Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take the minister's offer to come and talk to her, and I will. I've always found the minister to be a very reasonable person, but I've sat in here in recent hours and listened to some misinformed lectures from suburban MPs who have no appreciation of life in rural and regional communities, telling us how we have failed to support families in regional areas. So I will take up the minister's offer of a meeting, and I look forward to that.

It is deceptive for the government to parade in this place and claim that it has solved all problems in relation to early childhood care and education across Australia.

I welcome the interjection by my good friend, the member for Spence. He's suggesting that it's misleading for me to claim that the government is making spectacular claims in relation to early childhood care and education. He obviously hasn't been in the chamber for the last hour to hear those opposite sprouting their achievements but failing to acknowledge the very real challenges that still exist in regional areas and communities in relation to accessibility, affordability and choice.

The Prime Minister is interjecting that we're against funding for regional child care. Prime Minister, I invite you to join me in the meeting with the minister. I would love to meet with the Prime Minister to talk about early childhood education and care in my community. I would love him to join us in that meeting, and we could exchange ideas on rural and regional areas. Prime Minister, I found when dealing with the vast number of your frontbenchers that they're not interested in hearing about rural and regional Australia. They're not interested in having conversations about how your policies have hurt rural and regional families. Your frontbenchers aren't interested in hearing about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on regional people. So I do welcome the Prime Minister's invitation.

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