Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dunkley and the member for Lilley for their contributions. It's a pleasure to follow them tonight and I join them in talking about Labor's strong commitment to early childhood education and care, which has been a longstanding commitment for Labor. We support the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021 before us tonight from the government. It is about addressing the problems that we are seeing with child care in Australia at the moment. This is a massively missed opportunity and, sadly, another example of where the government saw what has become a political problem and went just far enough to where they think they have solved it. With this legislation, they are not actually addressing the deep-seated problems with the childcare system that we are seeing: the crushing costs that mean that parents aren't able to work as much as they would like to. They're staying out of the workforce or aren't increasing hours to an extra day, because they simply can't afford it. This is wrong. This is bad for families, bad for women, bad for the economy, and bad for the little children that miss out on an incredible opportunity to access high-quality early childhood education and care.

We know that, in the preschool years, children's brains develop at the greatest rate for their entire lives. What they learn at this time will set them up for the rest of their lives and has impact on that trajectory for them. It's an incredibly important part of our education system, yet it's not quite treated equally by the federal government. One of the most exciting parts, I think, of Labor's policy is that, in government, we will task the Productivity Commission to look at a universal childcare system that would enable it to be treated more like public school, where everyone can access the great benefits.

Also, when we make child care affordable, it changes the conversation about who is doing the work and who is doing the caring in the family unit. It makes it an equal discussion between men and women, and that is so important. What I want to emphasise there is choice. I think both mothers and fathers have a role in raising young children and balancing work and family at that time.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the chamber, we have seen, in recent months, the discussion in their party room where they referred to early childhood education and care as 'outsourcing parenting' and were worried that, if we made it too affordable, women might be forced into the workforce. I think that just shows how incredibly out of touch the Liberal and National parties are with families, with Australian women and with the Australian community, who are wanting, more and more, to balance parenting and work and to access the great benefits of early childhood education and care.

This is not just about childminding. And I want to take this opportunity to again acknowledge the incredible work that early childhood educators do. It's a mixture of really skilled educating of these little Australians—and, as the mother of a three-year-old and a 10-month-old, I am very alive to the challenges of dealing with these very young people and trying to understand how their young minds work—

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