Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Minister for Education. Can the minister outline to the House all the financial and regulatory burdens that have impacted on the childcare sector in the last year and a half under the former government?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to take a question from my friend the member for MacPherson, I think the first female engineer to graduate from Queensland University of Technology—a female engineer who clearly understands the building and construction task ahead of us as we enter government.

I enjoyed visiting the member for MacPherson's electorate on a previous occasion and talking to two childcare centres, one located at Currumbin and one at Burleigh Heads, looking after 130 children. The operator mentioned that his electricity costs have increased directly by $1,000 a year per centre as a result of the carbon tax. So every time somebody turns on the light in those childcare centres, turns on the dishwasher, turns on the oven to cook the patty cakes, goes out in the garden, opens the fridge to get out the juices for play lunch, turns on the tap—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left!

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

turns on the tap to have water pouring in the back garden or even takes delivery of the soft fall in the playground, that is a carbon tax on every stage of the process.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for McMahon!

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Childcare centres are not big polluters, not big polluters at all, but they bear, and they continue to bear, the cost of Labor's carbon tax, running as they do on wafer-thin margins. At the end of the line there is only one place these centres are going, and that is to the parents of Australia to raise childcare fees and costs, which is what we have seen under six years of Labor.

Now, the shadow minister stepped up, obviously feeling a bit tetchy about this, and made a personal explanation yesterday, to say in response to my comment that child care costs were going up by only 57 cents a week. She said, 'Oh, that was a report. I read that in a report and that's why I said it.' What this shadow minister should have done and what members of the opposition should have done during her time is actually visit the childcare centres and facilities in their electorates and talk to the people who work in child care every day, and understand the real 44 per cent increase that is the reality about the increase in costs.

We are surrounded by red tape and regulation and, member for MacPherson, I look forward to your constituents telling us what we can do to improve the amount of red tape. I have my friend the member for Kooyong in evangelical mode, corralling ministers and demanding to know where their red-tape dollars lie. I will certainly be providing the information to him, because there are numerous examples of how costs are increasing beyond the scope of everyday parents. We look forward to costs coming down.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I noticed during the Assistant Minister for Education's answer that there was a cacophony of shouting—quite intimidating—trying to intimidate the Assistant Minister for Education, particularly from the member for Isaacs.

Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—

It was an excellent answer and I actually could not hear some of it because of the extraordinary level of noise coming from some of these people like the member for Adelaide, who is doing it now in fact.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the House, but I did observe that though there was an attempt at cacophony to intimidate the minister, it failed. She was not intimidated and was quite able to continue to answer her question.