Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Andrews, it will come as no surprise to you that children are not cheap to raise. I understand you have five of them. Given that you are a similar vintage to me, I suspect it's a little while since they attended child care—and it's a little while since mine did—and a few things have changed since then.

This bill, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021, seeks to remove some obstacles in the payment schedules for childcare support that are actually proving to be an inhibitor to two parents working in the workforce. While I'm quite keen to make the comment that there are no laws in this country that prescribe that women should be the primary childcare provider in families, it's a fact of life that they often are and certainly more often than not. So, in that case, it's important that we maximise our workforce effort by getting two parents into the workforce. Not everybody will want to do that, of course, and we fully understand and support those decisions that families make for themselves. But there is no doubt that, in Australia at the moment—and certainly out where I live—we are experiencing an extreme skills shortage crisis, and we need all the people we can get into the workforce.

While this is a little off subject, I know you'll be tolerant enough to allow me to discuss this issue, Mr Deputy Speaker. In Whyalla we are at the moment facing the closure of one of the three age-care facilities run by a community organisation called Kindred Living simply because they do not have enough registered nurses to keep the place open safely. It is going to entail 37 residents being relocated, and I suspect at least 20 of them out of the city of Whyalla and quite possibly to Adelaide, 400 kilometres away. Having better support for child care is not necessarily going to halt the closure of the Annie Lockwood facility, but we do need every person possible who can be contributing to the workforce to be there. Though it is not exclusive and there are a lot of male registered nurses, in many cases there are certainly more female ones than there are male ones. So we've got a worker shortage.

The current childcare support mechanisms do present some fairly nasty cliff faces for those that are getting the second person into work, particularly when they might be working the third or fourth day of the week. In fact, with a combination of taxes and extra payments for child care, because they've reached the maximum threshold, they might find that they're not taking any extra pay home at all. This is a significant disincentive that the amendments in this bill seek to remedy.

With this legislation we are supporting families that have more than one child in child care. If they have a second child going into child care, their support subsidy rate will go from 85 per cent to 95 per cent. That will be quite a significant saving for families. For instance, a family on $100,000 a year could save up to $102 a week and a family earning $180,000 a year will also save. That sounds like a lot of money but, in today's world, it's not through the roof and there would be many middle-income people that are operating around those levels and trying to pay off expensive houses and all the other modern accompaniments to modern living that cost money. So this is not aimed at the top end of town and there are caps on it. In fact, once these new rates come into place, the subsidies that'll be going to those people at the lower end of the pay scales will still heavily outweigh those going to those at the upper end. So I think it's a pretty fair kind of thing, really; 85 per cent of the cost of child care picked up by the taxpayer is good support.

As to the fact that now we extend a higher support to those with two children, I am reminded of when former Treasurer Peter Costello was in this place and I think delivered the first intergenerational review in 2004. He made a very famous statement at the time: 'Have one each and one for the country.' In this particular case, we are saying: 'If you are prepared to have that extra one for the country, we're prepared—the taxpayer is prepared—to offer you more help in paying for that child care.' That will enable those two workers to go back into the workplace as well. It's a good reform.

Removing the $10,000 cap for families earning over $189,000 will be quite significant. It's the kind of situation at the moment where you get to month six, seven, eight, nine or 10 and all of a sudden the childcare subsidies dry up and it can present short-term financial stress to families. So this kind of reform makes sense.

It's well supported. I've been out quite recently at some childcare centres, at some openings and various things that we do with members of the electorate, and, while it'll be a little while before it all kicks into place, parents seem to understand what's coming down the pipeline and understand the government's ambitions in this area. So that's a good outcome.

While I've been out speaking to people, it's worthwhile taking this time to point out that not all things are equal in this world, and the further you get from the population centres the more and more difficult it is to actually find childcare. The childcare sector is largely run as a private operation that is subsidised heavily, as we've just been speaking about, by the taxpayer. But it still requires a business model for somebody to invest in that location.

In smaller towns, often there are community based centres; often they start off as an adjunct to the kindergarten or preschool, and often they end up, in South Australia at least, on South Australian education department property, which can present problems for expansions in the future and looking for federal government assistance for the expansion of those childcare centres. As to these smaller communities, generally speaking I'm thinking of two towns at the moment that have approached me recently. One is Cummins, down on the southern end of the Eyre Peninsula, and the other one is Crystal Brook, around 30 kilometres from Port Pirie in the mid-north. These are towns with around 2,000 to 3,000 people—though Cummins is a bit smaller than that, to be fair, at around 1,000 people—but with more people living in the farming districts that surround them, and actually finding a business model there that works to offer childcare arrangements for five days a week is really difficult. There's a lot of demand, but finding the business model is quite difficult and normally requires a lot of elbow grease and shoulder work from those in the community to support these things to make them happen. It's something that I think governments need to be very aware of and something that I've raised with my colleagues—that we need to make sure that people remain living, working and producing in our country regions, and we need to make sure that we're utilising all the talent that we have out there at the moment. As I've spoken of before, a lot of these people providing the extra care are women and a lot of them have had high levels of training, skills and education before they get to that part of their lives. So it's very important that we don't let them slip out of the workforce.

So, pretty much covering off on all bases, the legislation is good. It's good reform. It's good support for parents and for families, and families, after all, are the foundations of our society. They are the bedrock on which we build good communities—families that give the right kinds of messages to their children about community responsibility. By saying 'families', I am not singling out any particular family configuration; I just mean 'families' as parents, guardians and caregivers who love their children and provide the kind of loving and giving environment in which they need to grow up.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did listen with interest to the previous speaker, in particular talking about some of the benefits of the baby bonus, which some of us remember. I do find it curious that the government's position now is that it's okay to offer a cash bonus to have a baby but not to get a vaccine. Apparently that's where politics is at in Australia at the moment. I'm sure people will make their own judgement about that.

Child care is an essential service. It should be free. It should be universal. Every day around this country, early childhood educators work tirelessly to care for, teach and educate our nation's youngest minds. They're a workforce that is underpaid and undervalued. They're a workforce that, through the past 18 months of this pandemic, have provided a truly essential service. They've been on the front line. With two beautiful children of my own aged six and under, I am so grateful that in this country we have such high-quality child care staffed by amazing childcare workers. But the simple fact is that the system is still not good enough because families around the country are locked out of child care because of prohibitive fees and skyrocketing waitlists.

I talk to childcare centres in my electorate of Melbourne and local families who've just had kids and who are daunted by the prospect of getting their kids into the local childcare centre. Parents tell me of rushing their newborns onto waitlists, in the hope that, maybe by the time they're a year old, there might be a spot finally available for their child. This isn't a problem just in inner-city Melbourne. My Greens colleagues campaigning in the seat of Griffith, led by Max Chandler-Mather, have had countless conversations with local families who are locked out of accessing child care because it's simply too expensive. High fees are making our society less equal. Every family should be able to send their kids to child care to give their children the best start in life, in the same way we send our children to public schools, but skyrocketing costs are locking families out.

This is more than just an issue of education for our children; it's a gender equality issue. Women are being prevented from making real choices about their work and their life. Too many families are stuck in this horrible bind. They can take on more work, but the prohibitive cost of additional child care gobbles up any additional pay. Right now, our childcare model is locking women and families out of additional work and preventing children from having the development opportunities that come from being in child care. It's promising to see some movement from this government to make it easier for parents to get child care, but more needs to be done.

The Greens have a plan for free universal child care. We'll expand access to early childhood education and phase out for-profit learning because education of our youngest should not be a business. It's time for both Labor and Liberal to join the Greens in backing truly universal and free child care across Australia. Labor's plans are a step in the right direction, but anything short of genuinely free and universal child care is a disservice to our future generations. At the next election, with just a small change in the vote, the Greens could be back in the balance of power. We'll introduce a tax on billionaires and big corporations to make them pay their share, so that we can make universal free child care available for every child.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When we announced our childcare plan in my first budget reply, the government said that there was no issue of childcare affordability. Do you recognise a pattern here? We put forward a policy idea. The government says it's nonsense and that it's trying to provide a solution to which there's no problem. Then, they creep their way halfway down the track. It sounds familiar in the context of what we've seen this week. We've put forward an idea of cash incentives: a $300 payment to everyone who is fully vaccinated. They said, 'No, we can't go there,' but we know they were examining it themselves. They're examining lotteries and they're examining other things. Lieutenant General Frewen told us that just before question time. We know that that's the case.

So the fact is that child care has followed that pattern as well. Under this government childcare fees have increased by more than 36 per cent and 138,700 Australians are not working because they cannot access child care. Of that, not surprisingly, 92 per cent are women. UNICEF did a recent report, entitled Where do rich countries stand on childcare? It ranks countries on their childcare policies based on affordability, access, quality and parental leave. Overall, where does Australia rate out of 41 countries? It's 37th. Just to explain it really clearly to the government: that's not a mark of 37 out of 41, like in the top percentile here. That's where 36 countries are doing better than us and we're coming in at 37. There are only four countries that are doing worse than us when it comes to these issues. UNICEF also found that we were one of only eight countries where child care consumes at least a quarter of the average wage—only eight countries.

Labor's plan that we put forward is good for working families, it's good for the economy and, importantly, given that over 90 per cent of human brain development occurs in the first five years of life, it's good for children as well. This is an investment in our country. What did they say when we announced our policy? They said it was going to cost too much. What was the cost? It was $6.2 billion—there's that figure again—over four years. It's a fully costed, good policy to boost productivity and assist our economic development. It's not welfare policy, it's about the three 'P's that you can do if you want to grow the economy: population, participation and productivity.

Obviously it's good for participation in the workforce, particularly allowing women to participate fully in the workforce. And it's good for productivity: at the moment, because women aren't able to participate fully in the workforce we have all sorts of gaps, which in part explains the gender pay gap in this country of 13 per cent. If we want to boost productivity we need to make sure that we value those employees, that they can work five days a week and not make the decision just to work two or three days a week because if they work a fourth or fifth day then the income in their pockets actually goes backwards for so many working women. That's bad for our economy.

Apart from participation and productivity, obviously, population is the third P. At this time, due to the circumstances of COVID and the issues with our borders, our population isn't increasing in the way that it was projected to do so. Of course, those opposite are never ones for consistency when it comes to policy. Those opposite were the founders of the baby bonus—a cash payment to have a baby. This policy is about population growth. By allowing people to earn their own income, being able to work and fully participate, people will be encouraged to have the confidence to have a first or an additional child. So it's good for all of the three Ps, but of course it has been opposed and rejected by those opposite.

Part of our policy—the front of it—was getting rid of the child care subsidy cap. It limits the amount of childcare subsidy that some families can receive in a year. That's one of the two measures that are in the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill. When we announced it, they said it was irresponsible and it shouldn't be done. But now they've got legislation before the parliament saying it should happen. This is in the same term! This isn't ten years on or five years on; this is the same Treasurer, the same Prime Minister, during the same term of parliament. When we said it, they stood up here and opposed our policy. They said it wasn't necessary. They said getting rid of the cap would be a bad thing to do, but that's the first thing that they've done.

The second thing they've done is to increase the childcare subsidy rate for families with multiple children under six years of age. They didn't want to adopt our whole policy; they adopted one half of it, and just for multiple children are they improving the rate. The fact is that when families have children many of them do have multiple children in child care at once. But what's a very common scenario is that a child goes into child care and then, two or three years later, following up, the family will have another child, and they'll go into child care as the first child is going to school. That's a very common scenario. Under this government, though, you're on your own unless you have multiple children under six years of age who are all in child care together. This is a policy that will certainly be good for multiple births, but for the great majority of families who have children not at once but one by one this is a very short sighted policy.

The government has missed this opportunity. If you have that policy, whereby you have to have multiple children in child care at the one time, then when the first child goes into child care you're not getting any increased support, and then when your second child is in child care you might get some support—or with a third child you might get some support. But, if you have the second one in child care, once the first one goes to school, you're back where you were at the beginning. It is just bizarre that they think this is a sensible, rational policy. It provides a small amount of relief for a small minority of families for a short period of time. That's what this policy does. The vast majority of families get absolutely no additional childcare subsidy support under the Morrison government's plan.

Of course, the Prime Minister was the architect of the current childcare subsidy system when he was the minister, a system that has seen fees increase by more than 36 per cent, I remind the House. Labor's policy, our cheaper child care for working families, will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap, it will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent and it will increase the childcare subsidy rate for every family earning less than $530,000. But remember their response to that as well. They said we were helping wealthy families. They played the old class envy card, they did, over there! Over there, there it was: the old class envy card was played, the same people who had cash for baby bonuses, the same people who said that the cap should remain. It's all there; it's all in this piece of legislation—the inconsistency of this government's approach.

We're going to fix Australia's broken childcare system. It currently locks out more than 100,000 families, because they just can't afford it. I'll tell you something else that we'll do as well. In our first term, we will have a Productivity Commission inquiry into a comprehensive review of child care, with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families. We think that when a child goes to school in our public education system, no matter who they are—no matter their background, their race, their gender, their religion—they're entitled to go to the local school and get an education. As a society, we accept it's something we should do, because we recognise that an education is something that benefits the entire society; it's not a commodity that benefits just an individual and that we can put a specific price on for that individual. We accept it because we recognise as well that universal access to education is not only a human right but pretty smart economics. If you give opportunity to more people, you will get better outcomes for the nation.

In the fastest-growing region in the world in human history, where we're located, we need to compete on the basis of how smart we are—not through the government's approach of driving down wages and conditions but on the basis of how smart we are. All of the research says that every dollar invested in early learning is the best investment you can make in a future adult's capacity—every single dollar. If you put a hundred dollars into someone's early learning, a young boy or young girl, that will produce greater benefit for them, and therefore for their future family and our nation, than the same amount put into primary, secondary or tertiary education. It's just a fact because of the way that human development happens. That's why we call it early learning. When you go into these centres right around this country, as I have with the member for Kingston and other members from this side of the House, you see the remarkable work being done by educators. It's not childminding; it's learning. It's remarkable work making an incredible difference.

We also want to move a technical amendment to the bill to automatically exempt services from collecting childcare gap fees from families during COVID-imposed lockdowns. What was happening in Sydney, and I was contacted by constituents about it, was that families couldn't send their children to child care because of the lockdown, and they couldn't go to work either, but they were still getting hit with the bill for the gap in fees. This amendment is about fixing that permanently. We want to make sure as well that, when we do this, every dollar spent will make a difference for working families. So we will also put in place provisions that will improve transparency in the childcare sector.

Labor's plan is good policy. It will make an enormous difference to people. Ninety-seven per cent of families will benefit. Not a single family will be worse off under our policy, compared with the system that's there today. The government have adopted some of Labor's policy. They should adopt all of Labor's policy. It's only their acute embarrassment that is stopping them doing just that.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll start by thanking the early childhood workforce of Australia: the educators, directors, cleaners, cooks—everyone who makes this amazing sector of our economy and our society work. Sadly, it did take a global pandemic for some people to realise just how important your work is. Early childhood education and care is essential. Your work facilitates the labour market of today while training the labour market of tomorrow. Some 946,000 families across Australia rely on this sector so that they can live their lives, engage in our economy and give their kids the best opportunities for the future.

I know that the 195,000 people who work in this industry have felt forgotten at times. As we've seen in lockdowns over the last 18 months or so, when we talk about what's happening in education, often we'll see people announce what's happening with the schools and what's happening with the universities and the TAFEs, forgetting that 946,000 families are relying on one of these childcare centres—not knowing whether they have to wear masks, whether the centres are closed, or what the rules are around what is and isn't essential. I hope that this renewed political attention on child care also leads to some greater appreciation of the work that this workforce does—and it's a workforce that we need to grow. We need more people to become educators in our childcare centres. Estimates are that we've got a shortage of some 39,000 staff coming to us over the next few years. If we don't do something about it, we're going to see prices go up, availability decrease, and an even tighter labour market.

It does frustrate me if I think about what the childcare industry had to do last year, when the government implemented free childcare and very quickly expected childcare centres to change a range of their arrangements. The government said 'You've got a couple of weeks to do this.' The government is now telling us that they can't implement this very simple change for 250,000 families—just 250,000 families—without having 14 months to do it. That infuriates people who work in the sector, because they know that they were expected to change practically overnight.

I know that this sector, the early childhood education and care sector, makes a huge difference to families. Both my kids have used child care. Leo has been in there for three years. He went in at five months old, and I remember being very nervous, handing over my precious little baby boy to someone else. He was going to be there for a whole day. I didn't get much work done, as I sort of waited for the clock to tick by. But, actually, today my daughter Ruby had her first day at child care. There was far less of the nervousness, because I knew just what a great level of care and education she was in for and how much she would grow, like I've seen my son Leo grow, learning numbers, having his favourite letters, and the letters that he hates, and developing social skills, empathy, emotional regulation—all of the things that come from high-quality education and care.

If you believe that it's important that we as a nation have high-quality childhood education and care, then you'll know that the next election is a choice about the future of child care. When the Prime Minister reformed childcare, he said the changes were 'once in a generation'. He promised he was going to make child care more affordable, but that wasn't what happened. Just like he has failed on his two jobs this year of national vaccination and quarantine, he failed when it was his job to make child care more affordable. Under the Morrison government, we have families paying more out-of-pocket costs for child care than ever before.

Before the pandemic, just seven per cent of parents worked from home on a regular basis. Last year, that went up to 60 per cent. The number of families using parent-only care more than doubled from 30 to 64 per cent. Forty per cent of parents said they cared for children while working from home. And parents are doing that again across Australia, as we have more and more lockdowns, reminding us once again just how important the work is and the education is. It's reminding us that it's some of the hardest work—educating a young child who doesn't have all of those emotional skills yet and is still trying to figure out how to regulate their energy and how they fit into the world. It is incredibly tough work. Child care matters. It's a vital part of our society, and it's a vital part of our economy.

We learnt at the skills summit that was held in Western Australia last week that child care was identified as vital to the issues in the Western Australian economy that have arisen out of the pandemic. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA and the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia both identified the need for more childcare incentives as critical to addressing the skills shortages brought on by the pandemic. As previous Productivity Commission reports have demonstrated, the cost of child care does lock people out of the workforce. There are estimates that up to 300,000 Australians are not in the labour force because of their responsibility to care for children. Alarmingly, the number of parents saying they are not working because of the costs of child care has gone up by 23 per cent. When we have a pandemic leading to dangerous skills shortages, surely we should have more than the legislation in front of us. Surely we should have a comprehensive plan. Surely the government should swallow their pride and accept that maybe, just maybe, Labor's plan is the plan this country needs right now.

Lately we've heard a lot from the Prime Minister about how much he's proud of the Olympics. He has an Olympic analogy for everything but a plan for nothing. He told us all about where we finished, first place with gold medals, and where we are. But when it comes to the hard data reports that economists put out, that researchers look at, we don't hear much from the Prime Minister. We haven't had the minister for social services put out a press release about UNICEF's latest report when it comes to childcare centres in developed countries. UNICEF looked at 41 different countries. Where did Australia rank? No. 37. Not in the top 10, not a medal-winning performance, not in the top 20, not in the top 30—fourth last. That's where we finish when it comes to the question of how our childcare system is working in terms of accessibility and performance.

We have costs that are out of control and a government with no plan to do anything about it. In the last quarter the consumer price index rose 0.6 per cent. Childcare costs rose 2.2 per cent. This wasn't an irregularity; this has been happening and compounding quarter on quarter. Over the past 12 months, childcare costs rose 33.7 per cent while CPI increased just 1.1 per cent. The government's own advisers in the department of education are telling them fees are going to increase 4.1 per cent every year for the next four years—4.1 per cent this year, 4.1 per cent the year after that, 4.1 per cent the year after that and 4.1 per cent the year after that. That is going to take hundreds and hundreds of dollars out of the pay packets of Australians every fortnight just to pay for their child care. The total record of the government so far is a 36 per cent increase in childcare costs. It has never been more expensive to get early childhood education for a child in Australia than it is today.

When it comes to balancing the family budget, this is what families talk about. They don't understand why this government only wants to help some families if they have two children born relatively close together. With the way this legislation in front of us is structured, it's a penalty for parents who choose to have, or by circumstance find themselves with, children further spaced apart in their ages. It lacks any level of foresight and only helps a very small number of those families who access child care on a regular basis. I don't know if the government is trying to incentivise people to have more children closer together. We heard just before about when the government did believe in cash incentives, back when John Howard—the Prime Minister's mentor—and Peter Costello believed in cash incentives; they gave $5,000 to people for having a baby. Apparently that was totally fine and a highly appropriate incentive, but when dealing with a one-in-100-year pandemic no incentives are necessary.

I did find, digging into the history books, the press release from former Prime Minister Abbott and then Minister for Social Services Scott Morrison announcing 'no jab, no play and no pay for child care'. That was back when they were happy to have punitive measures on families for not getting vaccinations. I wondered, 'How bad was the vaccination rate when they brought this legislation in, when they started to say they were going to take this money off families?' I found something from the Medical Journal of Australia that noted that, before they introduced that policy, the rate of vaccinations for kids in child care was already at 90 per cent. Yet the Prime Minister, when he was the social services minister, knew it was worth having incentives to get it even higher than 90 per cent. Now ambition has gone so low that we're refusing even to have incentives for 70 or 80 per cent of the population. I've never said that policy consistency is a strong point of this government, but when it comes to the Prime Minister, particularly on incentives and particularly when it comes to childcare policy, it really is all over the place.

When it comes to the alternatives available to the Australian people, Labor understands the vital role that childcare plays in our society. I want to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Kingston on the work that they have done on childcare policy. We've done the work. The government could just borrow it tomorrow! Labor's policy will have a lasting impact on generations of Australians. What we know is that, because of the government's slowness to act, either the Labor policy or the Liberal policy—whoever should win the next election—could be implemented in July 2022. That means that Australians do face a clear choice on child care.

Under Labor's policy, some 860,000 families will be better off. When it comes to the changes in front of us, 727,000 families will receive no lift in their childcare subsidy as a result. That's 727,000 forgotten Australian families under this government. Under the Labor policy, if you have a single child, by choice or by circumstance, and are on a family income of less than $530,000, Labor will support you. For families with two children, the support the government provides is temporary. Labor's policy is different. We will provide an increase in support for every child because we know that every child deserves a quality education, not just when they get into formal schooling but also in the years leading up to it. Our plan, over time, will make one million families better off—four times the number of families who will benefit under the Liberal Party. We will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent. More importantly, we'll look, with the Productivity Commission, at how we can make that part of a universal childcare system for all Australian families so that in this place we value child care just as much as we value our schooling system, recognising that it's the child's right to receive quality education and quality care and that it shouldn't just be attached to their parents' means or income.

I've been fortunate to visit a number of childcare centres in my electorate in recent months. I do that all the time. I love learning from the educators, I love learning from the children and I love hearing from the parents. Last week, for Early Learning Matters Week, I went with the CEO of the Thrive by Five initiative, Jay Weatherill, to the Leederville Early Childhood Centre. Centre Director Sally Whitaker was very generous in showing us around and introducing us to some of the children who were at her centre. We spoke with Sally about the challenges of workforce. This is a problem that is going to hit Australia hard. It's hurting centres now. They are struggling to find staff with the qualifications they need, and it's only going to get worse. We know that there are problems with training quality. Not every person who gets a certificate or a diploma in early childhood education is getting the full set of skills they need. That's unfair for those people who've gone and done that study, because they are paying for something and not getting the economic benefits of furthering their career through that study.

I also recently visited the Akidamy, a fabulous centre in the Perth electorate, where the kids were kind enough to pick out a book for me to read. I read I'm Australian Too, by Mem Fox, celebrating the great diversity of this country and indeed the diversity of the children at the Akidamy. I also visited Mount Lawley Child Care Centre, at ECU, where I've been fortunate enough to be able to help them support their vegetable garden through a community grant. They are another great centre in the Perth electorate.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Access to affordable and quality child care is something that Australian families rightly expect and desperately need. I want to begin my remarks today by acknowledging and thanking all the early childhood educators across our country and in my community here in the Jagajaga electorate. We are so grateful to you and grateful for the way that you have continued your frontline work, looking after our youngest Australians, throughout this pandemic. I know it's not easy work, and I know that in the last year or so there have been so many points of uncertainty for you that you have battled through to continue to provide an essential service. That's what child care is and that's what early education is. It's an essential service and it's one that is highly valued by those of us on this side of the House. For me, personally, with two very small children, it's a service that I value highly. I value highly the skilled early childhood educators who take care of my children daily. Thank you again for all of your efforts.

It was particularly difficult for those of us here in Victoria last year during our extended multiple lockdowns to have to talk with early childhood education providers, educators, owners of centres and parents, because those people were left in a position of overwhelming uncertainty by the Morrison government. They were not backed up; they were not given the framework and support that should have been in place for this essential service. It is good that this bill seeks to remove the annual child care subsidy cap and increase the child care subsidy rates for families with multiple children under six years of age. That fixes some of those gaps, but it's only a small amount of relief for a small number of families for a short amount of time. We can, and we must, do better when it comes to early childhood education and child care in this country.

During the last year in Victoria, many people have been in and out of lockdown. They have ceased work, they've lost hours and their family budgets have been impacted hugely. This has really affected their access to child care. For those families here in Victoria, changing the rules around childcare gap fees during those earlier lockdowns would have alleviated so much stress, and yet this government couldn't bring itself to do that. Those families who have been in lockdown here in Melbourne have too often had to be charged gap fees by centres. I know that a lot of centres in my community didn't want to charge those fees but there was no support from the federal government to allow them to get through that. We would have liked to have seen the support that's now being extended to Sydney—and I certainly don't begrudge them that—in Victoria. There shouldn't be this double standard. We need to make sure that all families understand that they can afford and access early childhood education throughout this pandemic. Allowing providers to still receive the child care subsidy but not having to charge gap fees would be really, really important.

While I'm looking at the way that the early childhood care system has been treated over the past year or so during the pandemic, I can't go past the neglect that the Morrison government showed early childhood educators last year when they took away JobKeeper from early childhood educators—the only workers for whom JobKeeper was removed early. What does that say, again, about how this government values this support and this work? We're in lockdown again in Victoria during this time and, of course, 96 per cent of early educators are women—women who were hit hard by the pandemic. They were juggling, taking on extra care responsibilities, and then, in their workplaces, they were being left in situations where they weren't getting federal government support. I have spent a lot of time speaking with those women in my community, about what that decision meant for them and how upset and angry they were that at a time when they really needed government support they were left without it.

One woman in my community, a 59-year-old early childhood educator, was stood down without pay for six weeks. Her husband was retired and so that was a huge hit to their income. One provider in my community, in Macleod, was trying to do the right thing by her employees and not stand them down. She was also trying to bear those extra costs and was really struggling with that. Employers of early childhood educators were feeling—and I think to some extent are still feeling—unseen and unheard, and worried about their futures. So there's much more that this government should be doing to support early educators as the frontline workers who are helping to bring up our next generation.

And of course there's much more that this government should be doing to support Australian families with the costs of child care because, as we've already heard from the Leader of the Opposition and from the member for Perth in their contributions, Australia has some of the most expensive childcare fees in the OECD. Amongst developed countries, our families pay almost the most for child care. That's not a record that we want to hold; that's not a sign of success. It's this government's policy not doing what it should. We know that the Prime Minister, when he was Minister for Social Services, dubbed his system reforms a 'once-in-a-generation reform' that would make child care more affordable. Yet, since then, we've seen childcare costs increase by 7.2 per cent in one year alone before the pandemic. We've got the government saying they made a once-in-a-generation reform with no problems with costs, and yet costs are continuing to rise and continuing to impact family budgets.

I can tell you, from both the data we see and the conversations I have had in my electorate, that the people whose lives are being affected by those costs are women. It is women who cannot go back to work because their families cannot afford an extra day of child care. It is women who are making those decisions about 'Will I go back now that I've had a second child?' and 'What will the cost be?' I can't tell you how many conversations I've had while pushing my small child on a swing and chatting to the mum next to me, where the mum will say, 'I think I'll probably only go back to work three days, because we can't afford the extra day or two of child care.' That's where the Morrison government's policies have left child care and early education in this country. It does have long-term effects on women. It has long-term effects on their earning ability and on their careers, and it obviously has long-term effects on their whole family. Most families in Australia these days need two parents to work to be able to afford the mortgage and pay for all the things for their children. They deserve a government that is serious about putting in place affordable child care, not one that's putting in a half-hearted program that may support a few families but certainly not enough.

This goes to how the Morrison government use early education and the role of women more broadly in our community. We know that, when this policy was discussed in the Morrison government's party room, members of that party room said, 'Isn't child care just women outsourcing their parenting responsibility?' It is not women outsourcing their parenting responsibility. It is women trying to do all things. It is women trying to work and trying to make sure that their children are cared for properly and given an early education. It is an incredibly valuable service, which again, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, should be a universal service, helping all of our children get the best start in life. It needs to be more than what the Morrison government is putting in place.

I'm so proud that Labor's policy makes child care more affordable for families across the spectrum and recognises that child care and early education is something that benefits not just those families with children in child care and early education but all of us by bringing up the next generation with the education for the best start in life. We do know that Labor's policy will benefit many more families than the government's policy. Some 860,000 families, or 86 per cent of all families with children aged under six in the system, will be better off under our policy compared to that of the government. Every single family with one child aged five or under in child care with a combined family income of less than $530,000 will receive no lift in their childcare subsidy rate under the Liberals, but they will under Labor. The vast majority of families with a combined family income of between $69,806 and $174,806 with two children in child care will be better off under Labor. That's 97 per cent of Australian families with children in care that Labor will make child care cheaper for. We will increase the childcare subsidy for more than one million working families, remove the annual cap on childcare benefits and prevent out-of-control fee increases. We're not going to put extra complexity into the system and say that it's only when you have a second child within the right time frame that you'll get the extra support that the government is offering. We'll support every child in child care with an improvement in the subsidy arrangements that will help 97 per cent of Australian families.

That is going to make such a difference in my community. It is going to make such a difference for women across Australia who are making decisions about 'What does it look like trying to go back to work?' and 'What does the financial juggle look like around trying to access those extra days in child care?' so that they can continue to work to build their career and make sure they have an income for the future while also making sure that their children are getting the support and early education that means that they will be getting a great start in life.

Labor value early education; we value early educators. We understand that this is frontline work. We understand that our early educators should be supported through the pandemic and into the future. We understand that making reforms to early education and child care in this country are foundation policies that will not just transform participation in our economy but will make families' lives easier across Australia and help support the next generation of Australians.

Making sure that we are giving all Australian children access to quality early childhood education means that they all have a chance at the best start in life. It's not outsourcing women's work. It's not outsourcing parenting. It is seeing your child develop and grow. In my experience as a parent of young children, seeing what my child gets out of child care every day convinces me beyond doubt that she is in a place that supports her learning and emotional growth and is setting her up for her future.

Labor sees a future where all families can access that sort of support and where all Australian families know that accessing child care should not be a big hit to your budget. It should be affordable, it should be universal and it should be accessible. There is a lot of work still to do in this space, and we know that despite the government saying they did a once-in-a generation reform, they didn't get there, because they're trying again. This policy doesn't get there either. Don't be half-hearted about it. Don't just accept a few tweaks from Labor's policy because we pushed you into it. Do it properly. We plan to do it properly. We plan to set up an early education system that supports young children and families across our country.

My final plea to the government is to support early childhood educators through this pandemic. Recognise that they remain on the front line—they can't do their jobs remotely. They are there amongst the snotty noses and the coughs, wondering every day what that might mean for them and their communities. So support them to get vaccinated. They need to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Support them financially. Don't cut off their financial support early like you did with JobKeeper last year. These people need support. They are doing vital work. I certainly know that I would not be able to be here doing my job if it were not for early educators and the work they continue to do through this pandemic. That deserves to be recognised by this government. They do deserve extra support. I am proud that Labor both values early childhood educators and wants to support them through their work and into the future. We want to build a child care and early education system that will support Australian families, and we'll make sure that Australian families can afford it. They won't struggle at the end of every week, thinking, 'What was our childcare hit this week?' Our system will mean that our children will get the best start in life.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] The Morrison government's spin around their childcare announcement has been annihilated by new data. In July, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed 138,700 Australians aren't working because they can't access child care. Of those people, 92 per cent are women. Further, 113,000 Australians want employment but aren't actively looking, because they've given up on all job prospects. That's about 250,000 Australians. The Productivity Commission estimates that number is even higher—almost 300,000 people. Australia's expensive childcare costs are preventing parents—specifically, but not always, women—from working the hours they want and contributing to our economy.

This is also doing nothing for our gender pay gap. It's something the Prime Minister, a former treasurer at that, has only just realised actually exists. Perhaps that's why we have slipped from 15th in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index in 2006 to a shameful 50th place on gender pay equity. The costs of child care are undeniably out of control, and the Morrison government's half-hearted policy before us today falls appallingly short of what's required to provide genuine relief for families. The policy before us in the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021 will see a small amount of relief dished out to a small minority of families for a limited amount of time. That's good for them, and we don't oppose that. But the vast majority of families don't get additional support under this plan from the Morrison government, and they desperately need it. Our nation desperately needs it and it wants it.

New polling shows that three-quarters of Australians support a universal early education and care system. The Early Learning Monitor, a poll of almost 5,000 Australians on behalf of Thrive by Five, makes clear that the high cost of early learning and care is a barrier that parents want removed. And that's fair enough. Parents in Australia cop some of the highest out-of-pocket costs for early learning and care in the world. For many, they can't afford to work. More than half of parents with a child under school age say that having access to more affordable quality early learning and care would help their families and would reduce the career and family sacrifices they're required to make.

Australians are moving away from the outdated idea that early education and care is just an issue for women or that it's some form of middle-class welfare. Early education is an economic policy that will substantially impact our nation's economy and GDP overall for the better. The lack of affordable child care is holding back small businesses and our nation from the recovery that we all desperately need. We know that about 99 per cent of all Australian businesses are small and medium enterprises. We also know that 40 per cent of these businesses are owned and run by women.

The high cost of childcare fees has resulted in increasing withdrawals of children from care, which means less income for childcare centres, job losses for educators and career stagnation for many women. I met with a childcare centre in my community last week who revealed they've lost many children due to the unsustainability of childcare costs for their families—and they're one of the more affordable centres in our community. So many working parents, predominantly mothers, are being left with no choice but to reduce hours or give up on work to look after their children, regardless of their desire to continue working.

The pandemic has proven that child care is an essential service. Research tells us that increasing female workforce participation is one of the biggest economic opportunities for government and that cheaper child care for more workers can deliver it. Increasing the childcare subsidy can have a multibillion-dollar positive impact on our nation's GDP. Only this week, families across the country have been hit with bills from the federal government, calling on debts dating back to 2017 to be repaid. One resident from Sydney said she is claiming COVID 2019 disaster payments after losing most of her income through the pandemic. But with one hand they give and with the other the government are taking away. This mum summed it up when she told 9News:

I feel the system is flawed. Not only do we spend an extortionate amount on childcare, more than any other country, but this system that the government has put in place to supposedly help us and get mums back into the workforce, has got little loopholes where they can throw out random bills to us.

Hundreds of families have been hit by similar situations, with many of these debts arising from the childcare subsidy. One of my local constituents has been hit too, with no notice of such debt that arose over a year ago and was sent directly to debt collectors as well.

The ABS, independent research and Labor have all discovered the same thing: that the Morrison government's rhetoric around their childcare policy is nothing more than spin. Labor's policy proves unequivocally that our policy position provides more support for more families and for longer. Eighty-six per cent of all families with children under six already in the childcare system would be better off under Labor's child care policy rather than this one from the government. To break it down: every single family with one child aged five or under in child care—that's some 727,000 families—with a combined family income of less than $530,000 will receive absolutely no lift in their childcare subsidy under the Liberal government, but they will under Labor. The vast majority of families with a combined family income of between $69,806 and $174,806 with two kids in child care will be better off under Labor. That means that the vast majority of the community of Perth's south-eastern suburbs that I represent will be better off.

But the federal government, dangling that carrot for families, by supporting families with three kids in care at the same time, will assist just 1.8 per cent of all families. Meanwhile, Labor's childcare plan will leave a million families better off than they are right now—four times as many as the Liberals' plan. Our plan to support more families for a longer amount of time will result in a boost to GDP three times greater than that under this government. Both policies—the Liberal policy that is before us today and the policy federal Labor is committed to—are both due to kick off in July 2022. That, of course, is after the next election. So, it's up to the Australian people to decide: do you want a childcare system for which the government's own department of education predicts that costs to parents will increase by more than four per cent every year for the next four years? Or do you want a real plan to tackle the skyrocketing out-of-pocket childcare costs?

Australia's childcare system is fundamentally broken. The proposal before us today falls well short of what Australian families actually need. Labor has a plan to bring down the cost of child care and keep it down for 97 per cent of families. A federal Labor government will introduce cheaper child care for working families. That will see the scrapping of the $10,560-a-year childcare subsidy cap, which often sees women losing money for an extra day's work. It will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent, and it will increase childcare subsidy rates and taper them for every family that's earning less than $530,000 a year. Importantly, the ACCC will be charged with designing a price regulation mechanism to shed light on costs and fees in order to drive them down for good. Meanwhile, the Productivity Commission will also conduct a comprehensive review of the sector, with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all Australian families.

It's time we made child care more affordable and made it easier for Aussie families to get into—or back into—the workforce. It's good for our nation's economy, it's good for education, it's good for working families, it's good for their career progression and it's good for household budgets. It will help spearhead our nation's economic recovery from this pandemic. So, let's bring down childcare costs and make child care more accessible for all Australian families, with a real plan, not just what we see in the plan in this bill.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you know what's really stressful? Organising child care. It's really stressful. You've got little kids, so you probably don't get that much sleep—I know I didn't. You're trying to work out whether you can find child care that lines up with the days you work or the hours you work, how you're going to get there, how you're going to make sure you get the kids there safely and pick them up safely, how it's going to line up with your breastfeeding schedule if your child's still breastfeeding, whether you're going to need to pump at work and then organise frozen breast milk, whether you're going to have to switch your child to formula and whether you really want to do that. And then, on top of that, is the child going to have a good time at child care? Are they going to make friends there? Are they going to feel lonely there? Are they going to miss you? How are you going to feel when you drop them off for the first time, if they're crying or if they're not crying?

All these things are so stressful, but we do them because we actually need to have child care in place, for a whole range of reasons. The first reason is so that we can go back to work—and that's parents; I'm not just talking about mothers but parents who are on parental leave, who are organising child care so that they can get back to work. I'm talking about paid work. Child care is work. Parenting is work. But this is so you can get back into your paid employment. The second reason is so that your children get the benefits of early learning, the benefits of being with other kids and the benefits of being with professional educators who will develop them and who will make sure they get a really great early learning experience. So, we do it because child care is actually really important. It's crucial. In fact, as the Leader of the Opposition said, we know how important early learning is to kids' brain development and to kids' capacity later in life. We know that early learning is really important. For all of those reasons, child care is fundamental to making sure that our society can operate well, that parents can work and that children get the chance for early learning.

On top of all the stresses I mentioned at the beginning, one of the biggest stresses, if not the biggest stress, is the cost of child care. It's incredibly difficult for a young family to manage the cost of child care. It's very clear to us in Labor that you need to ease the burden on working families when it comes to the cost of child care. This is not a matter that is clear to the Liberal and National parties, who are in government. It's not a matter that's clear to the Prime Minister. It's a matter that we've had to drag them into understanding. Certainly the pandemic, particularly the first wave of lockdowns, really exposed some of the weaknesses in the way the childcare system is set up here in Australia. But there were massive problems before that. It's hard to use, it's hard for parents to navigate sometimes, but what's really hard is bearing the cost. As I said, this is apparent to Labor and has been for a very long time.

Throughout our history we have understood the importance of early learning. In fact, if you go back to Gough Whitlam's speeches in 1969 and 1972—those terrific Graham Freudenberg speeches; may he rest in peace, and may Gough rest in peace—you'll see that Gough was recognising the importance of early learning when he put forward his case to lead a government here in Australia. This is something that Labor knows. We've got an intuition about it. We know it inherently, because we are connected to the working lives of people. For the same reason, the Liberals and Nationals don't really get it. They don't really understand the pressures on working families, because they're not in the same way connected.

So, it was no surprise to me and no surprise, I think, to a lot of people on the Labor side when Anthony Albanese, very early in his time as the Leader of the Labor Party, made a significant policy commitment in relation to child care. It was a significant policy commitment that goes to making sure that we get the workforce participation benefits of an easy-to-use, affordable, accessible childcare system and also recognising implicitly the importance of early learning to children. That's why I was unsurprised that it was one of Labor's first real major commitments under Anthony Albanese's leadership. I was also delighted by it.

The fact is that this country needs affordable child care. Women need it, men need it and children need it. We all need it. Even if you don't have kids of an age to be in child care, you need the childcare system to operate, because our economy depends on improving workforce participation, on making sure that we don't waste any of the potential of the talent that our people have because for some reason it's uneconomic for them to go to work because of the cost of child care. We all need for Australia to have a good childcare system, just like we all need Australia to have all those other really important services that knit our society together, that give us cohesion and that maximise the opportunities that we all have as Australians, that maximise the opportunities that we have to make sure that talent is able to flourish and that people reach their full potential. Child care is important to working families, but it's important to everyone as well, for those reasons—for the direct and indirect benefits that we as a nation get from having a good quality, affordable, accessible childcare system that's responsive to workforce needs as well as responsive to children's needs.

Anthony's announcement, quite a while ago now, was to make 97 per cent of families that are using child care better off and no families worse off. It's a very important, landmark policy because it would make child care more affordable and alleviate some of the stress that parents are facing, particularly now, particularly in difficult economic times and difficult times more generally—alleviating that stress, investing in the nation, investing in increasing workforce participation, investing in our people and making sure people have those opportunities. As I said, I think the government was a little bit bemused by our childcare announcement. They didn't really get why we would do it or why it was important. But now they have belatedly come up with some childcare policy of their own, and here we are debating a bill to give effect to that policy.

As I said, Labor's policy makes 97 per cent of families better off and leaves no families worse off. The Liberal's policy is much narrower and assists many fewer families. In fact, 860,000 families are better off under Labor's policy than under the Liberal's policy. And it's not surprising, because the thing you've got to know about the Liberal Party and National Party policy, the legislation we're debating today, the Morrison government approach, is that the benefits they want to provide get taken away the minute your oldest child is in school. The minute your oldest child is old enough for school, you don't really get the benefit of this policy.

I think the Australian people are going to see through this. They're going to see that it's a bit of a fig leaf. The government know they've got to have some sort of childcare policy, because they've seen the popularity of our cheaper childcare policy. But they don't really want to do it properly, because they don't really get it. So they've come up with this fig leaf and they've put it in the parliament, and then they've done nothing but spin, spin, spin. We all know this government is all spin, no substance. We all know that it's led by a prime minister who has been known for a very long time for being all about the marketing, not about the delivery. This is a government that makes big announcements and then doesn't deliver on them. That's their modus operandi, isn't it? So we know that spin is their default approach to the world—and haven't they been trying to spin this policy as a good childcare policy? But I think Australians will work out very quickly that it's Labor's childcare plan that will provide more support to more families for longer.

With both of these policies set to start in July 2022, Australian families are going to go to the ballot box at the next election deciding between the following two election commitments: childcare policy that leaves 97 per cent of families better off and no families worse off, or the Liberal's very pale imitation. Families out there who are really feeling that stress, that pressure on the household budget, are sitting around the kitchen table thinking: 'How do we manage to sort out our budget? What can we keep? What has to go?'

Child care doesn't need to be this much of a burden. We can actually do better as a nation and provide good, sound childcare policy and a good, sound childcare system that delivers terrific early learning, that helps the next generation, and at the same time is responsive to parents' needs and allows them into the workforce without having to make terribly difficult decisions—the sort of decision where you think, 'If I pick up a third or a fourth day of work, does the additional income I get for that additional day of work get cancelled out by the amount of additional money I have to pay for child care?' These are considerations that people are having to take into account every single day. They are decisions that people are having to make: 'Do I go back to work and effectively not get paid for it, because the money gets put straight into the additional childcare costs, and in doing so not really see much of an improvement in our living standards right now? Or do I not go back to work, not pick up the additional day of work, and perhaps miss out on opportunities—opportunities for training, opportunities to work on important projects, opportunities for promotion—therefore affecting my future earnings as a consequence of me not picking up this additional work?' There is a chance of greater future earnings, perhaps, or alternatively a definite failure to get paid for the additional day because the money goes straight into additional childcare costs.

These are the decisions that people are having to make, and why should they have to? It's so counterproductive for us as a country. Don't we want our best and brightest to be able to go into paid employment if that's their choice? Why should that choice be taken away from them by inadequate childcare support? It shouldn't be. That's why this government really needs to lift its game when it comes to early learning in this country. They need to appreciate the pressure that families are under and appreciate the value of early learning.

Since I'm on the topic, might I also say they need to better value the work that early learning educators are doing every day. Throughout this pandemic, early learning educators and other staff of early learning centres, kindergartens, childcare centres—everyone connected to early learning—has been doing an incredible job at turning up to work and caring for the children of essential workers during lockdowns. They've absolutely been on the frontline in our community, being in a position where they don't necessarily get the choice to stay safe at home like so many of us. So many of us get to stay safe at home during the lockdown periods. There are so many people in our community who do not get that choice and must go out to work because they're an essential worker. Early learning educators have shown how valuable they are, the work that they're willing to do and the sacrifices that they're willing to make throughout this pandemic period. I know that every member of this House would be so grateful to educators and to others involved in child care for the work that they have done. I certainly am. I pay tribute to all of the early learning educators and all of those in the childcare and kindergarten sector in my community. There are far too many to list them.

If anyone is interested, as before the lockdown, my staff and I have been getting around the early learning services as much as we can. Check it out on my social media. We were very lucky to drop in to a kindergarten just the other day for Early Learning Matters Week to thank that particular kindy for the work that they were doing, but that is replicated in kindergartens and childcare centres throughout the electorate of Griffith, just as it is throughout our great nation. I thank those people for all the sacrifices they're making and all the work that they're doing to care for our precious little ones. I know that people really appreciate it.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021. This bill, if passed, will enact the government's anaemic solution to our childcare affordability crisis. It must be said: it's not a solution, and it will not be enacted until July next year, after the election. Schedule 1 of this bill would abolish the national subsidy cap. Schedule 2 would introduce new rates to somewhat improve current payments, but this is a second-rate plan. Let me be clear: the Morrison government has been dragged, kicking and screaming, to even acknowledge there is a crisis in the childcare sector. When it comes to the escalating costs of child care being imposed on families, and in particular on women wanting to return to work, the Morrison government has only introduced change because Labor has already stepped up, acknowledged the crisis and announced a childcare policy that better supports families. It makes child care very affordable and empowers women and men to get back into the workforce without it costing an arm and a leg. In contrast, this bill will do little to unlock the full potential of the Australian economy and the women and mothers who want to be part of it. Sadly, under this government, childcare costs will remain a barrier to our nation's economic productivity and will continue to stop women from getting back into the workforce.

The rising costs of child care in my electorate are just one example of this government's failure to support young families. In the 12 months to March, my electorate saw childcare costs rise substantially. The increases ranged from 4½ per cent to 21½ per cent. A 21.5 per cent yearly increase would mean the cost of child care would double every 3½ years. It is not affordable or sustainable and it means many parents are forced to work less. So, instead of working full time, a parent, generally the mother, will work only three days or not at all. The consequences of this are significant for our economy, for our productivity and for the health and wellbeing of families, women and children. Children lose out on their development when their entire education is set back at the first formal step, and the economy loses out because the pool of workers is reduced, driving down incomes and consumption.

And women lose out: they bank less superannuation and they're more vulnerable to homelessness and insecurity in their later years. They can also lose confidence with their skills and connections to their own networks. This is the exact opposite of what we want for women. I have been through this myself and I understand just how frustrating it is. It's not good enough and it needs to change. Under Labor's plan, announced by the Leader of the Opposition some 10 months ago, more children will be able to attend child care, more women will choose to undertake more work and, importantly, 97 per cent of all families will be better off. No family will be worse off. This will be good news for my electorate, because when I visit childcare centres and speak to young families in Corangamite they tell me that the cost of child care is exorbitant, limiting and that it impacts unfairly on women. I recently spoke to a Grovedale mum, Pawandeep Gill. She wants her young daughter to experience the benefits of an early childhood education, but the childcare costs that come with working another day a week greatly outweigh what she earns as an aged-care worker.

This is not what we want for Pawandeep, or for all women. The Morrison government's childcare policy undervalues women. It fails to support them and it undermines their opportunities. Unlike those opposite, Labor wants women to achieve their potential. Pawandeep should be allowed to choose and families in Corangamite and across Australia should be allowed to choose when they work. But of course, not only does the Prime Minister not much care for the people of my electorate in Corangamite he doesn't much care for people outside New South Wales.

Just a week ago, families who are locked down in Victoria and South Australia were paying for child care they could not access. Why? Because the Morrison government failed to allow childcare providers to waive gap fees. In contrast, when it comes to New South Wales, the Prime Minister has given providers the green light to waive these fees. While I, and Labor, welcome these concessions and wish New South Wales and everyone in New South Wales all the best in their endeavours to defeat this virus, we will continue to call on the Morrison government to waive lockdown gap fees in other states, including in Victoria. But I'm not holding my breath; the Prime Minister is becoming increasingly the Prime Minister for New South Wales.

During this time of pandemic we must put aside such disappointments and be constructive. We can fix child care, the problem with affordability and get families back to work if they wish to. Labor has the plan. Labor has announced that an Albanese government will introduce the working family childcare boost for childcare fees and put more money back into the pockets of working families straightaway. Labor will scrap the $10,560 child care subsidy cap, which often sees women losing money for an extra day's work. It will fix the maximum child care subsidy rate to 90 per cent, increase child care subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than half a million dollars a year. This means that 97 per cent of all families will save between $600 and $2,900 a year.

Under Labor many primary carers across my electorate will choose to work more and the local economy will benefit by tens of millions of dollars every year as a result. And, as KPMG points out, increased investment in early education and child care will boost our gross domestic product by between $4 billion and $11 billion through increased workforce participation. In contrast, the Morrison government's broken childcare subsidy system has failed to keep a lid on costs and has failed to support working parents—particularly women—to work full-time or to increase their hours.

This latest bill is limited in its response to the crisis in childcare affordability. And, as I stated earlier, it will not be enacted until July 2022—after the next election. This lag is concerning. It means the struggle for young families needing child care will continue. But there is opportunity—opportunity to embrace Labor's childcare policy because the bottom line is that families will be better off. I must say that we must also do better for our early-years educators. This government must do more to support them and value them.

In Corangamite, there are economists calling for Labor's reform. Women and families in Corangamite are calling for this reform. Families should be able to afford child care for their children, and mothers and fathers should be given the opportunities they deserve to strive and reach their potential. So, while Labor will not stand in the way of this bill, I urge every young family to embrace Labor's childcare plan at the next election, because families will be better off, our economy will be better off and young families will get the opportunities they deserve.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Like everyone who's spoken before me, or at least everyone on my side of the chamber who's spoken before me, I find this piece of legislation, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021, both important and disappointing. It's important because any reform to the childcare subsidy system, which, under the Morrison government, is flawed and is one of the most expensive in the OECD, is welcome. It's disappointing because it just doesn't go far enough. Of course it's not as good as the policy that was announced by the Leader of the Opposition, and I join with my colleagues in urging the government to put aside petty partisanship and look to improve this legislation and the system in the way that federal Labor has proposed.

But it's not just that lack in this legislation that is disappointing. It's the lack of any vision of what early childhood education and care really is about. The disappointment is the lack of any vision for how to better the working lives of the frontline workers, who are predominantly women, without whom we could not have gotten through the lockdowns last year in Victoria and without whom we will not be able to get through the current lockdown or any that we may have in the future. There is no vision for how to improve their pay, no vision for how to improve their working conditions, no vision for how to say, 'Early childhood educators and carers are crucial because they are looking after and educating our children and our future.'

There is no vision for how to make early childhood education and care an integrated part of the education system so that it can be one of the tools we have to address socioeconomic and systemic disadvantage between communities across the country. That's what education should do, and early education and early childhood education should be a part of that. The disappointment in this legislation is the lack of vision of a culture in this country where the care of children isn't a women's issue, where the care of children is a human issue and a family issue and we acknowledge that child care is a responsibility of both men and women.

There is a lack of understanding of how workforce participation in early childhood education and care is an economic driver in this country, not only bringing about economic growth but also bringing about equality in economic opportunity. To have an economy that grows for all, not just for some, we need to be assisting all to participate as much as they want to and to their full capacity.

This legislation, which, it's worth noting, came about despite the fact that the Prime Minister, his ministers and his government derided Labor for saying that the childcare system needed to be fixed, while it makes some changes, doesn't go far enough. Not every child in our country can access the quality early learning they need, and we can't accept that. That should not be good enough for a prosperous and successful country like ours. Systems that are based just on the workforce participation of parents exclude some children from the early learning system, and they often exclude children that need it more than others because they aren't getting the same level of early education and care at home as other children. The cost of accessing early learning for those extra days—the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day—is not only preventing predominantly Australian women from going back to work. It's preventing their children from getting the early education and care that they deserve and that they should be entitled to.

The gender pay gap in this country is unacceptably high and stubbornly high, and any reductions that we have seen in the last few years can be attributed predominantly—not entirely, but predominantly—to general wage stagnation and issues with men's pay in areas like mining not going up. It's linked to occupations like early education and care that are seen to be gendered, are gendered and have traditionally been undervalued because they're seen to be women's work and care. We have to change the way we view early education and care in this country: to value it for itself, to value it for what it gives our children, to value it for what it gives parents who want to work, to value it for what it gives to the economy. We also have to change a view that is embedded in our industrial relations system, and how pay is often set, that somehow work that is predominantly done by women is worth less than work that is predominantly done by men. We have to change that. That is a role for government as much as it is a role for society. It's a role for government with its industrial relations policies, with things like equal remuneration orders, with getting in there and saying, 'This industry needs to be paid more, and the workers there need to be paid more,' because that is in part the way we value that the work they do.

Labor's policy is to give this work—early education and care—the value that it deserves. Labor's policy is to take the pressure off almost every working family in this country in terms of the affordability of child care. It's to allow parents to get back that fourth and that fifth day and it's to remove structural barriers that prevent it. Labor will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap, which is the barrier that I just spoke of. A Labor government would lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent and a Labor government would increase childcare subsidy rates for every family earning less than $530,000. More than 100,000 families are locked out of child care because they can't afford it—100,000 families across this country—and that's not acceptable. Under Labor, the Productivity Commission would be asked to conduct a comprehensive review of child care, with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families. It should be seen as part of our education system. In this country, from the start of your life to the end of your life you should be able to be continuously learning. You should be able to access education and training, no matter where you live, who your parents are or what your background is. You cannot do that at the moment in this country. We need a public education system that allows that. It is something that my community absolutely understands.

I want to finish my contribution like many others before me by acknowledging the amazing work of the early childhood educators and carers across my electorate. Just recently, since the most recent lockdown that we've had in Victoria—and here's hoping we don't another one for quite some time—I've had the opportunity to visit Monique, at the Early Learning Sanctuary in Frankston; Kylie; at Genius Early Learning Centre in Seaford; Ruby, at the Veronica Street Children's Centre in Langwarrin; and Jodie, at Kidding Around Childcare Centre, just across from John Paul College in Frankston. What these centres have in common is that they are run by people who are absolutely passionately dedicated to the future of the children that they are entrusted to care for for one to five days a week.

I've spoken to parents at many of those centres, predominantly women, who understand the value of the people who work at those centres. They are handing over their most precious loved ones, their children, for hours and days of the week, and they want their carers and early educators to be paid properly and to have wages and conditions that reflect the work that they do. They also want to be able to afford to give their children the opportunity for that early learning on as many days as possible without essentially having to work for free two days a week to have them go there.

I want to say to Monique, Kylie, Ruby, Jodie and all of the childcare workers and centre owners across Dunkley: we see you, we hear you, we value you and we know that we couldn't have got through 2020 and the first half of 2021 without you, and I will continue to dedicate my time in this chamber to making sure that you get paid properly and that your wages and conditions are at the standard that you deserve and that parents across this community can send their kids to early learning and child care without wondering how they're going to pay for it or having to give up work because they just can't.

Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] In speaking on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021, I want to firstly thank the member for Dunkley, who graciously stepped in and took the place ahead of me because I was sprinting back from dinner, bath and bedtime at my house here in the electorate of Lilley—a very calm and restful time, as all parents would know. It was an example of why virtual parliament needs a bit of work, I think, to make it as flexible as caregivers need to contribute both in the parliament and at home. It was also an example of the member for Dunkley's tireless advocacy for parents and working parents and being a champion for them in all circumstances, whether it is in her electorate of Dunkley, like the caregivers she has just been championing or whether it's her colleagues like myself. Thank you very much to the member for Dunkley. I know that she joins me in hoping these ongoing lockdowns, all of the sacrifices required, do also provide this place, this federal parliament, with the opportunity to work on cultural change and work on how we can be a more flexible place so that more caregivers—whether it is the caregivers of very young children, or the caregivers of their elderly parents, or the caregivers of anybody in your family or neighbourhood who you give care to in our community—can make a contribution in this place. I would highlight that both the Speaker and Serjeant-at-Arms have been at pains to help me through this process and I thank them for it.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to note that the Morrison government has scheduled a childcare debate for between 4.10 pm and about 7.00 pm which is the worst possible moment of the day for parents of young children, who wish to contribute to this debate, to manage both those young children and the parliament. Until we have more champions, more people with that lived experience, in senior roles making those decisions in this place we will continue to have circumstances such as mine where we're trying to juggle both dinner, bath and bedtime at home and important legislation—legislation that I came to this place to fight for—at the same time, at the witching hour. We can do better. We can do better if it's front of mind. I urge the Morrison government to give that some thought.

I also want to thank the early educators who have spent some of today looking after my four-year-old and all little ones across South-East Queensland whilst we endure another lockdown. While many more people are working from home in this lockdown, our early educators continue go to their work every day, work which is on the frontline of this pandemic, putting their own health at risk so that other essential workers can go to work. I personally would like to thank the educators who allow me to do my job today representing the constituents of Lilley in this parliament.

The Morrison government has been dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way to introduce a policy that actually addresses the skyrocketing price of child care. They have yet to address the systemic workforce issues in this sector. I have had childcare drop-offs with two children under five that have been easier than trying to deal with the Morrison government on this important policy area.

We have heard reports, from a coup in the LNP caucus, about men in the government spitting the dummy about this very bill because they want to incentivise mothers to say home with their kids. And note they didn't say parents. They did say mothers. We've seen a government senator, who's own office is in Chermside, in my electorate of Lilley—childcare fees have increased by 3.8 per cent in Chermside in just the last year—who does not support childcare subsidies because he says, 'Dorothy did not say there's no place like child care.'

I welcome the Morrison government to table this bill even if they are going to sit at the table and sulk because at least we are here and at least we can debate it. In saying that, I'm extremely disappointed to hear that the Morrison government might be voting against Labor's technical amendment to this bill. They still have to make their minds up I guess. But to automatically except services from collecting the childcare gap fees from families during a government imposed COVID lockdown is supremely unfair. While families have been instructed to stay at home during lockdowns, childcare centres have remained open as an essential service for essential workers. However, in Queensland families staying at home who are not sending children to child care, who are doing the right thing, who are following the medical advice, are still being charged gap fees by centres as they are legally required to levy those fees.

This week my electorate office has been bombarded with calls and messages from northside parents who have been told that they need to keep paying their gap fees, but they cannot take their child to child care because they are not classified as essential workers. Kate is a great hardworking Lilley mum. She's a mental health worker. Both Kate and her husband are working from home. Kate was told by her service provider that they cannot accept her children at her childcare centre during lockdown because there are two parents at home. Kate, who is a mental health worker, now has to do mental health checks on her clients in her car so that she is not interrupted by her kids. That is something that the Morrison government is endorsing by not voting with our amendment tonight.

Hayley is another Lilley mum who contacted me in a very similar position. She was told by her provider that she also cannot bring her son to child care because she's able to work from home. But she's still being slugged with the gap fee. She now finds herself in the position of having to work from home as an accountant whilst also looking after her son as a single mum. I don't think that's good enough.

Kiara, another Lilley mum, who contacted me while I was actually drafting this speech, has found herself in the same frustrating situation. Kiara and her husband juggle online meetings while working from home and while entertaining their three-year-old and six-year-old. Kiara's outside-school-hours-care provider waived the fees for her six-year-old, but Kiara and her husband still have to pay back their three-year-old's day care fees. These fees aren't cheap. This is a lot of money to not receive the service whilst trying to work at the same time.

These are just three mums who have contacted me in the last couple of days to ask me for help. Imagine how many northside families out there right now haven't had the bandwidth to reach out to their federal member for help and are instead just copping those gap fees, even though they can't use the service. Clearly, there are not enough government members trying to juggle working from home with their caring responsibilities. It's literally impossible to give 100 per cent of your attention to both.

The minister has the ability to help Kate, to help Hayley and to help Kiara. The minister has the ability to help every single parent who is balancing caring responsibilities with working by giving childcare centres an exemption from charging those gap fees, but is deliberately choosing not to. It is ridiculous that the Morrison government would expect families to continue to pay gap fees during crucial lockdowns when their children are at home and when they are doing the right thing by keeping their children at home. It is such a shame the Morrison government isn't willing to work in a collaborative and bipartisan manner and to accept Labor's proposed amendment to help early educators, service providers and families who are trying to do their best during lockdown. The Morrison government has bungled early education and child care throughout the entirety of this pandemic, and it is the parents, the children, the educators and the providers who have paid that price every step of the way.

As a mum of three kids under five, all of whom go to child care, I truly understand the toll that childcare fees take on the household budget. Under consecutive LNP governments, childcare fees and the costs have been out of control. In 2021, under the watch of the Morrison government, Australian families are paying more out of pocket for child care than ever before. I would cite the latest ABS data or the department of education data or the Productivity Commission data to prove this, but I don't have to because every day I'm talking to parents on the northside who have sent their child to child care over the past three years; they will tell you that their household budgets are being crushed by these ever-increasing fees. Childcare fees are skyrocketing, and federal government support has continually failed to keep up.

Since September 2013, when the LNP came to power, childcare fees nationally have increased by 37.2 per cent. Between December 2019 and December 2020, childcare fees increased by 3.8 per cent in Chermside, by 5.4 per cent in Nundah and by a whopping 8.5 per cent in Everton Park. Child care in Brisbane costs on average around $112 per child per day. The average monthly mortgage payment in Brisbane is $1,885, or $62 a day. It is roughly twice the cost of your mortgage per day to put your child in child care in Brisbane. It is a huge amount of money. Childcare costs on average absorb 27 per cent of the household income, of a family's income, which is on par with about 30 per cent for the average mortgage. UNICEF found that Australia is one of only eight countries where child care consumes at least a quarter of the average wage, ranking our system a dismal 37th out of 41 countries.

While this bill promises to help families bear the burden of childcare fees, the relief won't last for long or help a large percentage of families. The government have taken it just far enough so they can take credit for introducing childcare policy reform without having to concede they have been on the wrong side of this debate for the last eight years. This policy will only provide a small amount of relief for a small minority of families for a short amount of time. Documents from the Morrison government's own education department predict that childcare fees are going to rise by 4.1 per cent every year for the next four years—substantially outstripping inflation, to which this childcare subsidy is pegged. The vast majority of families will get no additional childcare subsidy support under this policy.

In contrast, Labor has a plan to bring down the cost of childcare fees and to keep it down for 97 per cent of families. Only Labor has a plan to make sure that early education is affordable, accessible and high quality for working parents. Under Anthony Albanese, a federal Labor government would scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy gap, which often sees women losing more money from taking on an extra day of work. We will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent, and we will increase childcare subsidy rates and taper them for every family that is, together, earning less than $530,000 a year. We will direct the Productivity Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the sector with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families. Importantly, we will task the ACCC with designing a price regulation mechanism to shed light on costs and fees and drive them down for good. To put it simply, Labor's plan for cheaper child care goes further for Northside families and it benefits more families for longer.

Labor's cheaper childcare plan does not differentiate on the size of the family, has no age cut-off and applies to all children using outside school hours care during primary school. Labor's childcare plan will leave one million families better off than they are now in paying childcare fees, which is four times as many as the plan of the Morrison government. Analysis of the Parliamentary Budget Office modelling shows 86 per cent of families in the childcare system will be unambiguously better off under Labor's plan. Any extra support the Morrison government provides to families with two children will be temporary as it will be ripped away when the family's oldest child goes to school. In contrast, Labor's boost in support will be provided for every child for the entire time that they are in child care.

Labor is on the side of families. We always have been and we always will be. We know what access to affordable child care means for our families. We know that affordable child care does not just benefit families; it provides amazing bang for buck as an economic investment. A review by PwC into the value of early childhood education and care in Australia found that, for every dollar we invest in child care, the country gets $2 back through productivity and workforce participation. That is amazing bang for buck. Our plan for cheaper child care will reward working families and allow more second-income earners, who are usually women, to work more and contribute to our economic recovery as a nation. We will keep working to fix Australia's broken childcare system, which currently locks out more than 10,000 families because they just cannot afford it. We will keep working and we will keep fighting because we know that affordable early childhood education and care is not just vital infrastructure for parents and children but also vital infrastructure for Australia's economic recovery. Australia needs an early education and care system that ensures early learning is affordable and accessible for families, will keep educators in jobs and will protect the viability of our childcare providers. I thank the House.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dunkley and the member for Lilley for their contributions. It's a pleasure to follow them tonight and I join them in talking about Labor's strong commitment to early childhood education and care, which has been a longstanding commitment for Labor. We support the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021 before us tonight from the government. It is about addressing the problems that we are seeing with child care in Australia at the moment. This is a massively missed opportunity and, sadly, another example of where the government saw what has become a political problem and went just far enough to where they think they have solved it. With this legislation, they are not actually addressing the deep-seated problems with the childcare system that we are seeing: the crushing costs that mean that parents aren't able to work as much as they would like to. They're staying out of the workforce or aren't increasing hours to an extra day, because they simply can't afford it. This is wrong. This is bad for families, bad for women, bad for the economy, and bad for the little children that miss out on an incredible opportunity to access high-quality early childhood education and care.

We know that, in the preschool years, children's brains develop at the greatest rate for their entire lives. What they learn at this time will set them up for the rest of their lives and has impact on that trajectory for them. It's an incredibly important part of our education system, yet it's not quite treated equally by the federal government. One of the most exciting parts, I think, of Labor's policy is that, in government, we will task the Productivity Commission to look at a universal childcare system that would enable it to be treated more like public school, where everyone can access the great benefits.

Also, when we make child care affordable, it changes the conversation about who is doing the work and who is doing the caring in the family unit. It makes it an equal discussion between men and women, and that is so important. What I want to emphasise there is choice. I think both mothers and fathers have a role in raising young children and balancing work and family at that time.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the chamber, we have seen, in recent months, the discussion in their party room where they referred to early childhood education and care as 'outsourcing parenting' and were worried that, if we made it too affordable, women might be forced into the workforce. I think that just shows how incredibly out of touch the Liberal and National parties are with families, with Australian women and with the Australian community, who are wanting, more and more, to balance parenting and work and to access the great benefits of early childhood education and care.

This is not just about childminding. And I want to take this opportunity to again acknowledge the incredible work that early childhood educators do. It's a mixture of really skilled educating of these little Australians—and, as the mother of a three-year-old and a 10-month-old, I am very alive to the challenges of dealing with these very young people and trying to understand how their young minds work—

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

the member for Macarthur is nodding—combined with this deep care that they have. Like all parents, when you first go to take your child to early childhood education and care, there is a little bit of hesitancy with leaving your child somewhere. But to see what my son's learnt and how he is cared for has been incredibly important for me. One of the most touching things was that, when my son was very hard to get to have his nap—and at home we used to push him in the pram to get him to sleep—one of his educators used to basically sit, rocking him, for the entirety of his nap. The fact that she would make that time for one individual child just shows the dedication and the patience that these educators provide. It's about time that they were given the respect that they deserve by the federal government.

Early childhood education and care has been through an absolute roller-coaster ride through this pandemic when it comes to the government's stance, and nothing has brought home how incredibly important this essential service is for families, our economy and our community more than this pandemic. I probably don't need to go through it again, but, basically, at first, and throughout lockdown—and we are seeing it again now, with Sydney and much of Queensland in lockdown and another recent lockdown in Victoria—early childhood education and care has been and is an essential service that has been required to stay open. But, as people are not working, the government is not stepping in to provide help for those families this time, to cover those extra costs. Our amendment has asked that they should, but I understand that the government is going to vote against that and I think that is incredibly irresponsible.

When COVID-19 first hit, it was only after pressure from Labor that the government finally stepped up to address the issue that this essential service needed to continue and that families that were out of work at the time couldn't cope with this. They then announced that it was free child care, but they didn't back the centres in and actually support them to provide that. Finally, we've got the childcare system that we see now, which is failing families, providers and our youngest Australians.

Costs are skyrocketing at the moment, and I'm sure all of us hear this from families in our electorates. I know that I certainly do, here in the electorate of Canberra, where we have some of the highest average childcare fees in the country, and I hear, very regularly, that families are not able to work as much as they would like because they simply can't afford it.

If the government really wanted to address this—rather than address the need to have something to say about childcare—and to actually fix the system, they would have a look at Labor's policy. We announced this last October and they have followed in our footsteps by announcing something about child care, but it simply does not go far enough. It doesn't benefit the number of families that ours does and it only benefits them for a short time. Labor's policy will benefit 97 per cent of families. We see this as an important economic measure. Our policy will benefit families, regardless of the number of children, right through until their children are in school, if they're accessing out-of-school-hours care. It benefits more families for longer, it does not differentiate on the size of the family, it has no age cut-off and it applies to all children using out-of-school-hours care during primary school. Eighty-six per cent of families in the system, or over 851,000 families, will be unambiguously better off under Labor's policy. Six per cent receive approximately the same benefit under both policies and only eight per cent will be better off under the Liberal's policy.

The ABS data confirms that Scott Morrison's childcare system has completely failed in less than three years. The cost of child care is now higher than it was even under the previous childcare system, with a 0.3 per cent increase—higher than it has ever been. The data shows that childcare costs are out of control, soaring by 2.2 per cent in the past quarter alone, more than three times CPI. Really importantly, the number of parents who say that they're not working mainly due to the cost of child care has increased by 23 per cent in the last year. That's around 91,700 parents who are not working because the cost of child care is too high. They want to work but they can't. This is a handbrake on our economy that we cannot afford, particularly as we're battling a global pandemic. The data also shows that the median cost of child care has soared by 5.6 per cent in the year from 2019 to 2022, to $523 a week on average. This is not good enough for Australian families.

In contrast, Labor has a plan to bring down the cost of child care and to keep it down for 97 per cent of families. An Albanese Labor government will introduce the 'cheaper child care for working families package', which will scrap the $10,560 child care subsidy cap, which often sees women losing money from an extra day's work. It will lift the maximum child care subsidy rate to 90 per cent, increase the child care subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than $530,000. It will also task the ACCC with designing a price regulation mechanism to shed light on costs and fees, and drive them down for good. And, as I mentioned previously, we will task the Productivity Commission with looking into a universal free childcare system which, ultimately—in my view—is what this country needs.

UNICEF's new report Where do rich countries stand on childcare? ranks countries on their childcare policies, based on affordability, access, quality and parental leave. Overall, Australia ranks a dismal 37th out of 41 countries. UNICEF found that Australia is one of only eight countries where child care consumes at least a quarter of the average wage. This is simply not good enough.

There's another question for the government: they're in government now but why does their package not start until July 2022? A good thing about that is that Australians are most likely to face an election before then and they can choose between these two policies and these two alternative governments. One is doing a quick fix that benefits some families, but only while they have two or more children in child care at once. The assistance will be ripped away from them when the older child starts school. Or there's a Labor government that deeply values early childhood education and care—what this means for our youngest Australians, for families and for parents wanting to enter the workforce or to increase their hours. We value the importance of this to our economy; it's going to make it better for 97 per cent of families. Ninety-seven per cent of families would be better off under Labor's policy, and 86 per cent would be better off under ours in comparison to the Liberal's policy, which won't start until July 2022.

I would urge people, if they haven't yet done this, to go to our online calculator and look at just how much better off they would be under Labor's policy. This is an incredibly important package, and the fact that we announced it back in October shows that this is something we are deeply committed to and that we understand— and that's because we are deeply committed to Australian families and we understand what is important to them. We listen to them in our electorates. We know how important it is for people to be able to afford child care to return to work, particularly as we battle with a global pandemic. Our policy will see those families better off. It will change that conversation at the kitchen table about who's going to return to work and who can afford it, as child care becomes more affordable. This is incredibly important for children, for families, for women and for our economy.

This pandemic has really shown us how important early childhood education and care is in a range of ways, including for our community. Last week was Early Learning Matters Week, and I had the pleasure of visiting Goodstart Early Learning at ANU. I wanted to go there to thank the educators for everything that they do, but I was honoured to also be asked to open their community food pantry. I think that this shows just how embedded these centres are in our community. They've opened a pantry—a local business built and donated the beautiful pantry, with the food also donated by local businesses, the O'Connor IGA and the O'Connor pharmacy, and by parents—because they had noticed the need in the community since the pandemic, probably including a lot of students from ANU and people in that vicinity who were needing help with these things, as well as families at the centre. And so, on a week that was about celebrating them, they decided to make it about something for their community. I think that says everything we need to know about early childhood education and care and how important it is within our communities.

Again, I thank those wonderful educators in my electorate and around the country. And I urge the government to think again about supporting our amendment to ensure that families can meet the costs of child care while in lockdown—a lockdown that so many Australians are now facing because this federal government has failed on the two jobs it had: to manage a vaccination rollout and to get a national quarantine system that was functioning well. If not for that failure, we would not be in this lockdown now.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Labor amendment to the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2021. Australia's childcare system is fundamentally broken. It doesn't work for families and it doesn't work for the economy or for the country. It's holding back our productivity and stopping particularly women, who are usually the ones forced to stay at home when a couple can't afford both parents to go to work. It's holding people back from participating in the workforce to the extent that they would want to. Since the Liberals were elected eight long years ago, childcare fees in this country have risen by more than 36 per cent. In fact, their own education department—these are the government's own figures—predicts costs will rise by an average of 4.1 per cent over the next four years. This is in an environment of record-low wage growth. Let's be really clear, this is the government's economic policy: hold wages down—low wages are a deliberate design feature of the economy, as the government's former finance minister told us—and let childcare fees rise by four per cent. That's hurting families and puts a squeeze on them. The government have really dropped the ball when it comes to child care.

This bill implements one part of Labor's childcare policy. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so I thank the government for finally recognising what we've been saying—that the childcare cap is bad policy. It's bad for families, especially women locked out of the workforce as I said, and it's bad for the economy. But the change doesn't start until July next year. It also fails to fix numerous problems in the system. Australia needs real reform of child care this year—now. There is no reason whatsoever that the government couldn't implement this change now. Labor said last year in the budget reply that we would have done it from 1 July this year.

The bill also does nothing for 75 per cent of families. Labor has a plan for cheaper child care for working families. This would see 97 per cent of Australian families better off. It would bring the cost of child care down and keep it down. Labor's plan would support more families for longer. Importantly, our plan has no age cut-off. It does not differentiate on the size of the family. You only get a reward from the government for that short time that you have two or more kids in care crossing over. Our plan applies to all primary-school-age children using outside-school-hours care.

The Liberals' childcare policy, if you can even call it a policy, is a stunt. It's half-baked. It's the sort of plan you have when you don't actually have a plan or want to have a plan, to try and trick people into thinking you were doing something. Compared to the government's policies—we've done the analysis, and it's been independently verified—Labor's plan would better support 86 per cent of Australian families. Only eight per cent of families would be better off under the government's policy.

As has been said, families will be able to compare plans when they vote. There's going to be an election before the government's plan comes into effect, so people can choose. There are two plans on the table: the Liberals' childcare plan that gives less support to fewer families and Labor's plan to give more support to more families for longer. Importantly, our plan isn't just good for families; it would boost Australia's economic growth, our GDP, by more than three times than the Liberals' effort because it would unlock the potential for both parents, if they want to—it's a family's choice—to participate in the workforce.

It's funny, isn't it? You can tell when the Liberals really don't want to talk about something, because, if there's one thing the Prime Minister is good at, it's having his photo taken and popping up, making announcements. Has anyone seen the Prime Minister near a childcare centre for months? I don't think it's something that the government wants to talk about. They really don't want to talk about child care, because they know, when Australians focus on the government's plan and Labor's plan, which one they'll choose. It's clear as day. If the government were really committed to their plan, they'd have their ministers and the Prime Minister all over the childcare centres. Photos of them with little kids would be everywhere. We're not seeing those photos. That's more telling than anything from this government.

The bill also does nothing to deal with the unfair impacts of lockdowns on families with kids in child care. For the last 18 months families across Australia have done the right thing and adhered to lockdowns and restrictions. Millions of Australians are doing it tough right now, including in your electorate, Deputy Speaker Freelander, in south-west Sydney. They're doing the right thing by staying home, balancing their work, difficult as it is, with children at home, and keeping their communities safe. But, for too many Australian families, doing the right thing has come with a very high price tag, because the government, in effect, has made families in many lockdowns pay for child care that they can't access.

That's the real issue right now. It's not copying a bit of Labor's policy in a half-hearted way that might come into effect next July. That's not actually the issue the parliament needs to be dealing with right now. Right now we have a confusing and inconsistent regime to support families and the childcare sector struggling through COVID lockdowns through much of the country. The rules are different and the support is different every time there's a lockdown. There's no predictability or certainty. It's up to random government whim whether they'll extend support or whether they'll extend some relief for that particular lockdown.

Sydneysiders have now rightly been exempted from fees, a couple weeks in, in their seemingly never-ending lockdown, but Victorians and South Australians were not given this relief this year. We need consistency and certainty. So Labor will move a technical amendment so that, when a lockdown or a stay-at-home order is announced, centres will automatically have the ability to waive the gap fees, so that there will not be random ministerial discretion for the incompetent ministers in government over there but certainty that people can plan on. We heard the Prime Minister tell us that his fourth economic response plan—his fourth or fifth set of rules he's made up—is to give businesses a little bit more certainty, so why not child care, childcare centres and families?

But, as I've said, action is now urgent. The childcare cap should be abolished now, not in a year. Action would also deal with the manifestly unfair situation that has particularly affected people in my home state of Victoria. Mark my words: if the government doesn't fix this, late this financial year the people in New South Wales are going to experience the bill shock that thousands of Victorians have experienced. Nothing was done by the government.

Take Radmila in my electorate. She has a two-year-old and a four-year-old. I know her well. I've helped her family with many issues over the last few years. She was told by the government, during Melbourne's months of lockdown last year, that she could keep her place in the childcare centre, so she did so in good faith. Of course, she wasn't actually able to use the spot during the lockdowns. She had to care for her kids at home and try to work full time. But, after Melbourne's lockdowns, late in the financial year, about last March, she opened the mail, and there was a letter from Centrelink, telling her—shocked—that her annual childcare subsidy was used up and that she'd now have to pay full fees for the rest of the financial year. The government didn't warn parents that they were using their childcare subsidy during the lockdowns and that that was going to hurt them later in the financial year. It never crossed their mind that, when they didn't have kids in the childcare centre for month after month after month, the government would be sneakily trotting this up towards the annual childcare subsidy, 'This is going to happen in New South Wales.' Radmila didn't have a spare, lazy $10,000 to cover two months of childcare fees without the subsidy, funnily enough. She had to pull her child out of care and try to work from home, full time, doing her professional job, with her child running around as well as caring for her other child and her profoundly disabled child, which has been the subject of other speeches and media attention—the NDIS, which is another disaster story under this government.

This change has affected thousands of families. The Herald Sun covered it. The government said, 'Let's not worry about it; it's only a few thousand families.' The Liberals effectively took these families' childcare rebates and used them to prop up the childcare sector, which was banned from getting JobKeeper. If you're a billionaire in this country, you'll get $12 billion from the government spread across businesses to increase their profits, but if you're a family or a struggling childcare centre, you don't get JobKeeper, and you don't get support from the government. In effect, they privatised their recovery and support for the sector by stealing the rebates from individuals who would need them later in the year and used them to prop up the sector because they didn't give them JobKeeper. It meant that, when the restrictions were raised, families reached the annual cap and were hit with fees they couldn't afford. They need to fix this or the same thing is going to happen in New South Wales. Then again, given the double standard treatment that Victorians are used to from this government, from the Prime Minister for New South Wales, it would be no surprise if they cotton on and fix it for gold standard Gladys and leave Victorians paying the bill. The government used Radmila's money to keep the childcare facilities open. Why did she pay the price when her children were at home with her?

Child care is vital. Almost 300,000 Australians are not in the labour force due to caring for children. I will just make a little aside. I feel uncomfortable making many of these speeches talking about child care. I passionately believe that early learning is the right language. This is about early childhood education. I understand that the community, the shorthand is child care, but I think I need to put on the record that early childhood education is what we need to be thinking about when making these investments. This is not means-tested welfare like the government continues to maintain. We need to change this country's mindset and move away from the notion that this is somehow childminding, like babysitting. This is investing in the next generation. We know that, from all the research and the scientists—and I know that you're a paediatrician, Deputy Speaker, and you're passionate about this—investing in those critical early years of a child's development, with structured early learning, gives the children the best possible chance in their life. It's also one of the best investments that we can make as a country, 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, to have a smarter, more productive Australia. We invest in babies and children now.

Labor's approach is visionary. It's transforming means-tested child care that's measured as welfare, as the government sees it, into a universal system, a universal entitlement. As I said, 97 per cent of families will be better off under our system. We don't assess a parent's income and have all these sliding scales if you want to send your kid to a primary school or a government secondary school. So why can't we, as a country, transform the so-called childcare system into an early childhood education system that stands up alongside all the other parts of our education system?

Of course, the government, in their party room, as we heard through the newspaper, are still debating the merits of whether we should even make these investments. We had Liberal and National MPs saying: 'Isn't investing more in child care just outsourcing parenting?' Women might be forced to work.' I don't envy the women in the coalition party room. I listened to some of the speeches earlier. I particularly acknowledge the measured contribution of the member for Curtin. She acknowledged the different sides of the debate very respectfully. She used facts and evidence to put an argument on the table—an argument that really should not have to be made in the year 2021—to try and bring some of male colleagues in the government party room, given those ridiculous comments that were leaked to the media, and cajole them gently with facts and evidence. The barrier to women's participation: if both parents want to go to the workforce, they can end up spending 40, 50, 60 per cent of any extra dollar they earn. In some cases, they can spend up to 80, 90 per cent. Why would you go to work to earn effectively 10 per cent of whatever the wage is, with the rest going back to child care? We can change this.

The bill only highlights that this government does not care about working families. They're half-hearted about the change. They've just stolen one little bit of Labor's policy without actually understanding it's the whole package that makes that visionary transformation in the system. In March, Labor proposed an amendment that would automatically exempt services from charging families to keep their doors open. The government voted it down. For the sake of working families, I really hope they won't make the same mistake again—in their arrogance and their refusal to accept a good idea from Labor. Remember they said no to wage subsidies at the start of the pandemic, then a couple of weeks later they went, 'Oh, actually, maybe we need a wage subsidy.' They designed it badly to give away billions of dollars to companies to increase their profits, but we credit them for finally taking up our idea. You could save families a lot of pain by learning from your mistakes and taking a good idea when you see one. Support our amendment.

In closing, at the next election Australian families will have the chance to vote and to choose between the two plans: Labor's plan, which provides more help to more families for longer and that 97 per cent of families will benefit from, or the government's plan.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been a really confusing time for parents and for early educators during this latest lockdown in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, and I'm really pleased to be able to support a bill that reduces red tape on services in this highly complex area. As we've seen in the last 12 to 18 months, it's a rapidly changing area, where decisions get made, and parents and directors of early learning centres alike hear about them on the radio before they're given any formal notice of them.

I really want to talk about what parents and directors and early educators have been dealing with in the last six weeks within the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains, to paint a picture of the chaotic situation that they are facing right now. I'm going to quote some of the parents who've written to me, because I think that is the most powerful way of describing the distress, the confusion, the tearing their hair out, that they're experiencing. I really want to make the point that this is not just mothers emailing me and calling me about the challenges of their children being in day care or family day care or even preschools. This is parents—mums and dads—and there are other carers involved.

The first story I want to tell is from Tristan. Tristan is like many people who are concerned about almost being pressured to send kids out to their early learning centre, even though the rest of us are being told to stay at home. He wrote to me about a couple of things, partly drawing on some of the challenges parents face in normal times. He describes the current situation as leaving families stuck in the impossible situation of having to either lose their childcare placements—placements that were difficult to get in the first instance—or be stuck paying the fees to hold the placement while their children stay at home with them. This is because the government's response during this COVID lockdown was to say to the centres, 'You may waive the gap fees.' It was not, 'You will waive the gap fees and we will help you do it.' It was simply: 'You may. We'll give you permission to do it if you want.'

I'm going to talk about it from the centre's perspective, although parents are very mindful of the challenges that their centres face. These are not places where it's just click and collect in reverse, drop and go. These are places that you've chosen and you've invested yourself in. You help them out and you care about the other kids who are there; you care about the other families; and you care about the early educators, who have your children's lives in their hands all day while you're at work. As Tristan says, 'This whole dilemma has put a serious emotional strain on families who are working from home while providing full-time care to their children.' He is also concerned about having his kids mix at a time when we're being asked not to mix. Here's his key point: 'The pandemic is not new. These lockdowns and what effects they have on Australian families and individuals are not new. The government knows exactly how this plays out every time, yet each time support is slow to come and comes with massive blind spots. But, as slow as they are to roll out support, they're lightening quick to end it.' I think that sums up this government's attitude to this sector: give as little as we need to, and take it away as fast as we can. One of the things we're very pleased to have seen—and it didn't come without fighting and calling for it and asking for it—is that, for the 42 days that families are allowed to have their child absent from the centre, COVID is not where those days are claimed from; they are separate to COVID. But it took five weeks for that decision to be made, and in that time there was significant distress about it.

I'm going to give you another example, from Amy. Her big thing was that there was this lack of information about how it was going to work. She contacted her centre to see whether she was able to have her gap fee waived, and the centre said to her that they were unable to offer the scheme due to a lack of information from the government about how it will be supported. Well, it's probably even worse than what that centre identified, and that was several weeks ago now. It's the fact that there is no support for the centres to do this. There's permission, but no support. It's an extraordinary situation for the centres that are running either as privately owned centres or not-for-profit centres. Even not-for-profit centres are in this same invidious situation about how they cover the fees and the costs without that gap fee.

This is one of the consequences of it, the financial pressure that it's put people under. And I'm not going to quote all of her, but here's Belinda's summary: 'As you can see below, I'm feeling the financial pressure as I'm paying for child care and also paying for my son to be home.' She was writing to her centre to see whether they would waive the fees, and I'm very pleased to say that after I provided her with some information she was able to have a successful outcome there. But this is not happening easily. The government has not made it easy for anyone. It is wrong to be putting these extra pressures on people. I count myself very lucky that I don't have school-age or preschool-age children at home. I think it would be one of the most challenging situations to be in, and I really take my hat off to parents who are doing that. To make it even harder for them is unforgiveable.

I want to talk about Christopher, who has also written to me about this issue. The big problem that he identified, which others have identified, is that centres had advice to do it for up to 30 July. That was up to the first wave. But then this gap emerged, and no-one quite knew what was happening after that gap. So, this is a lack of information, a lack of coordination and a lack of forward planning, because no-one's bothered to think it through. Yet, as Tristan said and as Christopher is reinforcing, this was not an unknown possibility. Christopher, again, sympathises with the centre, who, as a service, 'are unable to claim business support to cope with the offer, thereby leaving a multitude of families who've lost income having to foot the bill for a service that they chose not to use in order to abide by the health professional advice to minimise movements outside the household where possible'—people trying to do the right thing. He recognises that as a family they're at the end with what they can cut back, and the financial support around this is lacking for both the parents and the centres.

I heard a similar sentiment from another mum in the Blue Mountains. She raises this point: doesn't it defeat the purpose of sending people to work from home when we send a child out each day to mix with others in a close setting? Given what we're seeing about transmission amongst younger children, I can understand these parents' concerns. Lauren was really anxious as well. When she contacted the director of her centre when the construction industry was shut down, she was just trying to work out what the options were. The centre advised her that, due to their current family attendance numbers, they didn't feel that they needed to change the assistance. She was given a two-week credit, but they really weren't given any indication that they could access this waiver, because the centre didn't feel the need to do it. Unless we support centres, they are not going to be able to do what we'd all like to see them do. Alicia was in the same situation. The centre the children were enrolled in decided not to pass on the gap-fee waiver because the LGA is not in the hardest lockdown that Sydney has seen. Again, this left them with the choice about whether they could even can keep their children there. That's from the parents' perspective, and there's nothing in this legislation that's going to clear up any of that for parents.

I want to talk about the experience of an early learning director. Here is how much she cares about her families. She says: 'Many of them are self-employed tradies, with mums who work part-time or have their own businesses. We feel that we need to support our families who've supported us over the years. We need to take a hit as much as the next business. We're not unique. We're currently implementing the gap-free payment for our families who don't attend for the lockdown fortnight.' She knew that they'd have to reassess it because there were only such small amounts of information given. They've had nearly 20 families who've opted to have fees waived. But, of course, that leaves her with a huge gap. She says that most of her families are on a 20 per cent to 50 per cent CCS. So they're losing roughly $50 to $60 a day per child. She's down thousands of dollars a week. However, she said, 'We feel that this is something we need to do in order to support our families.' She talked about the income loss that she faces and she said, 'If we stay at our current attendance, we won't qualify for assistance'. She was really hoping that lockdown would end. But, of course, it hasn't, and it is going to go on.

I call on this government to provide much better support for our early education centres. As the member for Bruce said, these are places that we entrust our children to because we know they develop much better with the educational framework that is there. They learn by playing and they are cared for and nurtured. In the environment that we're in in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains, sometimes they need quite long days at those centres, because we have families who normally commute. We value what they do. Whether it's family day care, whether it's long day care or whether it's in a preschool environment, they are helping create the future generation of workers, but they are helping them have an easy way into the education system. That's how we should be thinking about this.

The disappointment with this legislation, when we move beyond a COVID lockdown environment, when we snap back to the old confusing system that exists, is due to the inadequacy of that system for normal times. The fact is that in Sydney child care is now more expensive than when the system was introduced in the middle of 2018. So, in three years, any benefit that was there has evaporated. Labor has been very clear that it believes that this system has to change profoundly. Labor wants to bring down the costs of child care and early learning and keep them down—not just have a little sugar hit and soften them but keep them down. That is why we have a plan to benefit every family across the board. Let's make it as simple as we can. We know there will be enormous productivity gains out of it. We will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap which so often sees women losing money for an extra day's work. It would have hit me as a young mum if this system had been in place. We want to lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent, to actually make it affordable for families, and increase the subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than $530,000. I think the thing that goes with that is tasking the ACCC to bring in a price regulation mechanism that works across the board. We need to shed light on the fees. Parents deserve to know where the fees are going and how they are being used. When people talk about this as something that only affects a small number, well, they're wrong: it affects the future of every one of us. The kids that haven't started school yet are going to be looking after me in my old age. There might be some who are already at school who might have to do that! But, as we go through, that's the generation, and we should be setting the way for them.

I want to finish by quoting the CEO of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, who said:

The Labor plan to make childcare cheaper will deliver big economic and social dividends.

Reducing out-of-pocket cost also improves accessibility to early childhood education and care, which is good for children, good for women's workforce participation and good for the economy. It's the policy that we need for these times, and it is the policy that parents in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, who want to do the best by their kids, who want to be able to afford to work and cover the costs that they face in having quality early learning for their kids, deserve, and it is exactly what Labor will deliver if we get a chance to be in government—and, my goodness, the country's going to be better off for it.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important piece of legislation, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill, which we're told was one of the critical reasons that parliament had to sit this week, yet I note on the speaker's list tonight—this is such an important piece of policy for the LNP and the Prime Minister that only four speakers have bothered to rise to their feet about this. I'm really not surprised considering the appalling record that this government has, and previously coalition governments have, when it comes to delivering quality and affordable child care. In fact, when the parliament last sat, on 22 June, when this piece of legislation actually went to the joint party room, it was opposed, as media reports have said, by the sensitive New Age guys inside the LNP: well-known Senator Rennick; Mr Christensen, member for Dawson; of course Senator Canavan; and Terry Young, the member for Longman. I note that in the media reports there was a colleague inside the LNP who actually stood up in their party room and said that child care was 'outsourcing parenting'. It's archaic but not surprising.

It's bad enough that those 1950s or 60s views are still permeating in society, but we're seeing them inside the party of government in this country. I'm delighted, after reading media reports, that there were at least some strong advocates for child care inside the LNP, and my friend and colleague Senator Hollie Hughes, who I don't always agree with, is reported as getting up in the party room and saying, 'Thank you, boys, for telling us how to best raise our children!' When you get such division inside the government party room about the future of child care, is it little wonder the people of Australia, the working men and women—and let's face it: one of the great outcomes out of the pandemic was shining a light on some of the unsung heroes in our society, which have to be early childhood educators, the people who didn't have a choice about whether they went to work or not at the height of the pandemic and, dare I say, don't have a choice now in my home town of Brisbane, which is currently under the most severe lockdowns that Queensland has seen.

We're seeing ongoing tragic lockdowns in New South Wales. We saw Victoria come out of lockdown, and South Australia has come out of lockdown. What we saw during the pandemic with the so-called free child care, which wasn't free at all but just another marketing spin by the Prime Minister, was those frontline workers, those heroes and angels of our childcare centres and early learning centres, being forced and deciding for themselves to front up, to do their job to protect the vulnerable children while their parents fought the pandemic.

I was hopeful that, with this legislation coming forward, we would see stronger measures to recognise and reward what parents of Australia have had to go through. But I think it's quite clear that the measures in this bill were designed with one thing in mind: an announcement. It's a package designed to look and sound good in front of a camera.

I want to go through the details of the legislation tonight. In my opinion, on behalf of the families that I've been consulting and some of the early educators that I've spoken to about this legislation, it's clear that this bill does not provide anywhere near enough of the relief that struggling families need and indeed are demanding. We are in support of the two key measures in the bill: removing the annual childcare subsidy cap and increasing the rate for families with multiple children under six years of age. They are positive steps, and we're not going to stand in the way of them. However, the bill does not go nearly far enough to address the evident failures in the government's childcare system.

Analysis of the government's childcare policy in comparison to the positive agenda and policies that the federal opposition have put forward shows that we have a plan to provide more support to more families for longer. There are around 860,000 families that would be better off under a future Labor government and a Labor childcare policy than under what is being offered by the government. Under our childcare plan, 86 per cent of all families in the system with children under six will be financially better off. In fact, under the government's policy, every single family with one child aged under five in child care and with a family income below $530,000 will receive absolutely no improvement in their childcare subsidy rate. They will, however, see an improvement under a future Labor government. Those opposite can spin this—and I did hear some spinning today from the member for Curtin, the member for Higgins and the member for Mallee, who were trying to defend this as good policy—but we know that when it comes to delivering child care it is the Australian Labor Party that is better at supporting families with two children, particularly low- and middle-income families.

I want to talk about some of the numbers which are an important part of this. The facts are, analysis has shown that most families with a combined income between approximately $70,000 and $175,000 will be better off under a future Labor government. Any extra support that a family receives under this government is due to be ripped away the moment their eldest child goes to school. This would not happen under Labor. Our policy supports every child for the entirety of their time in the childcare system.

I really do wish more members of the government would actually engage with this. If this is such an important policy, a signature policy for the Prime Minister and the government, I'm not sure why members aren't jumping to their feet wanting to defend the policy. I want to say it very clearly: Labor is better at backing working families, backing women and delivering policy that will actually make a difference in the lives of working Australians. The government's childcare policy delivers a fraction of what Australian working families need. It's a policy that is designed for political spin and political spin alone.

In contrast, Labor's plan addresses the real cost-of-living pressures that Australian families are facing. Just about every day I speak to local residents and families who are struggling to make ends meet. For many of them, going to work is just not worth it when the cost of child care is so high. You only need to visit a shopping centre, do a street-corner meeting or pick up the phone and talk to a local family—people will tell you the same thing: 'It is not worth working, because we just work to pay the childcare bills.' We in the chamber have all heard that. We've all lived that. We've all heard that time and time again. I don't understand why, during a pandemic and, hopefully, coming out of a pandemic, we're not seeing a greater investment in child care.

Australian families are paying more out of pocket for child care than ever before. Right now in Australia, under the Morrison government, you're paying more for childcare costs than you have ever done. The cost of child care is now higher than it was under the previous childcare system. It is the highest that it has ever been. If this is not true, if this is wrong, I'm happy for all those bureaucrats sitting in the alcove out there, scrawling away on their laptops, to give the minister at the table advice and information, and I will gladly yield my time to hear about those facts.

The fact is that, under the Morrison government, child care is becoming more and more unaffordable and is costing the most it has ever cost in this country. Costs have risen by 2.2 per cent in the last quarter alone, an increase that is more than three times CPI. In the past 12 months alone, childcare costs have soared by 3.7 per cent. These amounts of money might not be a lot for members of the government. I understand that. Many of them don't live in the real world. They don't engage with their constituents and they don't listen to families talking about the struggles that they're going through. But I know from the communities that I represent that childcare fees are out of control in this country. They have soared more than 36 per cent since the election of the Liberal government in 2013. Let's put that in context. They have increased by 36 per cent since the 2013, 2016 and 2019 elections. Our childcare system is fundamentally broken. Not only is this having a real human impact upon the families I represent; it's also economically damaging. I'm really proud of our plan, which will leave one million families better off than they are now. That's four times as many as the government is promising. This increased support will result in a boost to our nation's GDP that is three times as large as what is predicted under the government's plan.

Those opposite have put their spin machine into desperate overdrive, trying to convince the Australian public of something that simply isn't true. They're trying to convince Australian families who are struggling under the cost of living that keeps going up that they will be better off under this weak, watered down plan. The analysis completely busts the spin and affirms our position as the true champion of working families. When the Prime Minister stood up in one of his rare beloved press conferences, he dubbed his failed system as 'a once-in-a-generation reform' promising that it would make childcare more affordable. This proved to be, at best, a severe misjudgement, and, at worst, it was a complete mistruth. Parents don't need spin. This is where the government came a cropper: they announced it at an empty childcare centre on a Sunday. They had to get the keys, unlock the doors. I mean, hello? If you're announcing a childcare policy, wouldn't you think you'd want parents there or early educators to say, 'This is a good plan'? No. Der—they announced a policy in the dark at a childcare centre that wasn't even open. It kind of says it all, doesn't it? Enough of the spin from this government. Parents need real policy. Aussie parents need a real plan to tackle skyrocketing out-of-pocket childcare costs. The Liberal's broken system that they are stubbornly clinging to is just not going to cut it.

This year the Productivity Commission released a report on government services. This report showed that childcare costs are locking Australians out of the workforce. Almost 300,000 Australians are not in the labour force due to caring for children, and a number of parents are saying they are not working primarily because the cost of child care has increased by 23 per cent. What a damning figure. The cost of child care is stopping Australians from entering the workforce.

The dinosaurs on the other side, in their party rooms—geniuses like Senator Rennick, the member for Dawson and Senator Canavan, the usual suspects—somehow think it is not appropriate that parenting is outsourced. No brave soul is getting up to suggest that. Well, Senator Holly Hughes slapped them down when she went into the party room. I don't know who else got up on their feet and actually said they were wrong. I haven't heard anyone else condemn it. I tell you what: that would not be accepted in the modern Australian workplace, and it shouldn't be accepted in our nation's parliament.

In contrast, Labor has a plan to bring down the cost of child care and keep it down. A future Albanese Labor government will introduce the cheaper childcare for working families plan, which will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap; lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent; and increase the childcare subsidy rates, tapering them for every family earning less than $530,000. Under our plan the ACCC will design a price regulation mechanism which will ensure that costs and fees are brought down for good. The Productivity Commission will also conduct a comprehensive review of the sector, with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for Aussie families. This is a plan designed to reward working families for their contribution to our nation's economy and workforce, not punish them for taking on extra work. This is the kind of policy thinking that we need to drive our nation's economic recovery post the pandemic. The current system is not good enough. The current system is not working.

Australia overall ranks 37th out of 41 countries. Australians are not used to being at the back of the pack, such as when it comes to vaccines, where we're losing the vaccine Olympics. We're not even close to the stadium when it comes to rolling out the vaccines. This is not who we are. We know that the system is broken, and Labor and Anthony Albanese will fix it. I'm so pleased that this is a front-and-centre policy that we will campaign on every single day until the election. Our shadow childcare spokesperson, the member for Kingston, has been listening to parents. She has heard and has read the room. She has sat down with the peak bodies, she has listened to what the Australian community want, and so has our Labor leader, Anthony Albanese—people in touch with the workforce, people in touch with the modern Australia, people who will include these workers in our decision-making—to make sure that we reward effort and make sure that families are supported when they need it most.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this much welcomed announcement of an additional $1.7 billion in this year's budget to assist hardworking Australian families with the cost of child care. Some families are currently paying more in childcare fees every month than their mortgage repayments, and that's across all types of services. In day care, average fees have risen from $6.60 per hour in 2011 to $10 per hour in March last year, and that's above CPI increases yearly. In 2019, Australia had one of the highest net childcare costs in the OECD. A family with two children in child care, with one parent on an average wage and one just below, will pay around 17 per cent of their net household income on childcare costs alone. When the government introduced the new system of childcare subsidy in July 2018, there was much hope that more parents would be able to return to work with more affordable childcare options available to them. However, in the first year of these changes, one in three families were reporting that they were still paying the same amount in childcare costs, while one in three families were paying higher costs. Some childcare providers chose to increase their charges to above the hourly rate funded by the government, and unfortunately in regional electorates, such as my electorate of Mayo, much higher increases were seen.

One of the main objectives of the new childcare subsidy scheme was to increase workforce participation. However, a year on from the scheme being introduced, 77 per cent of parents surveyed said that the changes to the childcare system had made no impact on the number of hours worked or studied. Currently, the government covers up to 85 per cent of childcare costs for some families but only if they earn less than $69,000 and only 50 per cent is covered when families earn more than a combined income of $175,000. The highest childcare costs tend to be borne by families with multiple children, resulting in a significant barrier for parents. It's just not worth working. Under the proposed changes, for second and subsequent children five and under, the childcare subsidy received by families will increase by 30 percentage points to a maximum of 95 per cent, which will hopefully benefit around 250,000 Australian families. Under these changes, a family on $110,000 with two children in full-time care would be $120 better off a week. Imagine the difference that could make to a family's weekly budget.

I recently spoke in this place on the high cost of child care in my community and highlighted the need for the removal of the subsidy cap. This will be critical. I've seen examples of some parents paying more for child care than they actually earn after hitting childcare cap. I asked for this serious issue to be addressed and I'm grateful that the government was listening and has removed this cap altogether. It would be remiss of me not to give a speech on child care without raising the cost of child care on families in Australia. Many families find that the cost of the second parent returning to work and the significant drop in the childcare subsidy mean it's just not worth going to work. This really impacts women in particular. It makes women feel undervalued and it has far-reaching impacts on the work and the economy.

I have some concerns and I will end with this. I have some concerns that the date for this is not until July 2022—

Debate interrupted.