Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

When it comes to the legislation before us this evening, the question must be asked: does this bill help working families who are doing it tough in a cost-of-living crisis, trying to make ends meet and put food on their table? And, importantly, does it help working families living in rural and regional parts of the country, who are frequently unable to access the child care that they need? Unsurprisingly, the answer is no.

If this bill passes, families, particularly rural, regional and remote families who need child care so they can work, will be competing against families who will now be eligible for taxpayer subsidised access but may not be working, studying or volunteering at all. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this will increase demand, and increasing demand without increasing supply is a real issue, especially in the regions where the private market is struggling to meet the needs of communities for childcare services at present.

Supply is already an issue in the regions. While the Albanese Labor government crows about increasing wages and subsidies for child care, Mallee families are stranded in a childcare desert, with long waiting lists, and, in some towns, no childcare service at all. There's nothing to crow about in the childcare deserts, just crows squawking with no childcare place in sight.

I have been meeting and listening to families all over Mallee about the challenges they face in childcare deserts. Mallee parents regularly contact me desperately seeking help. So much so that, in October 2024, I invited the shadow minister for early childhood education, Angie Bell, to my electorate to meet with families in the desert, visiting Robinvale, Cohuna, Hopetoun and Beulah.

Parents came to see Angie and me to share their personal grief and struggles at not being able to find childcare places locally or within 100 kilometres driving distance. At Robinvale, for instance, there is just one service run by Murray Valley Aboriginal Co-operative, which takes all children from the community. Robinvale is one of Mallee's worst childcare deserts, which are defined as having 'less than one place for every three children needing it'. In Robinvale, there are 10 children needing each place.

In Hopetoun, mothers told us of the mental health struggles they have endured not being able to obtain child care for their children. The local provider ceased operations recently and the local shires of Yarriambiack and Hindmarsh have been working hard with Wimmera Southern Mallee Development's By Five Early Years Initiative to strengthen child care in the region. I'm working with them at the state and federal levels to cut through the red tape and promote policy that will bring sustainable child care to the region. By Five reports that over 50 per cent of the Wimmera Southern Mallee alone is considered a childcare desert.

Cohuna residents and stakeholders said their No. 1 priority is to have a date to work towards after the Victorian government made an in principle commitment to establishing the town's first childcare centre sometime in 2027 or 2028—a long way off when families need care now. Funnily enough, the very day the shadow minister and I were meeting Cohuna residents about their childcare desert, the Allan Labor government mysteriously finally set a date for when the childcare centre would open there.

Beulah's Heather Sherwell has two young children and says of the lack of child care:

We're essentially killing small towns … we've got to choose between, does one of us stop working, does a farm lose an essential worker … or whether we just have to pack up and forget about everything we've built.

In Gannawarra shire late last year, 86 children were waiting for a place in long day care, with some waiting since January 2023. Meanwhile 42 Cohuna and Leitchville families have been waiting for family day care places since May 2022. In Wimmera Southern Mallee, at one point there were 300 children on local waiting lists and 84 additional staff needed to meet the demand. According to data collected by the By Five Early Years Initiative, in many rural towns with populations of less than 5,000 people, there is no childcare service at all. So waitlists alone do not tell the tale of the huge hole that is hurting families. There is no waitlist for a service that doesn't even exist.

Wimmera families and councils have been left to fend for themselves. Dedicated Rainbow community member 41-year-old Katherine Durant and her farmer husband, Ben, have two boys under six years old. Ben works seven days a week and up to 16 hours a day, leaving Katherine to sole parent. Katherine says:

You just have to look at the faces of the rural women with small children during cropping and harvest. They are doing the best they can and, like me, probably cry every day in frustration. But we do it. We shut up and we do it.

The lack of child care in Rainbow and Jeparit leaves nurses and teachers unable to return to work in a desperately needed workforce.

This is a common issue across regional, rural and remote Australia—gaps in childcare coverage. Left unaddressed, they threatened the future viability of rural, regional and remote towns. Some families tell me they may leave the district if a solution isn't reached soon. Healthcare workers and their professional organisations frequently tell me that a lack of access to child care is a major barrier to getting the doctors, nurses, physios and other professionals we desperately need in rural and regional towns to provide essential health care.

As the shadow assistant minister for regional health, I see childcare access, which relies on childcare supply, as a key strategy in boosting the health workforce in our regions. Let me remind us that the families I described previously across the electorate of Mallee are families who are struggling to buy their own homes or, owing to the high cost of rent, which is now 17 per cent higher than it was before this government came to office, with health costs that have increased by 10 per cent in the same period, electricity prices that have increased 32 per cent and gas prices that have increased by 34 per cent. These are families who need two incomes to survive. They need to work and they need child care to work. They can't get the child care they need, and they need it now.

This bill proposes to make taxpayer-subsidised child care available to a larger pool of families. It proposes to expand eligibility to subsidised care by removing the activity test for three days a week, so that families who need child care so they can work will be competing against families who may not be working, studying or volunteering at all. When the former coalition government introduced the activity test in 2018 it was designed to encourage workforce participation. It was also designed to ensure priority of access was given to vulnerable families alongside working families. Members on this side of the House firmly believe in providing support to those most in need, and that is why when the activity test was introduced it included several exemptions for children and families with increased need for care. This bill will provide all families, up to a combined income of $533,000, with access to 72 hours a fortnight of subsidised child care. For Indigenous families this will be increased to a maximum of 100 hours a fortnight of subsidised child care.

It sticks in the craw of rural families in child care deserts that Australians on a combined income of more than $500,000 get government subsidised childcare support but they cannot access a cracker because they are in a childcare desert. The coalition will oppose this legislation. This bill is flawed in a number of ways. It increases access—or demand—without addressing supply issues. It removes priority access for working families. It disincentivises aspiration to be working, studying or volunteering if not taking care of one's children. It does nothing to increase access or flexibility for families and does not address current cost-of-living pressures. Of particular note is the fact it does nothing to help solve the unique problems faced by rural and regional families like those in my electorate of Mallee.

Over the last three years Labor has failed to meaningfully address supply-side constraints. They argue their $1 billion Building Early Education Fund policy will boost supply, but history tells us they will not be able to deliver, especially outside major cities. This government has a track record of deprioritising the needs of rural and regional Australians by making schemes that were previously targeted at rural and regional issues less targeted, diluting the needs of rural and regional people against all groups with unique or increased need, as if to deny the challenges experienced—or, as I have put multiple times in this place, robbing regions to buy votes in the inner cities. Labor does not have rural and regional Australia's backs when it comes to so many public policy issues, including equitable access to child care.

Let me now discuss flexibility. Families have a right to chose what their work and family life looks like, and the coalition respects this choice. Labor's three-day guarantee does nothing for families who chose to remain at home and raise their children until primary school, or families that use flexible arrangements such as grandparents or nannies by choice, all because centre based care arrangements or family day care don't meet their needs adequately. The bill also does nothing for parents who need flexibility, such as families who do shift work or who work non-standard hours—healthcare workers. Again, these hardworking families will not benefit from this change. The families who aren't working, studying or training will.

Now, to affordability. Some sections of the community have labelled the three-day guarantee a cost-of-living measure, but in reality it is nothing of the sort. Since Labor came to office the cost of child care has increased by 22.3 per cent. The last time Labor was in government, the cost of child care skyrocketed by 53 per cent in six years. Almost one in three services are charging above the fee cap as providers struggle to keep up with the rising regulation and operational costs.

Australia's budget is under immense pressure. The activity test plays an important role in encouraging workforce participation and creates a stronger culture of self-sufficiency among those who can and should support themselves. The activity test is not unfair. Rather, it ensures that the taxpayer funded childcare subsidy is targeted, that government funds are applied in a targeted manner. Yet, this government not only wants to spend taxpayer money to enable additional families to access child care whether or not they are working or have other reasons for benefiting from the care but is not addressing the core issues at hand in rural and regional Australia, of improving access to care in communities where it is just not available.

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