Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

Again, they are arguing—arguing with the fact that the latest CPI data shows costs increased by a whopping 4.5 per cent in December 2022. That's the largest increase outside the COVID measures since 2007. It's expected, given the last time Labor was in government fees skyrocketed by 53 per cent in just three years. The only thing that will happen on 1 July is further burnout for educators, higher fees and more families struggling to find a place for their children. For some families in regional, rural and remote Australia, living in a thin market or a childcare desert, nothing will change from 1 July, because they still won't be able to access care and this government has no plans to fix that. There's $4.7 billion, and not $1 will go to delivering more access for families.

In contrast, the coalition has a strong record when it comes to delivering for Australian families. We doubled our investment in ECCE and locked in ongoing preschool funding. That was the coalition government. We increased access for more than 280,000 children, brought costs down and increased women's workforce participation.

But that's not all we did in government; we protected our country and economy during COVID, growing our economy and maintaining our AAA credit rating. Unemployment fell to 3.9 per cent, its lowest level in 48 years, in April 2022. We reduced the tax rate for small businesses 25 per cent, the lowest rate in 50 years. We signed agreements with Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Peru and many more countries to improve trade opportunities for Australian exporters. We doubled hospital funding to $27.2 billion, listed more than 2,900 medicines on the PBS, delivered telehealth and improved access to private health and Medicare. We more than doubled school funding to $25 billion. That's the coalition record. (Time expired)

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