, rational policy. It provides a small amount of relief for a small minority of families for a short period of time. That's what this policy does. The vast majority of families get absolutely no additional childcare subsidy support under the Morrison government's plan.

Of course, the Prime Minister was the architect of the current childcare subsidy system when he was the minister, a system that has seen fees increase by more than 36 per cent, I remind the House. Labor's policy, our cheaper child care for working families, will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap, it will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent and it will increase the childcare subsidy rate for every family earning less than $530,000. But remember their response to that as well. They said we were helping wealthy families. They played the old class envy card, they did, over there! Over there, there it was: the old class envy card was played, the same people who had cash for baby bonuses, the same people who said that the cap should remain. It's all there; it's all in this piece of legislation—the inconsistency of this government's approach.

We're going to fix Australia's broken childcare system. It currently locks out more than 100,000 families, because they just can't afford it. I'll tell you something else that we'll do as well. In our first term, we will have a Productivity Commission inquiry into a comprehensive review of child care, with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families. We think that when a child goes to school in our public education system, no matter who they are—no matter their background, their race, their gender, their religion—they're entitled to go to the local school and get an education. As a society, we accept it's something we should do, because we recognise that an education is something that benefits the entire society; it's not a commodity that benefits just an individual and that we can put a specific price on for that individual. We accept it because we recognise as well that universal access to education is not only a human right but pretty smart economics. If you give opportunity to more people, you will get better outcomes for the nation.

In the fastest-growing region in the world in human history, where we're located, we need to compete on the basis of how smart we are—not through the government's approach of driving down wages and conditions but on the basis of how smart we are. All of the research says that every dollar invested in early learning is the best investment you can make in a future adult's capacity—every single dollar. If you put a hundred dollars into someone's early learning, a young boy or young girl, that will produce greater benefit for them, and therefore for their future family and our nation, than the same amount put into primary, secondary or tertiary education. It's just a fact because of the way that human development happens. That's why we call it early learning. When you go into these centres right around this country, as I have with the member for Kingston and other members from this side of the House, you see the remarkable work being done by educators. It's not childminding; it's learning. It's remarkable work making an incredible difference.

We also want to move a technical amendment to the bill to automatically exempt services from collecting childcare gap fees from families during COVID-imposed lockdowns. What was happening in Sydney, and I was contacted by constituents about it, was that families couldn't send their children to child care because of the lockdown, and they couldn't go to work either, but they were still getting hit with the bill for the gap in fees. This amendment is about fixing that permanently. We want to make sure as well that, when we do this, every dollar spent will make a difference for working families. So we will also put in place provisions that will improve transparency in the childcare sector.

Labor's plan is good policy. It will make an enormous difference to people. Ninety-seven per cent of families will benefit. Not a single family will be worse off under our policy, compared with the system that's there today. The government have adopted some of Labor's policy. They should adopt all of Labor's policy. It's only their acute embarrassment that is stopping them doing just that.

See this speech in context