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

The minister at the table says it's a good idea. Can I tell you that that, in all honesty, would be a fabrication, because we know—and the minister should know this—that the cost of child care in real, tangible, out-of-pocket terms has gone up astronomically. Being in the child care and early education space, as I am, with my two young daughters, I know and talk to a lot of parents about these issues. Very helpfully, these parents provide an amazing level of detail to support their concerns about what's happening in child care under this Labor government. I'll give you one example of an early education centre where, at the start of 2024, the daily rate was $153. On 5 February 2024, it went up by $5 to $158. On 8 July 2024, it went up by a further $17 to $175, and then, on 2 January 2025, it went up by $7.60 to $182.60 per day. Never mind the entire term of this Labor government; this is a real-life example of what's happened in a 12-month period, and—I shudder to say these numbers—the actual rise has been $29.60, or 19.3 per cent, in 12 months.

We, as a coalition, support early educators; we support what they do. Sometimes, on the other side of this place, Labor speakers will try to rewrite history and suggest that we didn't support the pay rises for our early childhood educators, but we did. That's a reflection of the work that they do. But don't think for a minute that that isn't paid for by someone. In fact, do you know who it's paid for by? It's paid for by the parents whose children go to the centres. Again, the living, breathing example of this is where that same early education centre said, on 6 December, that they were signing up for the increase in wages—fantastic—and then what happens only seven days later? Guess what, families? Your fees are going up. Parents can join the dots. It's another bill to pay that's going up. That's what's happening under this Labor government—the cost of everything is going up. What parents tell me is that the barrier to getting into child care is oftentimes just the calculation of the sheer cost. It's not about the activity test; it's actually about the cost.

So we are now seeing a policy which I'm sure probably has some good intentions, if we put the corflute campaign to one side. But this government doesn't, cannot and, historically, has failed to deliver childcare places in this country. They can't control those numbers. We know that when they pump-prime the number of people who require places in child care what's going to happen is there will be more people seeking those places. It will put family against family—working families against those who aren't working families—trying to compete for the same number of places. We've heard our regional representatives in this place talking about the childcare deserts. That's one example of how we know that this particular policy of Labor's will fail, because in our regions there are just not the places to cover this. But, as it is, even in suburban and urbanised areas the childcare places aren't increasing fast enough to cover the needs, so there are waiting lists at many of our local centres.

In the end, what this government are doing yet again is legislating a poorly thought-out and poorly designed quick fix that gives them a headline on the eve of a federal election so that they can have the corflute campaign that they want to run. But Australians will see through this, and they should see through it, because it'll be sold that the three-day guarantee is kind of sounding like it's free—but it's not. If Labor is re-elected and that guarantee turns up next year, there are going to be a lot of families who will be thinking that the three-day guarantee meant that they will be getting three days, guaranteed. Of course, it's nothing like that, because you're still subject to those costs that I talked about earlier. As I said, under this Labor government the cost of everything is going up, and the families who have their children in child care and are working so hard to pay the bills have been on the wrong end of 12 consecutive interest rate rises under this government.

Inflation has stayed too high for too long because the Treasurer has been playing chicken with the Reserve Bank for almost three years. At every available opportunity, the Treasurer makes a decision to poke the bear of the Reserve Bank instead of just maybe reining in what they need to be reining in—just momentarily; just long enough to see inflation get down into the band and then stay there. The Treasurer, with his obsession with a big government that spends so much, is not giving the Reserve Bank the tools that they need. They need to see the data in the right comfort zone, and we haven't seen that. We're now halfway through February 2025. Last year just about every other advanced economy saw a reduction in interest rates. Where's Australia? We're falling behind. Instead of being the great, prosperous nation that we should be, we have people who are struggling, and they're struggling under the weight of this Albanese Labor government.

Child care, as I said, is one of the most significant expenses that a family has. So if you think about the upward pressure on interest rates that has seen them go to extraordinarily high numbers, consecutively, and you think about just that one example of the daycare centre going from $153 to in excess of $180, Australians legitimately should be asking themselves whether or not, in February 2025, they are better off than what they were in May 2022. The truthful answer is that they're not. They know they're not.

But, instead of helping working families and prioritising those that are struggling the most under the pressure of interest rates, with rents going up and mortgages going up, the government are obsessed with a corflute campaign that they'll stick out there whenever the federal election is called. I hope that Australians can see through that. I hope they can see that the pathway to a better nation is with a coalition government. We'll get our country back on track.

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