Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why should Australian families have to pay for the Prime Minister's $1 billion in cuts to childcare assistance while spending over $20 billion on his rolled gold Paid Parental Leave scheme?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Childcare payments are not going down. They are not. They are not going down, but I do make the observation that members opposite, when they were in government, froze the childcare rebate. They froze the childcare rebate. Members opposite, when they were in government, promised 260 childcare centres to end the double drop-off and they delivered only 38. Wasn't it right that only 38 out of 260 were actually delivered?

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How can a point of order be taken on this? I am exactly answering her question.

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

The member for Adelaide has a point of order, and it had better be a right one.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My point of order is on relevance. The Prime Minister just said that there were not $1 billion in cuts, and his budget shows quite the opposite.

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

The member will resume her seat. That is not a proper point of order. It is not an invitation to re-argue your question. That is argument. The Prime Minister has the call. The next person who does that will leave the chamber.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I repeat: when members opposite were in government they froze the childcare rebate and this government has done no more than what the former government was prepared to do with benefits in this area. If it was right for the former government to do things like freeze the rebate, why isn't it right for this government, likewise, to do what it has done.

I do say that, for all the histrionics that we are getting from the shadow minister who asked the question, members opposite have an absolutely hopeless record. They promised 260 childcare centres to end the dreaded double drop. Remember that? They promised to end the double drop with 260 childcare centres; 38 is all they built.

Under members opposite, childcare costs increased by 53 per cent—53 per cent! We want to see a better childcare system. We want to ensure that our childcare spending gets the maximum possible benefits to our community and to our economy. That is why we have a Productivity Commission inquiry. As for Paid Parental Leave, all this government wants is for the same sort of system that currently applies to public servants, who get paid at their wage—the same fairness that members opposite think should apply to public servants—to apply to everyone, because if it is right for public servants it is right for the rest of our community.

I do not see why members opposite should want a better deal for public servants than they want for the ordinary battling, struggling workers of this country. What is fair for public servants is fair for everyone. That is why this government supports a fair dinkum Paid Parental Leave scheme.