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

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Before the last election the government promised not to means test the childcare rebate. Does the minister stand by this election commitment today or will this be the latest broken promise?

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

Before I ask the minister to reply: yesterday we had a use of props which was not authorised and today we are having another, and I did not allow it.

Honourable members interjecting—

Yes, I did. I would remind the House—and that includes the Leader of the House—that we will not have props. I now invite the minister to have the call.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said to the House earlier this week, we spend $7 billion of taxpayers money seeking to do one very important thing, and that is to help families, particularly families on middle to lower incomes to ensure that they can have those two incomes and get back into work and to support families to be able to support themselves. I have given an invitation to those in the opposition, and specifically to the shadow minister who has asked the question. What I believe is necessary here is for the parties to come together to support a package that families need when it comes to child care. There has been a history of policy in this area where some of it has worked and some of it has not worked.

It is true that, under those opposite, childcare fees went up by over 50 per cent. It is true they lifted the rebate by 30 per cent to 50 per cent, and it did not get any of these women back into work after they had children. The risk is that, if you get this policy wrong, you are inviting young families to get trapped in a welfare net. I say this directly to the opposition: if you want to play politics with this issue you can do that, but you will be letting down families who are depending on us to get this right.

Under the opposition, when they were in government, they introduced new regulations and new rules which put up the price of child care. They locked that up in legislation which will make it very difficult to keep the cost pressures on child care going down. We are looking to deal earnestly and seriously with this issue, and the challenge for the opposition is: are they prepared to come forward with real solutions and engage with the government? If they are not, then what they can be accused of is engaging, as the Leader of the Opposition does constantly, in unfunded empathy—happy to run around and empathise with every problem but never bring forward a solution and never bring forward funding for that solution.

What we see in the Leader of the Opposition is not a test match performer but a big bash slasher—a big bash slasher who is happy to go for the big hit, for the big slash, the big populist effort, but he cannot put it in week in and week out unless he is putting it in to someone else who he used to work for. That is what the Leader of the Opposition does. What we need are politicians in this place who are going to work together to solve this problem like we solved together the issue of the NDIS.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

There will be silence on my left.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If those opposite want to politicise child care, you will be disappointing the families and the mothers and fathers of Australia and their children.

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

Before I give the call to the member for Barton, we will have some silence so we can hear both the question and the answer. And those people who want to go on making a ruckus can be afforded the opportunity for the early plane they clearly want.