Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for her contribution. I know she's genuinely engaged, as a parent of twins, in the childcare and early education system, as am I, because I have two young daughters who have literally, in the last half an hour, just got home from day care. So, standing in this place I have an appreciation, more than most, for the importance of early childhood care and education.

I want to start by saying a heartfelt thankyou to all those hardworking early childhood educators who look after my daughters and look after many families' children while they're at work. I stand in this place today, and my wife was able to work today, because of a service provided by some very caring individuals. I also think it's important to note the role they play in being part of the fabric of a local suburb or community, and I'll get to some of that a bit later in relation to where there's a lack of child care through parts of Australia, which is regrettable.

In the suburb of Labrador, directly across the road from my office, we've got the Jacaranda Early Education Centre. Last week I visited them because they asked me for a set of three flags, and I was very proud to deliver those. And throughout the suburbs of my electorate there are some amazing childcare centres—for example, Runaway Bay Kindyland, Goodstart Early Learning at Parkwood, Bonny Babes at Hope Island, Harmony Early Education at Hope Island and the Little Scholars School of Early Learning at Ormeau. All are doing an amazing job to make sure that on a day-to-day basis our children are given the best start in life.

But it's not easy to stand in this place and support the approach Labor have taken to child care during this term in government. In the end, people are working—and often have to work—in order to pay the bills, and child care becomes an absolute necessity in order to get yourself to your place of work and apply yourself to that job. The activity test as introduced was to try and incentivise and facilitate parents getting back into the workforce, and that is I think a very worthwhile intention. There are a lot of parents out there, a lot of mums, who are going to say, 'Well, if they're removing the activity test, that is the best news I've had this week, because it means I'm not going to have to spend 45 minutes on the phone to Services Australia.' One of the things that's happened during this term of the Labor government is that they couldn't run a chook raffle let alone a government department giving any kind of level of service. There will be a huge sigh of relief at any reduction in the time that you have to spend dealing with Services Australia, under this government, because, I've got to say, that'll save parents a lot of time.

But where this government has failed Australian families in child care is that they get lost in the concept of creating something that will turn up on a corflute at a polling booth at the federal election this year. Mark my words: as we walk into polling booths, there will be corflutes that say 'Cheaper child care'.

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