James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the second reading of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 and the amendment that has been moved by the member for Moncrieff. As people have already covered comprehensively, this legislation will provide some cost-of-living relief to families that have their children in child care, and it will dramatically expand the ability to access the CCS and increase the amount that some people are realising.

Unfortunately we saw in the budget last night—and it's been made worse with the release of the inflation figures by the ABS today—that Australian families have never needed support more to help them meet the ever-increasing and escalating costs that they have to bear. That applies to families with children, in particular. Last night we had the revelation—perhaps confirmation—of how dramatic the increases in electricity and gas bills are going to be for Australian families. We've seen the ABS confirm today a surprisingly high inflation rate for the September quarter, of 7.3 per cent—much higher than was anticipated by economists that had been surveyed by the various media outlets in the last 24 or 48 hours. Unfortunately the underlying rate, which is probably the one we are more interested in, was even higher as an order of magnitude compared to what people were expecting. So we're in an environment of dramatically escalating costs across the board. That is putting an enormous amount of pressure on families, so I'm very happy to support this measure which will help some families who have childcare costs to get more support from the Commonwealth, because they need it. The government are talking about when they made this commitment. It was a few years ago, early in the last term of parliament, when they were in opposition. Of course, the significance of this support is dramatically diminished with inflation being at the rate that it is at now, and, of course, we don't know where it will be by the time this takes effect on 1 July next year nor how much more will be lost control of by this government as revelations of our electricity prices, like were made in the budget last night, came into effect. Imagine what the impact would be for those families if, on top of all that, the stage 3 tax cuts were repealed. Imagine saying to those families you want to help them with childcare costs through this bill and then taking that money—and probably more—away by reversing the stage 3 tax cuts.

If you care about people re-entering the workforce and being properly valued for that and having the support that they need, sure we can and will increase support for childcare costs. But even more importantly let's put some money back in their pocket by reducing their taxes in responsible ways that ensure this bracket creep and these escalating costs being put upon them through all these various inflationary pressures are honoured and that there is not an attempt to, in this budget, implement this measure. Yes, you did take this measure to an election, and, yes, you are putting it in place, and, yes, we are not standing in the way of it, but the government needs to make sure it does not dare undertake the hypocrisy of removing this kind of support from parents that access child care and of penalising every other person that pays income tax that earns more than $40,000 a year by thinking that the people of this country will fall for this kind of measure being dressed up as a way of supporting them, particularly women, to re-enter the workforce by removing a tax cut. This will only address the bracket creep they are suffering, which is not only what we envisaged when it was legislated years ago but that is now a more significant bracket creep that will come in because of inflation running at what has been confirmed in the September quarter as 7.3 per cent. And we have no idea where this is going to end, because, unfortunately, quarter after quarter after quarter it's only continuing to go up. If electricity prices are going up by 56 per cent over the next two years, and gas is going up by more than 40 per cent over two years, then I don't really understand how, with those sorts of cost pressures in place, inflation is going to be brought under control and will be reduced from 7.3 per cent. But we will wait and see, and I hope the government bears that in mind.

We're happy to support this bill and the cost-of-living support it will provide, but it's nowhere near enough what people need. We need much broader support to reduce the cost pressures that the budget confirmed last night. Last night in the budget the government said, 'Hey, your costs are going up, and we will do nothing to help you meet those costs.' That's what we found out in the budget last night, and that is bitterly disappointing for the families that are going to get hit really hard by this and the businesses that will get hit really hard. We have a government that wants to say in a budget, 'Strife is coming your way, and you're on your own.' That is truly terrible for some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who, in particular, will find it the most difficult to meet the costs—with interest rates going up at the same time.

If you want to talk about global uncertainties and how they're feeding into things—and I think we can agree that the planet isn't getting more certain in the months and years ahead. So, if you want to say that there are external forces at play here and they are a factor, I don't think any of us would suggest that they, as a factor, are coming to an end any time soon.

The childcare system needs a lot more than just this measure, and it would be unacceptable for the government to think that this legislation puts into place some great fix. I'm not qualified, like some of my regional colleagues, to talk about the significant challenge of accessing child care in this country whatsoever, because it is a very different environment from an access and service point of view depending on where you live, and that's not right. There's nothing in this bill that helps people in regional areas that can't access child care no matter what it costs because it doesn't exist. I'll obviously let my colleagues give their examples—and they already have in their contributions so far about that, and there'll be more tonight. But I really implore the government to listen to those contributions from people who come from communities that are not serviced at all and don't have any access to childcare. Whether or not it is cheaper for them, if it doesn't exist that is completely irrelevant.

I'm very lucky that my electorate is well serviced. I'm in a metropolitan electorate, and I haven't heard other metropolitan members talk about no service existing in metropolitan areas, though they have—and I have the same issue in my electorate—huge challenges still with people accessing child care, because the centres might exist but that doesn't mean that there are places in those centres that are available for people who need access to them.

I visit these centres, and I had the opportunity to take the shadow minister, the member for Moncrieff, to one about a month ago. The story we heard there—which I hear regularly from my childcare centres and which she confirmed she was hearing right across the country—was about these enormous challenges with workforce. There are thousands and thousands of unfilled roles under the current system today, right now. Childcare centres across the country have thousands and thousands of vacancies for staff that they are currently unable to fill.

We understand and respect that there are workforce issues across the economy right now. I don't suggest that it is unique to child care, although that even more compounds the problem. It's not as if, when you talk about training places that you're making available, there's a huge slack capacity of people to shift from some sector that has a massive oversupply of labour that can be redeployed into the childcare sector by retraining people—quite the opposite. We have huge problems more broadly across the care sector. Obviously, the NDIS is growing significantly and there are huge demands for workforce in disability services and disability care. The aged-care sector equally has enormous workforce challenges and needs enormous growth in that workforce into the future. We've got a situation where the Victorian state government health department is trying to cannibalise nurses from the South Australian health system by offering them significant inducements and sign-on bonuses to leave—

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