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

My question is to the Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare and Minister for Employment Participation. How is the government helping working parents with the cost of raising children and what would be the impact if this were removed?

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Greenway for her question and for her very hard work to support the working parents of her electorate. I know that she, like me, would be incredibly proud that in this month's budget our government has once again provided record levels of financial assistance to help parents with their childcare costs. We know how important the sector is; we know how critical the assistance is; and we are prepared to put our money where our mouth is.

In this budget we are investing over $22 billion in direct childcare assistance to Australian families, which is almost quadruple the amount of funding that was provided by the former government. We know that these measures are important and we know that they are working. In fact, families are clearly valuing this assistance because this week I have released figures showing that, for the first time in our nation's history, in one quarter the number of children in childcare services has hit one million. It has never been bigger and it has never been valued more by our community or by the Australian government.

We are a government that made the choice to raise the Child Care Rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. We made a choice to increase the cap on that Child Care Rebate from $4,354 per year up to $7,500 per year. We are a government that will not cap the number of places or the number of children that we fund and support. We know how important these payments are. We know how important it is for parents as they juggle work and family. Under us, Australians can be comfortable in knowing exactly what levels of record assistance they can rely on, something that is obviously critically important when you are making decisions about your family.

Yet the same cannot be said of those opposite. Those opposite hope to sneak to an election without revealing the savage cuts that they have in mind for childcare assistance. They tried to adopt the Campbell Newman style of 'trust us: we'll tell you after polling day just exactly what it is that we will do'. When asked directly if he would slash family childcare support, the shadow Treasurer could not and would not rule it out. So the coalition can no longer hide behind this post-election review of child care because it is now absolutely clear to everybody that the Child Care Rebate is on their chopping block and they are sharpening the axe as we speak.

We also see reports of the Leader of the Opposition now crab-walking away from his Rolls Royce paid parental leave policy. We know that we have a very clear commitment to working parents in Australia and that there is a clear choice between families around Australia—a choice between our government, which is making record investments in child care, record investments in support, and that side opposite which would cut this assistance back the moment they got the chance. (Time expired)