Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Will the Acting Prime Minister update the House on the government’s actions in responding to the appointment of an administrator and receiver for ABC Learning one week ago?

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

I thank the member for Page for her question, and I know she is concerned about the circumstances of child care in her own electorate. Indeed, she sent me a note raising some issues with me during the course of question time because she is very concerned to stay across everything that is happening locally. Can I say to members in the House generally that it is exactly one week since ABC Learning announced they were going into voluntary administration. I understand members of the government are following these matters and dealing with local inquiries—the member for Page is.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I take it from the interjections that members of the opposition are not concerned and not engaged. But in the past seven days the government has been working hard to help ensure the stability and continuity of child care across this nation for families. Last Thursday ABC Learning moved into voluntary administration and, soon after, a receiver was appointed. From the outset, we have sought to keep mums and dads informed about what is happening with ABC Learning.

Within hours of the company’s announcement and the appointment of the receiver, the government established a dedicated hotline number. The number is 1802003. To date we have had 700 calls to this number. As well as the hotline, the government provided information through the mychild.gov.au website. So far pages on this site have been viewed over 55,000 times since last Thursday, obviously showing people are looking for information.

On Friday I announced a funding package of up to $22 million to provide certainty for affected parents and to ensure that ABC Learning centres continue in operation until 31 December and that everybody has the care that they need for their children and need to rely on. We are of course working to ensure that we can make a further statement to give parents certainty for the period beyond. On Tuesday this week I announced that an expression of interest process had commenced for those who were interested in owning and operating ABC Learning centres. People, whether they are from the profit sector or not-for-profit sector, can register their interest with the receiver. Yesterday, Wednesday, I updated the House on the detailed work plan that the government’s insolvency adviser, PPB, and the receiver, McGrathNicol, have embarked on in order to find the way forward.

At every stage, the government have acted decisively to deal with this problem in the interests of working families. Indeed, the government have worked all year to clean up the mess that we inherited in child care from the Liberal Party. It strikes me as passing strange that, now they are sitting on the opposition benches, apparently they are styling themselves as policy geniuses, but in government they left us with the kind of mess that we are dealing with in child care. ‘Let the market rip!’ There was no workforce plan, no quality plan, no early learning years plan and no plan for market design, and here we are, fixing up the mess.

Of course, much of that work has been done by the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare, the member for Bennelong, and I want to thank her for it. I would draw the attention of members of the House to the fact that this work has not gone unnoticed by those in the childcare sector and those who care desperately about policy in this area. I would draw the House’s attention to the words of Professor Deborah Brennan from the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, who today wrote in the Age:

Since Labor came to office, a lot of quiet work has been happening behind the scenes. Early childhood educators, unions, providers and public servants are working on a variety of projects that will strengthen regulations and accreditation in the early childhood sector, introduce a national “early learning” framework, and improve the qualifications of the early childhood workforce.

We are dealing with child care for the future and we will continue to do so.