Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently visited the Home Road Kindergarten in Newport in my electorate to understand the impact of the Abbott government's budget on the young children and parents of Melbourne's west. While visiting, I heard concerns that have been expressed to me by parents across my electorate. Under the Abbott government, cuts to support for child care and early childcare learning threaten to reduce the quality of education and care received by children and to increase costs for parents. Looking around the playground, there will not be anyone who is not affected. We have young kids in child care a few days a week, allowing their mother to go back to work. This will be much more difficult with the Abbott government's recent cuts to child care, with a new cap on the childcare rebate limiting the support received by about 15 per cent of families. The hardship that this cap on the childcare rebate creates is compounded by cuts to the childcare benefit, our means-tested, carefully tailored benefit available only to those families who need it the most. So the child in the corner whose parent earns less than $40,000 a year is even less likely to be back at child care the next day. As a result, it will be that much harder for her parents—along with 500,000 other working parents—to continue their careers.

Then there are the new arrivals in the playground, from the family day care centre in the house across the street. The family day care service is one of the most flexible and inexpensive forms of child care, and a particularly vital service for parents working irregular hours. Yet the Abbott government is looking to cut $157 million from family day care services, driving up fees by as much as $35 per child per week. And that is if these services remain viable at all. More than 140,000 families will suffer from these higher childcare fees.

There are also the kindergarten kids playing in the sand pit, who currently take part in the universal access program. However, the budget papers indicate that the 15 hours of funding for this program has only been guaranteed until December of this year. If Commonwealth funding for this program is cancelled, access to the program after this time will be cut to just 10 hours. These kindergarten kids are less likely to receive the time at kindergarten that they need for their early childhood development, developing social skills and interacting with other children. Or, if they do, their parents will have to pay significantly more for it, exacerbating inequality in early childhood care.

Lastly, there is a mother with her textbooks walking across the path. It is hard enough to raise a child—I have two of my own and I know this as a fact—but raising a child and studying at the same time is a real art to be admired. It is the epitome of someone working hard to create a better life for themselves and their children, yet the Abbott government is intent on punishing people for showing this initiative. The 2014 budget caps the government childcare assistance for parents in this situation at $8 an hour and has cut the maximum hours accessible to parents from 50 to 36 hours per week. The difficulty of juggling parenting, studying and additional work hours will become too much for many, and the mother and child will return to the park but the textbooks may disappear.

I describe this metaphorical playground to demonstrate the real impact of the Abbott government's childcare cuts for families across Australia. These cuts create hard choices for parents and reduce opportunities for young children. Australians did not vote for this attack on working families and they do not want it.