Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I started preparing myself for this speech on the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025, I had a look at what I'd said in a previous bill, and I looked at some of the speeches that people had made on some of the reforms we were doing in relation to the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill back in 2022. Under that particular bill, the government had a really forward agenda by lifting the childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000 for the first child in care, increasing subsidies for families earning less than $530,000 with one child in care and keeping higher CCS rates with families with multiple children in care aged five and under. That plan was about making child care more affordable. About 1.26 million Australian families, about 8,900 families in my electorate, benefited. About 96 per cent of families who used child care were better off. In fact, no family was worse off. It delivered real benefits to Australian families, and it meant that a family on a combined income of about $120,000 with one child in care would save about $1,780 in the first year of the plan.

I remember those opposite railing against this particular bill, policy and plan when it came up, engaging in all forms of political gymnastics when we brought the bill in and constantly attacking us for the policy, the settings that we were doing and the reforms we were making. It's sort of deja vu. In last 24 hours, we've had Liberal and National Party people in this place saying, 'Oh, child care's not affordable; it's not accessible,' after about nine or 10 years in government doing nothing. We brought in a massive change back in 2022-23 to help Australians right across the board, which they railed against. We then announced a policy in December last year, supported by stakeholder after stakeholder—as the member for Curtin said, even the National Farmers Federation, who are not exactly an affiliated member of the Australian Labor Party, came out and said how wonderful the policy was—and you've got Liberal and National Party people from rural and regional Queensland and elsewhere saying, 'We can't get access to child care, and it's not affordable.' They haven't got a policy; there's nothing from them.

They're whingeing, moaning, carping and going on. That's all they've served for the last 24 hours—constantly whingeing, carping and moaning. Come up with something constructive! They've got the free lunches for bosses and $600 billion on nuclear power plants that won't deliver any benefits in terms of energy security and cheaper energy for the country. They've also got golden visas that they inadvertently announced by virtue of having a mic over their head. They're bereft of policies, and yet they come in here and criticise us about this, when, in practical terms, this policy will benefit so many Australians. The degree of contortion is like those old games of Twister. It's political Twister. They've got their body here and there, trying to avoid certain things.

The reality is that we've got an incredible need for child care to be affordable and accessible in Australia. About 1.4 million Australian families are going to benefit from it.

This is not just an equity issue; it's a productivity issue and it's an economic development issue. Many women caring for young children want to return to work and want to make sure that they can get access to more money, more hours and more financial security for their families. Families often lose family payments and childcare subsidies as their income rises. This is all a disincentive for parents, and especially mums, to do more paid work. According to the ABS data, in 2022-23, about 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work, because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them.

That's why the first tranche of our reforms was done. Those opposite were railing against them, and they've railed against the second lot. It's quite extraordinary from the Liberal and National members opposite. The Grattan Institute research has consistently shown that supporting women's workforce participation through cheaper child care is one of the best things you can do to grow the country's GDP. The Liberal and National parties claim that they're in favour of economic development—the parties of capitalism and free enterprise—but, when you give them an opportunity to support the growth of the economy and support participation of women in the workforce to grow businesses small and large, they vote against it; they oppose it. It's total inconsistency.

We've announced this policy. We did it last year, in December. We're taking steps to make sure that early education and the care system is expanded. We want quality early education around the country. For a long time, people in our country thought that early education was simply child care. It's not. It's giving kids the best start in life. We all know. I'm a parent and a grandparent. I know how important those early years are for kids to learn and socialise: social inclusion, cooperating with one another, learning new concepts—numbers, the alphabet, reading and writing. Most kids, if they're getting a good education, can learn these basic concepts really, really well. It's about education.

We're establishing a $1 billion building early education fund to roll out from July 2025. We're building more centres. Those opposite criticise us, because they can't find enough centres. But we're doing a policy that's building more centres—and building and expanding them in areas of need. I mention the Liberal and National parties in rural and regional Australia. We're doing this in outer suburbs and regional Australia. We're doing the very thing they're saying we're not doing! It's the very thing that they can't come up with a policy to do.

We want to make sure there's universal child care in this country and that it's simple, affordable, accessible and high quality. That's what we want to do. We want to make sure that kids can get guaranteed three-day high-quality early education and care, because it will change their lives. It will change their lives and give them the best start in life. This particular fund is going to deliver grants to providers, and the government will explore options to invest in owning and leasing out services. But those opposite say we haven't got enough childcare centres. The government's building a fund to do it, and yet they're railing against it. We're focusing on co-locating those services at school sites to prevent the double drop off. We're going to support the growth of high-quality, not-for-profit providers. We want to make sure that's the case.

Now, what are we going to do here? It's really important. What we're going to do specifically in this bill is guarantee three days of high-quality early education. The three-day guarantee is going to replace the current activity test, which is the bane of parents, by the way, with guaranteed eligibility for three days a week of subsidised early education for children who need it.

We know that every child has the right to go to school, and it's a tragedy that parents don't facilitate and support that. Truancy is a terrible detriment to kids' education. Going to school, going to classrooms and learning in the classrooms are so, so important. But we want to make sure that that guarantee—that right, I might add—to go to school is extended for kids in their early years. We want to make sure that the right is not just to go to school but to go to early education too. We're going to make sure that, when they start school, they're not left behind, and we're doing this.

As part of the Building Early Education Fund package I described earlier, we're developing the early education service delivery price to make sure that we have a better understanding of the cost of delivery around the country and where the services are needed, to make sure that we can underpin future reform that needs to happen in the country. You can't set and forget. That's what those opposite did—'set and forget' for nine years. In fact, they didn't even set; they just let it go, for nine years. So we're doing this.

The package that this legislation is part of is really important. It represents a $1.47 billion investment, over five years, in our future. That's a big commitment. Those opposite are opposing it. There's $1.03 billion for the Building Early Education Fund that I referred to in the business case; $427 million for the three-day guarantee, which I described earlier; and $10 million to develop the early education service delivery price. As previous speakers have talked about, this, of course, has come about because of the Productivity Commission's and the ACCC's reports on early education. I thought those opposite liked the Productivity Commission, because they've quoted it plenty of times in the past in this chamber. The Productivity Commission knows that it's good economic sense to invest in early education. They know how important it is. It's really critical.

The fund that I referred to before is going to build on and expand around 160 of the early childhood education and care centres. We're going to focus on those. I think those opposite should listen to the Labor MPs who've been making speeches here, because many centres are going to be located in regional and rural areas. I have the honour and privilege of representing a regional and rural electorate in South-East Queensland. I've got plenty of country areas in my electorate. I've got booming suburbs like Springfield, Ripley and South Ripley. The average age of the people in those suburbs is in the mid-20s. They're just booming. Ipswich's population hit 260,000 in the last quarter of last year; it's probably close to 270,000 now. All those suburbs around Ipswich and country towns like Lowood and Fernvale are growing so rapidly. The development around Walloon and Rosewood in rural Ipswich is phenomenal, as is the number of childcare centres that are being built in these areas.

Goodstart has done a lot of good work in that area, and I've seen so many community kindergartens. We have fantastic community kindergartens in my electorate in places like Cribb Street and Milford Street, where I grew up. I went to that particular kindergarten near Queens Park; it's my old kindy. Recently, they celebrated about 85 years in operation. They're a fantastic community run kindy. These places are so important. The number of prominent citizens in our community who come from these places is important. I've been to these centres. They understand how important a universal early education and care system is.

I want the other side to know that the Productivity Commission inquiry into the ECEC system found that we had an undersupply of places and that there was a barrier to access for families across the country. The Productivity Commission, which is usually quite libertarian or neoliberal in its perspective, recommended the Australian government invest in addressing the gaps through grant funding and, indeed, by retaining ownership of services. The Productivity Commission recommended this, yet those opposite can't even bring themselves to support it. We have the National Farmers Federation supporting it. The coalition have said they're going to get rid of it. They've railed against it; in December 2024, the shadow Treasurer railed against it. They claim that it's something the country can't afford. The shadow Treasurer should listen to his backbenchers, who say we should be doing something like this—just not what we're doing. They've criticised our commitment, yet, if you listen to their speeches closely, they are saying exactly the opposite.

Now, I mentioned Goodstart before. We have some tremendous Goodstart centres in my area. The CEO, Dr Ros Baxter, said it would change lives and boost our productivity, ensuring Australian children don't fall behind. We've seen respected people like the BCA executive director of policy, Wendy Black, saying, 'Affordable, accessible quality child care will lead to long-term economic benefits and improve outcomes.' The Parenthood CEO, Georgie Dent, said, 'Today is the day I've been hanging out professionally for the last four years and seven months.' We have so many people. The National Party should be supporting this. I can't believe they are not supporting it in Queensland. I can't believe they're not supporting this stuff. We've got the National Farmers Federation. They should have a talk to their friends in the National Farmers Federation. On 5 February 2025, the National Farmers Federation, in a statement, said:

We implore the Coalition to match Labor's $1bn 'building early education fund' to build more than 160 new childcare centres.

Well, I say: how about the National Party listen to the National Farmers Federation for once.

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