Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise today to speak in support of the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011. This bill is a fantastic initiative that will have a very positive impact on the people of Greenway, and I thank the minister for her ongoing commitment to helping young families. As I think all of us here would agree, this week we have seen some substantial legislative reforms in both the childcare and family services sectors going through this parliament. They are legislative reforms that are very important to the families we represent.

I want to make a few comments on the rationale for this bill. This bill outlines a range of amendments that will improve childcare services in Australia and will greatly assist young families to balance both the financial and non-financial challenges that, as I said the other day, are part and parcel of raising children. This bill outlines a number of amendments that will ultimately improve accountability in the childcare sector. This increased accountability will improve the quality of services, will increase efficiency and will allow for more affordable childcare services. It does this by broadening the powers of the secretary to ensure that childcare operators are managing their affairs in what is called a fit and proper way. This increased scrutiny will safeguard against unscrupulous behaviour that some operators may, unfortunately, choose to engage in and which would have the result of hurting the services that young Australian families rely on.

Some parts of this bill had their genesis in issues such as the ABC Learning collapse and the lessons that were learnt from that. I had a couple of ABC childcare service operators in my electorate. It engendered great alarm in the community when ABC Learning collapsed. I was on the Blacktown City Council at that time and there was great concern that council services would be inundated and council would need to have an appropriate response to that. The increased scrutiny that will be provided by this amendment will ensure that private childcare operators who run up debts owed to the Commonwealth can be held accountable for their actions. In fact, the ABC Learning collapse provides us with an appropriate case study as to why this bill is such an important part of childcare reform.

The meteoric rise of ABC Learning saw the company turn over large profits and rapidly expand in a very short period of time. It made people such as its founder, Eddy Groves, quite wealthy. All was seen to be running very smoothly for this operator, who provided childcare services to what I believe were almost 100,000 Australian families—so that is an enormous number across the country. As we all well know, ABC Learning’s honeymoon period did not last very long. As Mr Groves sought to expand his operations overseas, amongst other things, and neglected to scrutinise his low-margin Australian operations, the company collapsed. If it had not been for decisive action, families would have been faced with closed childcare providers around the country. Thanks to this government’s actions, 90 per cent of the former ABC centres are still fully operational today in some form.

University of Western Sydney accounting expert Dr Philip Ross described the collapse of ABC learning in the Sydney Morning Herald as follows and it is quite instructive to see what he had to say:

ABC Learning’s profits increased rapidly through acquisitions, which should have raised questions about the underlying valuation of assets it acquired—especially given that 70 per cent of its assets were intangibles. The inherent risk associated with the valuation of the assets was enormous and should have been a red flag.

By giving the government greater scrutiny over childcare operators this bill ensures that red flags will be made in future, and ensure that ABC Learning will, one hopes, be the last childcare operator to collapse in such a way. This bill will go a long way towards achieving that objective, which I am sure we all share in this place.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

I was talking about the national quality framework and how this bill, as well as increasing scrutiny of the childcare sector by broadening the powers of the secretary, supports the government’s national quality framework. This framework has been endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments with the intention of improving a range of issues surrounding the childcare sector. The national quality framework continues this bill’s work to improve transparency and increase the scrutiny of childcare operators. These improvements will ensure key performance indicators are maintained and the quality of child care is of a standard befitting the nearly 700,000 young Australian families who are eligible for the childcare rebate.

The national quality framework is an extremely important investment that will work to ensure childcare quality is maintained. This framework will specifically work to ensure that educator to child ratios are as high as possible, allowing children increased one-on-one time with teachers, and to limit overcrowded classes. It introduces educator qualification requirements that will help services provide the best possible level of early childhood education and care by being clear about the factors that best support a child’s development. It includes a new rating system so that parents know exactly how good the quality of care is that their children are receiving, and thus improve the transparency. It reduces regulations so childcare services will have to deal with only one regulatory body. We can, therefore, see that this framework provides a number of very important positive impacts for the childcare industry and as a result will greatly improve those services that are ultimately provided to Australian families.

In speaking on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Rebate) Bill 2011 in the chamber earlier this week, some people commented that the national quality framework, despite being supported by COAG and being scrutinised by over 1,600 Australian citizens during the consultation process, would actually increase financial pressure on families. To the contrary, as the minister indicated last week, the National Childcare Accreditation Council released its latest report into the quality of childcare services in Australia and the results indicated that far too many were failing to meet basic standards of hygiene, safety and education. As the minister said, many parents would be horrified by some of the statistics and they demonstrate just how critical is the government’s commitment to lift the quality of Australian childcare centres. Amongst some of the data revealed was that 25 per cent failed to ensure that potentially dangerous products, plants and objects were inaccessible to children and 20 per cent did not act to control the spread of infectious diseases and maintain records of immunisations.

These are things that need to be improved, and information about the national quality framework can be found on the MyChild website. I think that transparency is something that every member of this House would support and be concerned to support, in particular in relation to the health and wellbeing of children. In my former role as a counsellor I had responsibility for many childcare centres across the Blacktown local government area. I am sure the member for Canberra agrees that ensuring that there is transparency is important, as parents will always seek to ensure that they are sending their children to a centre which is providing the best care. They should have access to that information, and where the childcare centre is falling down on the job the centre should improve and parents should have the choice of where to send their children to obtain the best quality care. This framework will greatly aid Australian families and, as I said, ensure they are equipped with the right information to ensure that they are also getting the best value for money for the care that is provided to their children. I put it to those opposite that I am sure they would not want to see another ABC Learning debacle. I am sure they would want to ensure that all children receive the highest standards of care under the national quality framework.

As we all know, quality child care is an integral service for Australian families. It allows workplace participation for parents, particularly women returning to the workforce, and also allows our young people the opportunity for early education in the crucial first five years of their development. As I said this week when commenting on improvements to childcare services—and I think it is a very important point to reiterate—it is very clear that a flexible and affordable childcare system allows our children to have access to early education. Why is that important? It is important because it allows for enhanced social development and learning opportunities at a young age. The case is clear and it is emphasised in the Child care and early education in Australia report from 2009, which states:

Children who did not attend a formal early childhood program had lower scores for receptive vocabulary than children in pre-Year 1 and preschool programs …

This demonstrates how quality child care is an integral stepping stone to preparing our children for the new environment that is primary education. This government realises how important those initial stages of development are.

I want to say a few things about the amendments in relation to fit and proper purposes. In broadening the powers of the Commonwealth in the childcare sector, this legislation will make certain that childcare operators are considered to be fit and proper. In making certain that they are in a fit state to manage their businesses, all Australian families will be able to rest assured that their childcare providers will not collapse overnight and throw their highly important childcare needs out the window. This legislation makes sense. It creates increased accountability and introduces a range of necessary safeguards to ensure that childcare services in Australia are of the highest standard and maintained in a proper manner.

I now turn to the privacy aspects of this bill and the sharing of information and why this is important. In supporting the national quality framework, this bill has amended protected information laws, which will work to reduce red tape and streamline childcare services in Australia. Specifically, the bill will enable the Commonwealth to share information on childcare services with state and territory regulatory bodies. That protected information will need to be collected, used and disclosed in a manner that is consistent with the existing privacy regulations that remain in place. At the same time it will reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency in the sector and, as a result of this amendment, childcare services will not have to provide the same information to more than one body.

In conclusion, this bill provides a range of highly necessary amendments. It will increase accountability; improve efficiency and the quality of childcare services; and overall deliver a very positive result to young families. I again thank the minister for her hard work in this area and her ongoing interest, in particular in the provision of childcare services in the electorate of Greenway, which, when you look at the statistics, really is Australia’s nursery. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Ms Brodtmann) adjourned.