Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to follow the PM's contribution on the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three Day Guarantee) Bill 2025 and good to see that a few of my colleagues across the chamber are here for my contribution to this debate, in particular the member for Spence, who's made some important contributions during my debates this week, which is greatly appreciated.

I appreciate the Prime Minister's attempt to defend the validity and rationale of this policy. And I agree with some of what the Prime Minister has had to say, as well as other colleagues in this debate. We do want to see a high-quality, robust early childhood sector, with high education standards, to ensure that our young Australians get the best start in life that they can. And I want to take this opportunity to thank the early childhood educators across my electorate of Forde for the wonderful job they do each and every day trying to do exactly that. For many kids in my community, the fact that they have access to child care makes an enormous difference to their lives given the situation that some of them, sadly, find themselves in on the home front.

But when I look at this bill I see a bill that doesn't address what I see as the fundamental issues facing many in my community: lack of access and lack of affordability. Any number of centres I've spoken to over the past 12 months do not have spare places; they have waiting lists. I have also spoken to many people whose out-of-pocket costs have grown, despite increased childcare subsidies.

As I look at the structure of this bill, I see that it is only going to make the situation worse. At least now the situation is that the places in the childcare centres that are available are available to families who, for whatever reason, need two incomes—and increasingly that is largely as a result of the government's failure to deal with the cost-of-living issues that we've spoken about in other debates in this House over the course of this and previous weeks. Removing the activity test is going to see families who are working and trying to make ends meet compete with those who aren't, in a situation where there is already limited space, as we're seeing—and I know our regional members have even larger problems with available space, let alone having childcare centres at all in some cases.

So I don't see how this is going to help a significant number of people across my electorate. The government estimates that more than 100,000 families will have access to more subsidised care and that more than 66,000 families will be better off overall. That represents only about six per cent of all families who are currently engaged in the childcare subsidy system.

I note that the Prime Minister also referred to their wage subsidy. But, interestingly, that's funded by the government for only two years. What happens after two years? Who is going to pay the cost of those increased wages? I have no issue with those wages, because our childcare workers do a terrific job. At some point somebody has to pay for it, and it is going to be the families across my electorate of Forde who are going to pay for it through higher fees than they are already paying. Despite the government's protestations to the contrary, we are seeing a government that has failed to address the supply-side constraints in the system.

The modelling from the Productivity Commission shows that most of the children affected by the activity test changes live in major cities, but there is no point having access to three days of child care if there is no child care available. Once again we are finding that the real issues at the heart of the system are not being addressed. We want to have families who have a right to choose what their work life and family life look like, and the coalition respects this choice. Labor's three-day guarantee does nothing for families who choose to remain at home and raise their children until primary school or for families who use flexible arrangements such as grandparents or nannies. The bill also does nothing for families who need flexibility, such as families who do shiftwork or work non-standard hours. Again, these hardworking families will not benefit from this change, but families who aren't working, studying or training will. Similar to Labor's other policies, this rewards families who access child care at the expense of families who are unable to or choose not to.

We also believe there is a discrepancy in the policy costings and that the figures in the policy costings of $426 million over five years are undercooked and don't reflect the true impact of removing the activity cost. The department has also been unable to advise how many families are eligible for CCS but not enrolling their children or how many families are completely disengaged with CCS. The government's costings do not account for these groups.

Interestingly, the Productivity Commission's 2024 report A path to universal early childhood education and care costed the complete removal of the activity test at $2.3 billion a year. The PC's modelling suggested the complete removal of the activity test would increase the hours of early childhood education by four per cent. They also estimated this will lead to a 0.9 per cent decrease in hours worked by sole parents and primary carer parents in couple families. Again, this appears to be a policy that doesn't take into account the full range of factors, but that's nothing unusual for this government. They have a habit of saying one thing and actually delivering something completely different, so I find their failure to deal with the detail in the policy nothing unusual.

We've also heard it said that the three-day guarantee is a cost-of-living measure, but in reality it's nothing of the sort. Since Labor came to power the cost of child care has increased by 22.3 per cent. At this rate, childcare costs will have soared by over 124 per cent by March 2032. The last time Labor was in government, the cost of child care skyrocketed by 53 per cent in six years. So, once again, the Labor government has form in saying it's attempting to reduce the cost of something, but in reality all it does is significantly increase the cost. And, since the Labor government's cheaper childcare policy came into effect, out-of-pocket costs have increased by some 12.7 per cent, with almost one in three services charging above the fee cap as providers struggle to keep up with rising regulation and red tape.

I know that some providers in my electorate I have spoken to, who will remain nameless, have been going through the process of trying to apply for the subsidy for the wage rise, and, given that they've found it too hard, too burdensome, too bureaucratic, they have decided to pay the pay rise anyway. But the way they have funded that is by increasing their fees, so families are worse off. The majority of families accessing CCS will not see a reduction in their childcare costs because of this legislation.

Let's contrast that with the coalition's record. In our time in government, we almost doubled childcare investment to $11 billion, in 2022-23, and locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens. We also made the biggest reforms to the early childhood education system in over 40 years. More than 1.3 million children have access to the childcare subsidy, from around one million families. Under the coalition, 280,000 more children are in early childhood education, and our targeted extra support, introduced in March of 2022, made a real difference, as childcare costs came down by 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022. We saw women's workforce participation reach record highs of 62.3 per cent in May of 2022, compared to 58.7 per cent when Labor left office in 2013.

Once again, it demonstrates that a coalition government can deliver real and tangible results for families right across this country, and it's only through a coalition government being elected next election that we'll get Australia back on track. For all the reasons I've outlined above, we oppose this bill.

Debate adjourned.

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