Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Will the minister update the House on how the government is ensuring hard-working Australian families will be supported with better, more-affordable child care? Are there any alternative approaches that would increase cost of living pressures?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and for her great interest in this area. As was noted slightly earlier, 230,000 Australians will be able to get more involved in the workforce, and involved for the first time, because of these childcare reforms. A million Australians stand to benefit, because they access child care to try to make better lives for themselves as they work very hard in our economy.

All of this is being achieved as a result of the government being able to save close to $1.4 billion through the very simple mechanism of a two-year pause on family tax benefit. That is a savings measure that Senator Xenophon described in the debate as 'a reasonable approach which ensures there are no reductions in payments to families, while supporting a substantial investment in better childcare assistance', which we think is a quite reasonable description.

I am asked if there are any alternative approaches. The alternative approach of members opposite is simply to leave one million families without simpler and more affordable child care. Why? Why would they deny those one million families simpler and more affordable child care? Because Labor says that a two-year pause on family tax benefits is a sledgehammer blow, or alternatively, a cruel attack. Given those descriptions, it is an interesting exercise to see how Labor described very similar savings to the family tax benefit system that they are engaged in through pauses in FTB when they were in government. Would you believe it, there are some descriptions of similar FTBs savings from Labor. They appear in a press release entitled 'Reform of family payments', which was a joint release by the member for Lilley and the member for Jagajaga. They explained in that press release that Australian spending on family payments is very generous by international standards, with which we would tend to agree. They then go on to say that they have some measures that will 'limit growth of family payments and save $1.4 billion over the forward estimates', which is almost exactly the same amount that we also are saving. They then go on to say 'Australia's spending on family payments is generous. The rate of growth of family tax benefits will be slightly reduced to ensure effective incentives to work remain and are built into the transfer system. This also ensures sustainability of the system overall.' So, they engage in pauses on family tax benefits and that is a sustainability measure. Indeed, it is built into the system to keep work incentives. We do a very similar thing and we use the money to pay for child care, and that is a sledgehammer blow. So, what is the definition of a fair and reasonable pause on family tax benefits? It is the one that they do. And what is the definition of the unfair one? The one that they do not. (Time expired)