Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

yes, don't you worry about that!—to help people access early childhood education. It's genuinely extraordinary.

Honourable members interjecting—

Now we see some animation in the parliament. Good! Why is it that, time and again in this parliament, the lowest income people in this society, the people who are often the most downtrodden, are told to wait time and again.

The government has proposed a 20 per cent reduction in student debt but said we have to wait until after the next election. We know the impact of this activity test disproportionately affects not only low-income people but also First Nations people. One of the other really good things about this bill is that it ensures that First Nations children will be eligible for 100 hours of subsidised child care per fortnight. Great! We've just had a Closing the gap report that demonstrates the huge gaps in educational outcomes between First Nations children and other children in this country. So why not accelerate this bill?

To be clear, this is not directed at some of the Labor members in this House, because I know that it was not your decision. But it is deeply frustrating when we have gone privately and publicly to the government and said: 'We will pass this bill unamended as quickly as possible. We will secure its passage through the House and Senate using any means necessary to make this bill law before the election.' That's what we've said. And yet we have seen this government turn around and do a dirty deal with the Liberals on electoral reform instead.

The effect of one of the other bills that's being gagged and shoved through right now in the Senate will be cutting the access to and amount of DSP, or disability support pension, of young people aged 18 to 21. That's apparently a priority, but actually helping people in this country to get access to child care is not. To give the human impact of the decision to delay this bill, I'll quote from the ABC:

Megan Hunt loves being a mum to her two and four-year-old boys but there's been a sting as she's tried to navigate what she feels is best for her children.

Ms Hunt, a nurse, didn't want to return to work immediately after maternity leave and decided to stay home with her sons until they were three.

"Parenting young kids is really full on, it's really intense, it requires pretty much everything you've got—emotionally, physically, financially—which I know I would not trade for the world but any parent will tell you they need a bit of flexibility and you do need support," …

Before her children were born she worked casually as a nurse and picking up work in the in-demand profession wouldn't be a problem.

That's what she thought.

When her eldest son turned three, she hoped to return to casual part-time work while her son attended pre-school.

But the uncertainty around her hours as a casual employee made it impossible to secure the childcare subsidy (CCS) and the doors to childcare were closed

This had devastating impacts on her career.

There are a lot of women in particular around the country whose lives could be improved right now if we accelerated the passage of the bill. It genuinely beggars belief. In what is potentially the last week of this parliament before an election where we do not know the outcome, we could accelerate this. Instead, the government has prioritised a stitch-up on electoral laws that will see their party get more public money from taxpayers and a bill that cuts the DSP for young people aged 18 to 21.

It would be great if we heard someone from the government explain why electoral law reform that won't even be enacted this year—that is a stitch-up for the major parties—is a higher priority than helping people like Megan get access to early childhood education. And you wonder why people are fed up with politics. Their lives are tough right now. They are doing it tough right now, and our childcare system is in crisis. There is a bill before this parliament right now that could help them. Are we seriously going to suggest that we're going to get through this entire week and not do our jobs to get this bill through as quickly as possible? It's genuinely shocking.

Of course, the Greens have a much more expansive childcare policy. We think it should be completely universal and free for everyone because we think that access to early childhood education is just as important as access to primary and secondary school. You wouldn't countenance charging, sometimes, thousands of dollars of fees to prohibit people from accessing primary or secondary school, so why would you do it for early childhood education? Notwithstanding the fact that often when you're trying to get the subsidies under these schemes it's deeply complex, and it almost feels like you need a master's degree to get through it—notwithstanding all of that and our much more expansive policy—we have put that aside and said that we will not demand one single amendment in return for the passage of this bill. We will pass it unamended. I hope that there are ministers and people in charge of the Labor Party watching this right now and understanding that this is our message to the Labor Party here. We will pass it. The choice that the Labor Party has is to take that olive branch and use it to get it through the House and Senate as quickly as possible.

Drop the overprioritisation of stitch-ups on electoral reforms. Drop the overprioritisation of cutting the disability support pension for 18- to 21-year-olds to effectively close the loophole. Instead, let's prioritise getting women, children and parents access to good-quality early childhood education, and get rid of a draconian Morrison-era law that effectively cruelled people's access to early childhood education. Indeed, one of the things that Megan said in this article is:

The activity test is really tied up in what the parents are doing, when the question should really be, 'would this benefit kids?' Because then it really doesn't matter what the parents are doing.

I would argue that the question, 'Does this benefit kids?' applies to everyone in this place, in the Senate and in the Labor Party as well. If they genuinely believe that this bill is important—and certainly the Greens do—then they will roll up and they will accelerate the passage of the bill through the House and through the Senate. It's an easy test that the Government can pass because what I'm about to propose is that we vote on this right now. I move:

That the question be now put.

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