Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Would the minister detail contrasting approaches to managing childcare fees? Are there opportunities for a broad coalition of support for putting downward pressure on childcare fees?

Opposition Member:

What about ABC Learning?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very good question and I will be answering it for you, actually. Thank you very much. Obviously in this House yesterday and in recent days we have been discussing the government’s commitment to making a difference in child care—making a difference on affordability, accessibility and quality. On a day on which the only themes apparently tying together the questions from the opposition are hypocrisy on the one hand and confected outrage on the other, I think it is a good day to remind ourselves about the facts in the area of child care.

On the question of affordability, the demand side, government’s assistance to working parents, this is a government that has budgeted for, and is going to deliver, an increase in the childcare tax rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent, a benefit that is not income tested but will be available to working families using child care from 1 July and which will mean more relief for them—more dollars in the purses and wallets of Australian working families. What do we hear from the opposition on this area? Absolutely nothing. Had they been in government, of course, this measure to assist working families would not have been delivered.

Then there is the question of transparency. The government is going to ensure that parents can access a website that tells them about fees, availability and quality. According to today’s opposition, transparency is something that they do not believe in; transparency is something that they do not care about. This is where the hypocrisy comes in, because of course the former minister for families, Mr Brough, when he said he aspired to introduce a national childcare management system, said the aim of it was to provide the best information on childcare supply, usage and demand data that had ever been available in Australia for families. Those who used to believe in transparency apparently now do not believe in transparency. But the one thing we know about the former minister for families and community services, Mr Brough, is that he never delivered what he promised to deliver, and it falls to this government to make sure that working families have this information.

And then there is the question of the supply side. Yesterday I talked in the House about the government’s plan to ensure that there are up to 260 new childcare centres around the country. What do we hear from the opposition? When the present Leader of the Opposition was asked, ‘What would you think about the idea of government setting up government funded childcare centres in the vicinity of private centres which have increased their fees by too much as a means to put pressure on them?’ he said, ‘It sounds like an expensive waste of taxpayers’ money to make a political point.’ New childcare centres, new places and providers selected on the basis of a track record of affordability are things that the Leader of the Opposition is not committed to. He wants to make sure that working families around this country cannot find child care when they need it.

And then there is the question of the broad hypocrisy of the opposition about these issues. Now, apparently they feel the pain of working families. The Leader of the Opposition is so overcome by this emotion from time to time he can hardly move. But I and I believe many members in this House would recall a time when the present Leader of the Opposition sat on this side of the parliament. When he did sit on this side of the parliament, he used to sit with the former member for Richmond, Larry Anthony, now replaced of course by the Minister for Ageing. Larry Anthony was in fact his junior minister.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He wasn’t.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All right. He was on the government front bench with the Leader of the Opposition. Are you denying he was a minister?

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Nelson interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Apparently the Leader of the Opposition was never sitting over here. But when the Leader of the Opposition was sitting over here with Larry Anthony, down the bench, let us just look at the track record on affordability. In that time when Larry Anthony was there and the Leader of the Opposition was there, there was a 33 per cent increase in childcare costs to families, according to the ABS.

I have been asked about ABC Learning from the opposition backbench, interestingly. This is the same Larry Anthony who, after losing his seat, went straight into a director’s role in the private childcare industry—and who for? Maybe you can supply the answer for me. Of course as a director of ABC Learning, where annual reports tell us that Mr Anthony received a $60,000 director’s fee and a further $125,000 in consultancy fees from one provider—$185,000 for some part-time work, earnings of a former Howard government minister from the childcare industry. Now, of course, we have his colleague sitting here saying that increasing competition and supply in child care is apparently an expensive waste of taxpayers’ money to make a political point. Australian working families who want child care, who want it affordable and who want it at decent quality standards know this is a government that is acting to make a difference and this is an opposition without an idea and with a track record of failure.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During the Deputy Prime Minister’s response to that question, the Leader of the Opposition made an offensive remark across the table.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was that?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was to call her a ‘stupid idiot’, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not in a position to rule because I did not hear a remark. But if there was a remark it would have to be withdrawn.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, just to assist you: if I have said anything at all which is in any way offensive to the Deputy Prime Minister, I withdraw.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition. Order! I understand that the member for Warringah and the ministers are having a good-natured conversation, but it is denying the member for Barker.