Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

N () (): The childcare subsidy activity test, often paradoxically, means that children who would benefit most from early childhood education are excluded. Families need to have children settled in early learning centres before they can undertake additional training or study, before they can pick up more shifts at work, and before they pursue work opportunities; not the other way around. Making workforce participation a prerequisite for childcare subsidy makes it even harder for parents with young children who are already disenfranchised from work or study to turn that situation around. We're in the grips of a worker shortage crisis. How many Australians would be ready and rearing to work if they could just get their kids into early childhood education to pursue those job vacancies?

There are compelling arguments to get rid of the childcare subsidy activity test. The organisation Early Childhood Australia says an increase in childcare subsidies 'without a complementary measure to increase the number of hours available to families with low incomes and less than 16 hours of work, study or training, will exacerbate existing inequity and widen attainment gaps for children in families with low incomes and insecure work.' It will also tangibly increase financial disincentives and out-of-pocket costs and barriers to work, study and training for parents of young children. It's at a time when the government is trying to increase productivity as part of the skills shortage across the economy. We don't tie a child's primary school education to how many hours a week their parents work. Why would we do this for early childhood education?

Increasing access to early childhood education is also a valuable investment in women's social and financial equality. Currently, Australia is rated No. 1 in the OECD for women's attainment of education, but it is 38th for women's economic participation. These figures tell a grim story. This story says that our society invests in women's education through primary, secondary and tertiary education and training but it then wastes their talent. It crushes their career dreams and it hobbles their capacity to return on the investment that we've made in the form of workforce participation and it's benefits for society and our economy. Getting women back into the workforce when they would like to return to work is crucial.

There are significant issues with the early childhood education sector but none more urgent than the crisis affecting its workforce. Qualified and experienced early childhood educators are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate. Fifteen per cent of staff have left the workforce since October 2020 because of low wages, tough conditions and insecure employment. The care of preschoolers and the delivery of early childhood education is skilled work. Anyone with children who are or were fortunate enough to attend child care can attest to how hard educators in the sector work and how important the service they deliver is. It's underpinned by extensive research into early development and careful implementation of best practice tailored care for each child in the system, and yet our early childhood educators are amongst the lowest paid workers in this country. An educator with a bachelors degree working with children in those critical first five years of life earns a salary 30 per cent lower than their counterpart working in a primary school.

The minister told the House that Treasury estimates that these measures will increase the hours worked by women with young children by as much as 1.4 million hours a week, potentially adding another 37,000 women to our workforce. But it all falls apart if the children of those 37,000 women can't actually get a spot in a childcare centre because there are not enough centres and there's a shortage of workers. Affordable child care is fantastic. Equitable access to early childhood education is critical. But, unless this crisis in the early childhood sector workforce is addressed, then this could be a wasted investment, with these reforms unable to help families in the way that they should.

The Labor government took its cheaper childcare package to the election, costed at $5.4 billion. It's a worthwhile investment, which the public supported at the election. Since then, the government has revised the cost of this package down to $4.5 billion, with savings coming from transparency measures. Experts in early childhood policy have called for these already budgeted funds to be diverted to increasing the wages of early childhood educators by 10 per cent for the first two years at a cost of $350 million a year as an urgent measure to stabilise the industry before it collapses. This proposal should be looked at by the government.

This legislation is a great start, but for it to succeed it has to be accompanied by other reforms. When it comes to securing our nation's social and economic future, there's no such thing as a golden ticket policy. But, if there were, increasing access to early childhood education would be a contender. Increasing access to early childhood education and care for more children and their parents is among the most effective policy levers a nation can pull if it wants to improve gender equity across society and productivity across our economy. It's also a powerful investment in our children.

I'm pleased to support this legislation, and I will continue to work to improve access to early childhood education for more Australian children and their families.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. Right now there are thousands of families across Australia who are struggling to make ends meet. Last night's budget introduced vital cost-of-living measures to support people and families living in all parts of Australia, including in my community on the Central Coast in New South Wales, and a big part of that is cheaper child care.

Childcare expenses are one of the biggest cost-of-living pressures that families are facing. Childcare costs have increased by 41 per cent across Australia over the past eight years, and this is placing a huge burden on parents and carers and the family budget. It's also holding people back, particularly women, from re-entering the workforce. According to the ABS, there were 73,000 people who wanted to work last year but couldn't look for work because of childcare costs. Many of these people are women—in communities like mine, in regional parts of Australia all around the country. They're highly trained, experienced, capable workers who would boost our workforce and make significant contributions to the economy, but they're struggling to re-enter the workforce because they can't find affordable child care for their children, especially close to home.

That's why our government has introduced this legislation for cheaper child care. Our plan for cheaper child care will mean around 96 per cent of Australian families with children in early childhood education and care will be better off. This will make child care cheaper and more affordable for around 1.26 million families around Australia, and no family will be worse off. This bill will also help more First Nations children with their early learning, by boosting the number of hours of subsidised care available to them. It will introduce a base level of 36 hours of early learning per fortnight for First Nations families, starting from July 2023, regardless of a family's activity test. Under our plan, First Nations children will be able to participate in more hours of early childhood education to address this gap and get them ready for primary school.

I'd like to take the time now to recognise Aunty Bronwyn Chambers, from the Wollotuka Institute at the University of Newcastle. Aunty Bronwyn and I went to the same primary school, St Cecilia's in Wyong, and Aunty Bronwyn has dedicated most of her working life towards the education of younger people in our community. I want to recognise the work she has done, including at Toukley Pre-School. Thank you, Aunty Bronwyn.

Labor's plan for cheaper child care will also benefit thousands of families, as I've mentioned, in communities like mine in regional Australia. In the electorate of Dobell and the neighbouring electorate of Robertson, on the Central Coast of New South Wales, there are around 6,900 families who will be better off under this plan. It will cut out-of-pocket costs for families with children in early education and care. For example, a family earning $120,000, with one child in care, will save more than $1,700 in the first year of this plan. That is a significant saving to that family and a significant investment in that child's education and in our economy.

The changes to the childcare subsidy will kick off 1 July 2023. Not only will this ease cost-of-living pressures by cutting the cost of child care but it will help thousands of skilled workers to return to the workforce—skilled workers that we need in communities like mine on the Central Coast of New South Wales to boost our local economy. This is a plan that is good for children, good for families and good for the economy.

I was proud to host the Minister for Education, Jason Clare, on the Central Coast of New South Wales last month. Together with the member for Robertson, Dr Gordon Reid, we visited Little Miracles child care at Terrigal, where we met with the early childhood educators and the children that they teach—and those children were thriving. While we were there, we joined them for their Flying Start school readiness program, rotating through construction and Lego building, shapes and numbers, working with children who were absolutely thriving and getting very well prepared for school. We heard from the educators, too: dedicated, capable educators who are contributing and shaping the futures of our young people. We heard from Rob Bateman, the founder of Little Miracles. Rob really welcomed our announcement and took the time to tell us what it would mean for young families and children across the coast. He said: 'COVID has brought a lot more children into the world. Preparing them well for school is a great thing because we want to give them a flying start.' He said, 'It's really important so they make friendships, and, for us, teaching the children to read and giving them the confidence before they go to school is so important.' This policy, as I said, is good for families, it's good for children and it's fully supported by early childhood educators.

This is also a measure that's equally about participation and gender equality, which was central to the Treasurer's budget handed down last night. Instead of being able to return to work or find a new job, many parents are missing out because they can't find suitable and affordable care for their children close to home. This bill will help parents, particularly women, return to work by reducing the cost of child care and making significant reductions to the workforce disincentive rates. It will help us work towards gender equality by addressing the gap in workforce participation, remuneration and superannuation felt by so many women across Australia.

There are many young families on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where I live. I spoke to a young woman from the Central Coast recently. She has a three-year-old in day care and a five-year-old who started school this year. She's worked hard her whole professional life. She's a professional woman, highly educated, capable and talented. She had recently secured a promotion. While this was really good news, she was left so disappointed because the pay rise that came with her promotion was almost entirely absorbed by the costs of childcare. It set her and her family backwards when it should have been putting her on the next step of her career, boosting her family and boosting our economy. This is what we need to turn around because we know that women's workforce participation continues to lag well behind the participation rates for men.

In August last year, the workforce participation rate for women on the Central Coast was just over 53 per cent, compared to the New South Wales average of 61.6 per cent. I am so keen to see women in my community not be held back, not be limited in their career and not be unable to participate within the paid workforce because of the costs of childcare, which are such a significant barrier. We need to make sure that women on the Central Coast of New South Wales and in the regions across Australia can return to work or work more hours if they want to. That's why we're committed to making child care cheaper for all Australian families.

I am proud to speak in support of this bill today and to be a part of a government that is putting Australian families first. Parents and carers should be able to afford childcare for their kids so they can have the best start in life and so that the parents can return to work or work more hours if they want to. This bill will provide real benefits to parents and carers across Australia and remove the burden on people who are already struggling to make ends meet. It's a cost-of-living measure that will make a real difference to family budgets. It's a plan that will give parents the opportunity to return to work or work more hours when and if they choose to do so. It's a plan that will give children the best start in life. This legislation will make child care cheaper for 1.2 million Australian families. This is a bill I am proud to support and, in doing so, I thank my preschool teacher.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Child care is too expensive. Since 2012, prices for child care have increased faster than those for housing or electricity. The ABS states that since 2002 costs have risen by 74 per cent for couples and 102 per cent for single-parent families. In Brisbane our child care costs are among the highest in Queensland, having increased by up to 6.5 per cent this year alone.

On average, families across Australia are paying $123 per child per day for this crucial and essential service. But families in my home electorate of Brisbane are paying even more. In fact, of the five suburbs where child care in Queensland is the most expensive, four are within my home electorate of Brisbane. In Ashgrove, families are spending $146 per day to put one child in child care. In Paddington, they are spending $144 per day. In other suburbs around Brisbane the figures are much the same.

We're suffering from a lack of skilled workers across many industries, as many parents are forced to opt to stay home and care for their children as the exorbitant costs of child care make it difficult to justify working a shift. For some parents, it actually makes more financial sense to skip a shift than to pay for child care. Many parents feel they are working simply to afford exorbitant childcare costs. They are suffering from fatigue, burnout and the impacts on their mental health, with precious little access to relief. We pair this with stagnant wages and the rising cost of living and it is abundantly clear that more needs to be done to support parents to be involved in caring for their children.

Meanwhile, Australia has among the most heavily marketised and privatised childcare system in the world, and Queensland has the most privatised system in Australia. Around 75 per cent of the Australian childcare sector is privately owned. The private childcare sector and their landlords made $1 billion in profits Australia-wide in 2016. Rental payments to landlords make up a significant and growing portion of the costs, which are ultimately paid for by parents and governments. It is unacceptable that many parents, including single parents, are struggling financially, physically and emotionally in trying to provide care and stability for their families, while the private childcare sector rakes in exorbitant profits, with no credible alternatives provided by the government.

The Greens believe access to high-quality, free child care should be a fundamental right. This will allow parents, especially women, to get back to work if they wish and also ensure every child gets the best start in life. A 2020 report by the Australia Institute revealed that free child care provided a unique economic opportunity, creating an effective fiscal stimulus in the short term, with the capacity to boost workforce participation in the long-term and, as such, the longer term economic growth of our country. We don't have to look very far to see these benefits being played out.

Compared to the Nordic countries, whose universal childcare policies rival those of most nations, Australia's female workforce participation rate drops dramatically at the ages when most people are starting their families. Universal child care allows secondary income earners, who are often women, to re-enter the workforce after the birth of their child without the fear of huge costs, boosting the participation rate in the workforce. If Australia did have a comparable workforce participation rate, similar to the average of the Nordic countries, we could expect the economy to be $60 billion, or 3.2 per cent of GDP, larger—all thanks to universal child care. That figure represents an enormous amount of untapped creative and labour potential and a choice that the government is forcing families and parents to make. You can follow your career ambitions, or you can follow your family ambitions. A universal childcare policy ensures the freedom to pursue both.

A career in child care and early childhood education should also provide good, steady jobs with decent pay, especially since the vast majority of workers are casual, part time and female. During the election campaign, I was lucky enough to visit the Goodstart Early Learning centre in Clayfield. It was incredible seeing the true dedication the staff had to the education of the young children in our community. The staff at Goodstart Early Learning Clayfield and the childcare centres across Brisbane and around the country know all too well the importance of their work and the profound impact early childhood education has on the development of children. It is for that reason that we need to guarantee good pay and job security for these workers. The first years of a child's life are fundamental to their development, so workers in early childhood education should be treated with the respect that they deserve.

We know a policy for universal child care can be done, because it already has been—and not just overseas but here, too. During the initial stages of the pandemic, child care in Australia was made universal, recognising the important and essential role it plays in supporting families and children. Scrapping the stage 3 tax cuts would free up a quarter of a trillion dollars in revenue over the next decade—easily covering the costs for a universal childcare policy. We have the precedent to get it done, both overseas and here at home. We have the resources to get it done. Let's get it done.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Throughout the last election campaign I had many conversations with people right across my electorate, and the one thing that always got them excited was our plan for delivering cheaper and more accessible child care. Today, we can finally begin to deliver this election commitment with this bill. When this bill passes, some 6,500 families within McEwen will directly benefit from these reforms. It's not only an election promise but also a cost-of-living measure introduced by this government to give more Australians and their families a fair go. It has the added benefit of producing a significant productivity dividend that we're able to measure, and sets the groundwork for other election commitments, such as working to close the gender pay gap and the retirement income gap, and starting work on Closing the Gap measures for Indigenous Australians, which the last government neglected to do.

The bill means 96 per cent of families will be better off. Numerically, that's around 1.2 million families receiving benefits from these reforms. Considering how childcare costs increased by 41 per cent over the past eight years, these reforms alleviate some of the financial burden that many young families are facing. Labor are making sure that we are working with Australians to guarantee everyone can make ends meet. From July next year we will help families by increasing subsidy rates for any family earning less than $530,000 a year, and we will lift the childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000. The bill supports more families who have more than one child under five in child care by keeping the higher childcare subsidy rates for those in that position.

Additionally, under these proposed changes, families with combined incomes of $120,000 with one child in care will save up to $1,780 in the first year of this plan. This means no family will be worse off under Labor's new childcare plan. The legislation not only benefits families but also specifically benefits the children of Australia, giving more opportunity for Australian children to access early education. This improves children's readiness for primary school, and we've seen that students who access early education have improved school and learning outcomes. Labor are focused on delivering our children the best opportunities because, put simply, they are our future.

These reforms will not only help families with daily living costs but also give parents more flexibility to return to work if they would like to do so. This unlocks skilled workers to come back and participate in the workforce, increasing economic productivity. According to the ABS, some 73,000 workers want to return to the workforce but are unable to because of childcare responsibilities, which were only exacerbated by the cost of the early learning system. We want to re-engage those workers and present more opportunity for them to have stable employment if that is something that they want.

The legislation allows parents with primary care to take on more secure work without worrying about the effects that it might have to their subsidy claims. Under the current system, if the primary care worker works more than three days a week, they are often worse off due to the financial penalties they face by not having access to the childcare subsidy, meaning that household budgets must always take a hit and that it is increasingly difficult to balance work, life and family needs. Families are put in a position of having difficult conversations on whose career is to be put on hold or who will take on more insecure work. The impacts affect us all. Like a lot of grandparents, my wife had to drop a day of work per week to look after our two beautiful granddaughters, Ava and Lacey, so my daughter could get full-time work. The cost of child care meant she was actually going to lose money by going to work. There are many families across places like Wallan, Whittlesea, Doreen and Mernda where people are paying up to $3,000 a month in child care. That is more than mortgages. That can't happen. It has got to stop. We have got to address this problem, which has been allowed to fester for the last nine years without any support from the previous government.

As I've mentioned, both parents increasingly share the load of parenting responsibilities, but the fact of the matter is that women are still expected to shoulder most of the child's caring responsibility. The cheaper childcare scheme will help us tackle the economic insecurity that face mainly women when they start a family by giving them more opportunity for their children to get to early learning. Currently, women are at a disadvantage, with the system creating a situation where women must often take on more insecure work or work less, often in casual roles. It means they miss out on benefits that full-time and contract work can provide, including paid leave, increased contribution to their superannuation and the ability to gain other benefits. This all contributes to the gender pay and retirement income gap. We can't begin to fix these gaps until we fix our broken childcare system and lay the foundations to tackle these issues.

We're also committed to fixing the failings of the previous government by providing more support to First Nations children and families. In 2020-21, for the first time since the targets were established, and specifically on Closing the Gap target No. 4, developmental readiness for school, this nation's progress had gone backwards. We can't let that happen again. That is a national shame. To remedy this, we are providing 36 hours of subsidised early childhood education a fortnight, no matter the level of the family's activity. We will help improve overall First Nations children's readiness for future schooling.

We are committed to building a brighter future for all Australians and to providing everyone with more opportunity, whether it be for our children or our families, or participation in the economy. That means closing the gap for Indigenous Australians. It means implementing a multifaceted approach to closing gender and retirement income pay gaps. We know that increased accessibility to our early learning system will increase demand in a sector that we already need to entice people to enter and to come back to. We've heard a lot today about wages and conditions. Let's remember we were the ones that were standing up to support early childhood teachers to come back into the system, to give them the dignity and the respect that they deserve for doing such an important job. That's one of the stark differences between us on this side and the members of the Liberal and National parties.

We know that increased accessibility to our early learning system will increase demand, and that's why Labor is introducing these measures in the bill, such as further discounting of childcare fees for early childhood and care workers. We're supporting this legislation with the commitment to another election promise—465,000 TAFE places to meet current and future needs, especially when the care economy is based on shortages that were identified by the National Skills Commission.

We heard previous speakers on that side of the chamber talk about 'early education deserts', places where you can't get child care. But the only thing they never said is 'In nine years of government we did nothing to fix that.' That's the interesting bit. Suddenly all these problems, according to them, have happened since the election. Before that, it was all rosy. We know that this has been a problem. We have areas where there are 700 kids that can't get access to child care. This has not just happened now that a new, decent government is in place. This was happening beforehand, and the results of the previous government's failure are what we are dealing with today. It's the one consistent thing that we can say since coming to government: we are here cleaning up their mess.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a load of rubbish!

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor is committed to developing a whole-of-government review of the early learning youth strategy. And we can listen to the chortles over there. That's the fact of the matter. As a former minister of the Crown, you'd think you'd actually get up and have the decency to apologise to all those people that have missed out because your government refused to do anything about it. It's about time you took responsibility for what you've done. We are the ones that are cleaning up your mess.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What mess? What about the childcare workers? Who's supporting them?

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The mess that you created through failing to support workers, failing to support families and putting women's and children's educational futures at risk. That is the result of the LNP government. There is nothing—

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, the member for McEwen. The member for Barker?

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask you to draw the member back to the matter before the House.

T he DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for McEwen—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's great that the member for Barker—

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

will return to the bill, thank you.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

waddles in here and wants to interrupt. But the fact of the matter is that what I've said is absolutely true.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Barker has a point of order?

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. The member has indicated that I waddled in. Pot, kettle, black.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was not a point of order. The member for McEwen will assist the House by continuing on with the substance of the bill before the chamber.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've got to admit he's halfway there. He is an absolute disgrace.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen will continue.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But, again, see how the change had to be—not standing up and admitting what they did was wrong; they want to go and play silly little games, because they have nothing to offer. It is this government that is addressing the nine years of failure and neglect that that lot left the Australian people with. You'd think, if they had any intelligence or decency, they'd be embarrassed. But clearly they're not, when they should be.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak enthusiastically and wholeheartedly for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. I welcome this legislation. There is no other bill that could bring me greater joy than this bill in front of the parliament today, and I welcome the support across the parliament for improving accessibility and affordability in child care.

Child care has three crucial impacts, I think, and this bill has three crucial impacts on Australia. The first is on our children, in terms of giving them greater access to education—that crucial pre-five education that we know is so important in setting them up for effective education and school life. The second reason why I support this legislation is that it is good economic policy. This is good economic policy because it is anti-inflationary and it lowers costs for families, which is crucial, but it also drives labour productivity. Finally, I support this because it's a policy that will support families and particularly women.

Child care and paid parental leave are often seen through this economic lens, but we need to also consider them through a cultural lens. Australia has a wonderful egalitarian culture, but I have to say parenthood is an area where we are not as egalitarian as we could be. I speak from personal experience of watching my own friends and family go through having children at the age we all did. It's an unremarkable phenomenon—when you look at the numbers—where working women and their partners, who are typically men, are relatively equal in their participation in the world of work. They are often very equal in terms of their pay and their positions. Then children come along, and almost universally the women in my social circle took a step back while the men just kept on going. This is something that you see again and again and again borne out in the economic statistics. There are always examples where men took the primary load in relation to the kids, but it was always more the exception than the rule. Access to child care is a crucial enabler for us to change our culture, in terms of women's economic participation in the workforce and, ultimately, equal participation in society.

There's a default view in the country that looking after children is women's work. You see that absolutely in the statistics, where Australia comes equal first for women's education but we are 70th in the world when it comes to economic participation. That is absolutely down to how we raise children and manage children through this. So this default view is holding us back. It holds back women and it holds back the country. Recently Treasury released some research that showed that women's earnings were reduced by an average of 55 per cent in the first five years after parenthood. This is what they call the 'motherhood penalty'. This is the penalty that relates to lower participation in paid work, reduced working hours and reduced hourly wage. It doesn't just happen where the father is the primary breadwinner. Even for women who are the primary earner, the motherhood penalty is large. There's real room for improvement in our culture and our society by changing the culture so women are not the primary carers by default, regardless of their career, aspirations or trajectories.

This is an issue that so many people came to speak to me about in Wentworth. I remember very vividly standing on a corner in Paddington. A woman came up to me and I said, 'What's important to you?' And she said, 'Actually, for me, child care is the most important issue.' She said: 'I'm a lawyer; I'm someone who's highly trained. I made choices because of the costs of child care and, on reflection, I wouldn't have made those choices about my career. I wouldn't have taken such a big step back if child care had been more available and more affordable for my family.' I just heard time and time and time again that this is a crucial issue for women's participation and actually for more equal sharing of child-rearing arrangements among families. We need the cultural change that would mean more parents working out themselves what arrangements best suit their families. I hope this will lead to more fathers sharing parenting responsibilities, including those crucial pick-ups and drop-offs.

One of the reasons why I support this bill is that I think it will help to support changes that will make our society more egalitarian. Making child care more accessible frees up more women to fully pursue their professional aspirations. It will help reduce the motherhood penalty that so many experience. We invest huge sums of money developing the human capital of women. Basically, we educate them, we develop them, they have wonderful jobs, and then we do not allow them to flourish economically. You see that in terms of the discrepancy of pay and the discrepancy of economic outcomes for women compared to men, and child care and child-caring arrangements are absolutely crucial to this.

However, this bill is not a silver bullet. It contributes towards cultural change, but there's much more to do. And I think the two key areas that we need to consider in this House are, firstly, access to child care and childcare deserts and the childcare workforce, because we can have this welcome increase of support for families to access child care, but, if you can't actually get a place in a childcare centre, then it is not meaningful. Again, in my community, I have people who say that they called the childcare centre literally when they were 12-weeks pregnant to put their child's name down and still were not able to access the child care that they needed when they needed it. And I know that Wentworth, of all communities, probably has better access to child care than many other communities. So access to child care and making sure that this aspiration is met by both an increase in childcare places and childcare workers is absolutely crucial.

The second crucial element to changing the culture, which I think is so important, is paid parental leave and, crucially, that there is a part of that paid parental leave that is 'use it or lose it' for the second parent, which is typically a man. This is absolutely crucial to ensure that we change the culture in Australia so that men and women equally share the burdens and the joys of raising children and that we do that equally because this is good for women. It's actually good for men's mental health and it's good for child development because children develop better bonds with their fathers.

So Australia is making more progress towards becoming a fairer, more egalitarian society, and this legislation is a crucial piece in ensuring that we enable the economic empowerment of women as well as support families and children for our future. I commend this bill.

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

I'm so proud and excited today to talk about Labor's Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022, formally in our budget handed down last night but one of the earliest parts of our platform that we announced in the previous term—in fact, in the now Prime Minister's first budget reply. And I was particularly excited to attend one of the events visiting a childcare centre in my electorate with the now Prime Minister and the then shadow minister for early childhood, the member for Kingston, at the Campbell Cottage in my electorate, which is run by the YWCA, with my little girl, Elena, when she was just three weeks old. It was her first press conference, and she handled it pretty well.

This is such an important bill. It's good for children, it's good for families and it's good for our economy. As a parent, I know—as all parents that use early childhood education and care know—just how critically important this is. We understand the benefit and the incredible work of early childhood educators. I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about that as a parent but also as a local member, having visited many of the wonderful centres in my electorate and met with delegations of workers in that sector over the years. I want to talk about recognising the many layers of the work that they do.

They are educators. They are teaching the youngest children. We know that it is just so critically important that the first five years really set up children for their life, so that learning is critically important, and there's a real skill and expertise in doing that. Responding to the ever expanding curiosity of toddlers, babies and preschool-aged children with patience and finding ways to communicate with them is really something incredible. As parents, we all do a little bit of that, but our early childhood educators do that all day with a range of children.

Throughout the pandemic, when COVID first hit, our early childhood educators were some of the most affected frontline workers that just had to front up in those really uncertain times to keep our economy going and to keep caring for families. Under the previous government, there was a policy rollercoaster for those centres, where workers were worried for their own health, and centres were worried about whether they would need to lay off their workers and worried about the families that they support. I just want to again thank all the early childhood educators for what they did through that time for families and for Australians.

This bill makes it so more families can access early childhood education and care, and these great benefits for their families. This bill will benefit around 96 per cent of families, or 1.26 million Australian families, by making their child care more affordable. Anyone that uses child care knows it is very expensive, and those costs have been rising—in fact, 41 per cent over the last eight years is the national figure. I know that Canberra has some of the highest childcare fees in the country, and this is something I obviously hear a lot about from my constituents and know myself.

This bill will really make a change for families, enabling them to access more of that great education for their children and particularly enabling mothers to get back into the workforce or increase their hours of work. We've heard that too many people are stopped from working as much as they would like or from seeking work because of the costs of child care. In fact, according to the ABS, last year 73,000 people who wanted to work didn't look for work, because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them. We are robbing our economy of that potential; we are robbing those young children of that opportunity for early childhood education; and we're robbing those parents of the ability to get back into the workforce.

Another lesson about early childhood education and care that I often hear from the centres in my electorate is that it's about not only the great education and the opportunity that's provided for families to get back into work but the care for those children and the families. It goes without saying that you have to have a bottomless cup of patience to deal with pre-school-aged children. Don't start me! That care is also there for the families, and I've heard stories from early childhood educators in my community about families that they knew of during the pandemic, and in other times as well, who really needed the support but who hadn't been paying their fees, and they allowed some of those families to continue using child care. In one case, a centre told me that this was because they knew that the children were only getting regular meals when they were at child care, because this family was struggling so much. This was a not-for-profit provider, but it continued to offer that care.

Just recently, at another centre, I heard a story of a family where the mother had had to go overseas following the death of a relative, and they found they could help the father by providing meals for him as well, because he was really struggling during this family crisis that they were having. It's also about the key part in our community that these centres play.

So I want to acknowledge our early childhood educators and providers as part of this discussion, particularly as last week was Early Learning Matters Week. As part of that week, I went to visit the Guardian Centre, in Allara Street, right near my office—and thank you to Hayley, Peimin and the whole team there for showing me around and to the wonderful children that let me make some playdough and read a story with them. And, of course, I'm so indebted to the centre where my children go for the help and support and wonderful learning that you provide to my two children, which means so much to our family.

To focus on the economic side, an important part of our policy is that we're increasing subsidy rates for all families earning less than $530,000. This expands eligibility to almost universal standards for our community. It's about saying that early childhood education and care is not something different from school education; it is something that we know is critically important. Science has shown the importance of education for the youngest children and how that sets them up for life—so why do we see it differently from the access that we have to public education? This is a really important step in that direction towards a fully universal system which enables more families to access care.

We've heard, through our jobs summit and before that, just how important women's participation is to our economy. Too often, childcare costs are seen as coming out of the mother's wage, not the family wage, because they tend to be the lower earner. I'm also particularly proud that Labor have made closing the gender pay gap such an important part of our platform

This is an excellent bill. I'm incredibly proud. This will benefit many Canberra families. In fact, in the ACT, it will benefit around 23,200 families, including 8,900 in the electorate of Canberra, which I represent. This benefit is spread all around the country. There are thousands of families, in every electorate, who will benefit from this, but the number in my electorate is at the higher end. I'm really pleased that Canberra families can benefit from this, and I'm really pleased to support the bill today.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to stand and speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 today. The coalition, as we know, is supporting the bill, but it is offering some additional amendments in an effort to improve the bill itself, with the purpose of helping even more families, particularly those in rural and regional areas. The member for Moncrieff has also moved an amendment to the second reading motion.

We all understand the very great importance of child care, but there are a couple of matters that really need to be addressed and aren't addressed by this bill but that we see out in our communities. They involve both the current workforce and also issues around access, particularly if you're in a regional, rural or remote part of Australia.

Yes, we certainly believe in choice, and we want parents, whether they are working or studying, to be able to access care through formal or informal arrangements, whatever those arrangements may be. But, within what we've seen today, there isn't a plan to address the current workforce shortage and the shortage pressures being faced by educators, which is why we're seeking to make the bill better. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in the sector right now, and the measures in this bill, with, I think, $4.7 billion being invested, will create even greater demand, so additional educators will be needed. I understand that means that an extra 9,000 people will be required to work in this space in child care. This is really important because we need a plan that helps to address the access to care for so many who are struggling to find a place for their children. There's also no plan for the thin markets that we see in rural, regional and remote areas. There isn't, within this package, one cent allocated to create additional places and services that are so desperately needed. We know that around 50 per cent of childcare areas that need extra places are located in metropolitan locations, and 50 per cent are in rural, regional and remote locations. We really need those extra places—we need those people who need these places most desperately to be able to access them.

I want to speak a little about our Connected Beginnings program, which we initiated as part of what we were doing in this space. The Connected Beginnings program, which was established by the coalition, provides access to Indigenous Australians living in regional and remote Australia. There are currently 31 Connected Beginnings sites, right across the country. I was very impressed with the work being done when I visited Tennant Creek in my ministerial role. I really want to acknowledge the work being done in Tennant Creek, with the young people, through the Connected Beginnings program. We committed, in 2021, an extra $81.8 million to expand this Connected Beginnings program to 50 sites nationally. When we know the great level of need out there, we see that there's a great need for this program, in the same way that there is for the Community Child Care Fund, which is funding grants for services in disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.

As I said earlier, the access to additional staff is a really critical issue. The Mitchell Institute's research shows a 7,200 shortage now, and an extra 9,000 staff needed to meet the extra demands created by the measures in this bill. That's 16,200 extra workers needed for the existing childcare places that are on offer—not for any new places but for the existing ones—and there are no new places provided for within this particular bill or budget measure. We know that there are three children competing for every one place available right now, so 35 per cent of the population miss out.

While I speak of those who miss out, I want to talk about one of those places, which is Augusta, in my electorate. A group of wonderful women have been working for years—and I've been working with them since 2019—trying to secure a facility to house a childcare service in Augusta. In 2021 they sought a premises, and that year the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River, voted to support the upgrade of the Augusta Recreation Centre. There was not a lot happening there at that time, and it was to provide the venue for the childcare service to be able to operate in this tiny community in Augusta. But in more recent times the shire voted against this project, and you can imagine the impact that had on these women who have worked so hard and are very engaged in their communities. I've suggested that, given that the Augusta-Margaret River shire is unwilling to use council funding to upgrade the Augusta rec centre, we have another round of local roads and community infrastructure grants. I'm calling on the council to dedicate this funding to the upgrade for the families, the community and the businesses in Augusta. Their purpose is to provide a nurturing, enriching childcare service in our rural location. That's how they describe themselves and that's exactly what they want to do. They want to increase the liveability and inclusivity in Augusta, whether for the old, the young or the in-between.

I can't think of a better purpose for that funding than for the Augusta childcare group. They've worked so hard and for so long. Their children deserve this opportunity. When you look at the cost of fuel and the fact that the nearest childcare centre is in Margaret River, some distance away, transport both ways is simply not doable for so many of the mothers in Augusta. They deserve access to childcare services in Augusta. It is a lost opportunity for those women if they're not able to pursue a job or a career—a lost opportunity for them, their families and these beautiful little kids. I want to see them have access to this service as soon as possible. I will keep working with them, and had secured an election commitment in that sense as well.

There are so many wonderful childcare providers in my part of the world, as there are right around Australia—wonderful workers and staff members who love what they do. That's the one thing we all notice when we walk into a childcare centre—the people who are working there love being there and do such a fantastic job with our children.

During Book Week, I've been into some of these centres to read my favourite book, and I've kept one of the books I had when I was a child specially for that purpose. It's certainly one that entertains the young people. The young children love it, and they're very engaged with it. It is, with my farming background, about Dabbity Duck, who has all sorts of wonderful experiences—and is not dissimilar to some of the wonderful ducks that live in and around our farm, for which I have a great fondness and that spend a lot of time on my lawn. They decided to set up a nest with many eggs and babies outside my front step. This is a very personal issue for me when reading to these young people.

I go to places like Annie's Angels Play and Development Centre in Harvey. There is BlueBird Childcare in Busselton. Capel has a wonderful childcare centre. Here's one I don't think many would have—it's called Cowtown Calves childcare centre, and that is in the location of Cowaramup, where you can see a wonderful group of cows throughout the town. There's the Harvey Community Play and Learning Centre, Little Angels Early Learning Centre and the Margaret River Community Centre for Children. One I've had a bit to do with over the years—another small community that needs child care for their families—is the Treehouse Childcare Centre in Donnybrook. Again, it is really important to our local community. Each one of these is offering invaluable services to the community. But there's no doubt that, in many parts, like Augusta, there is demand and a need for more childcare places, which is what we were seeking to do in the amendment we are providing while supporting this bill.

When we were in government, we basically almost doubled childcare investment, to $11 billion in 2023. We locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens, making the biggest reforms in the early childhood education system for about 40-odd years. More than 1.3 million children from around one million families have access to the childcare subsidy, and there are over 280,000 more children in early childhood education. We abolished the annual cap on the childcare subsidy. So around 90 per cent of families using child care are currently eligible for a subsidy of between 50 and 85 per cent. Since March 2022, there has been a subsidy of up to 95 per cent for families with multiple children in early childhood education. That is increasing workforce participation and cheaper access to care. That targeted extra support in March this year made a real difference, and childcare costs came down by 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022. As well, we saw women's workforce participation reach record highs, at 62.3 per cent. It was 58.7 per cent when Labor left office.

I am very pleased to support the bill but also the amendment that we have proposed. I go back to the fact that, in so many areas around Australia, rural and regional, those smaller communities, there are either no childcare places available or, as we see in Augusta, no child care available at all. These are the places where we don't have the two things I've spoken about that are the focus of the amendment—access and staff numbers. Both of those things are real issues, particularly in regional and remote parts of Australia. It is a huge challenge. We are facing real challenges around workforce in general, and this particular sector is no different.

So, in the government's funding of this bill and in its funding of child care, we would like to see it address those two really critical issues. Access is the first thing for so many of us who live in rural and regional areas. Access is the most important thing that's not there, with 35-odd per cent of kids not being able to get child care at all. There are so many families that sit in that bracket. The Augusta group is but one that I've been able to talk about today.

I am supportive of the bill, but I also want to underline the importance of the shadow minister's amendment. I think that what we all want to see is greater access to child care in the locations where it's needed, like Augusta and like so many other small communities that I'm sure we're going to hear about in this discussion and debate. We need access to more childcare places. The other worry I think we all have, if we're being really honest, is about the access to the extra staffing that will be needed to support the measures in this bill and for ongoing services.

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

Parents with children in early education, or in before- and after-school care, know more about the challenges of rising costs than many of us. This is why our cheaper childcare policy is so vital. It's to make it more affordable for families to allow their children the chance to have a quality early learning experience, which, we know, will pay so many dividends in years to come. It's a long time since my children were in school or preschool, but I well remember that juggle. There's nothing worse than having to do that juggle, with the additional complications of a complex system where you're actually penalised if you work more days. That's the sort of thing that we want to see an end to, and this legislation, the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022, will do that.

The cost of early learning has jumped by a whopping 41 per cent in just the last eight years, under the watch of those opposite. This legislation will lead to the costs being cut for more than a million families. Ninety-six per cent of families who are currently using early education and care will be better off under these changes, and no family will be worse off. This is a really significant way to help people combat, at one level, the rising costs and challenges that their budgets are facing.

For the electorate of Macquarie, which I'm so proud to represent, this will affect more than 6,000 families who are already accessing early learning, and there'll be more who'll take advantage of it once the costs are lowered. We've got 112 locations in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, with 101 providers. They are an amazing group of people who provide excellent supportive care. You know, when you're caring for and educating kids, you're also dealing with lots of parents, and sometimes those parents need a bit of care, too, as they juggle their responsibilities. More than half of the childcare services in my electorate are run as not-for-profits; they're community-run or they're school based. So that paints a picture of where some of the benefits of this are going to flow through to and where parents are going to be able to be well supported.

Now, why is this needed? I often get people of my generation asking: 'Why do you even need this? What is the problem that they face?' To get a picture of it, we only have to talk to people in their 20s or 30s with kids. These are families where the discussions weigh up the cost of care against the bonus of working an extra day or two, where the opportunity for extra work might mean that not a single extra dollar comes in the door because of the way it changes a subsidy for the care of the children. About 60 per cent of Australian women who have children under the age of six are working part-time in paid work rather than full-time. The cost of child care is a massive roadblock, stopping a lot of Australians from going back to paid work. That's because, often, working the fourth or fifth day is gobbled up in childcare costs. If it's a promotion you're being offered, the additional pay can see people lose subsidies and end up not financially better off in any way, and, potentially, worse off.

According to the Bureau of Statistics, last year 73,000 people who wanted work didn't look for work because they couldn't make childcare costs work for them. Well, this will change that. If we can make child care cheaper, it will mean more Australian families—and, in particular, a lot of Australian mums—can go back to work. In this chamber I think we've heard that we're talking about a million hours of person-power being freed up, potentially—the equivalent of 37,000 full-time jobs. Now, that's something that businesses in my community would welcome, because they are desperately looking for skilled workers at the moment. What that means is that, in the 2023-24 financial year, this could make a real difference for them.

So this is a government that's looking to the future. It's making decisions now that we know will take a little bit of time to flow through. It will also take a lot of adjustment, in terms of how the system is run. We need to give the system time to do it and get up to speed. I recall reading that when those opposite made changes to the childcare system it took 50 weeks for the systems to be able to be adapted to them, so these things need time. We'll be working to do ours by 1 July next year.

It is a big and important reform. And it's not just going to benefit parents and those businesses who will have access to more workers. It's also going to be great for kids, because it means there are going to be more kids better prepared for school. All the research shows how important these formative years are. It's a time when play and music and games can help with development. Early learning is also a place where developmental problems can be identified and dealt with quickly. In my family, one of my kids, at about the age of three, had a speech issue that was picked up by his educators, and, thanks to early intervention, it was quickly addressed before he went to school. It wasn't something that he had to be teased about at school. It was something that was able to be looked after through incredible work by a speech pathologist. This is what early education does. It prepares children for school and prepares them for life, and we know that when we invest in these early years we get really great outcomes.

As a parent, I saw the benefits of quality early learning, and, fortunately, as the federal member for Macquarie, I get to see it now as well in places like Euroka Children's Centre at Blaxland. It's a community based service for children from six weeks to six years, which, like so many similar services in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, runs on a tight budget so that it's as affordable as possible for families. I am delighted that, as we promised during the election, last night's budget contained my election commitment of $20,000 for improvements to the backyard play space for this childcare centre. When I visited in March, they were thinking of things like slides and a rock wall and scrambling nets—creating a space where kids can safely be brave. This is the power of quality early education. So this is good for children, it's good for parents and it's good for our economy.

Let's just go over a few of the details here. From July 2023, we will lift the maximum childcare subsidy, the CCS, rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000 and increase the subsidy rates for families earning less than $530,000, so many families are going to benefit. We'll keep the higher CCS rate for families with multiple children aged five and under in care. It's not just for your first child; it's for your second and your third and even your fourth. The plan for cheaper child care will make child care more affordable for, as I said, around one million, in fact 1.26 million, families. Here's an example. A family on a combined income of $120,000, with one child in care, will save $1,780 in the first year of this plan. So this is a genuine saving to people's budgets.

The bill also helps families make more informed choices, because it puts in some measures to deter fraud. That's an extra thing that we've added. One thing that I know will resonate with a lot of workers in the sector is that, in order to help retain and attract workers, the bill also allows providers to offer discounted childcare fees for early childhood education and care workers. That's a really sensible thing to do when we know that getting the workforce is a really key part of it.

I do want to acknowledge that, as we've heard in this chamber, finding a place in a centre can be a real challenge for parents. Only two days ago, I was on the phone to a mum from Sackville, who had been at the end of her tether trying to find a place. She's been trying to work from home, with a young child, and she feels huge relief that she's found a place for that child next year. They'd had orientation, and it was all looking really good. That is a positive outcome, but there are many families where this is a huge struggle. That's one of the reasons why we need to now support centres to be able to expand and to skill up the workforce. That is why I am so proud of our announcement of 1,469 new places at university being quarantined for early education training. That will be nearly 1,500 people moving through that training process. We will not have them tomorrow but we will have them. We also have a significant number of fee-free TAFE places for all our areas of skill shortage, of which childcare workers is definitely one. So there are things in place. We're not just standing here saying: 'Oh, it's a problem. No-one has done anything about it for the last 10 years. Gee, it's too hard for us.' We're recognising that there has been an issue and there has not been the work done. We're prepared to do the work. We know there's going to be some time for those workers to flow through and come online, but we'll be supporting centres so that people in the Macdonald Valley and Wisemans will hopefully have an easier time than they have had in trying to revive an early learning centre.

I want to take a quick moment to give a shout-out to two incredible women in the Blue Mountains, Sarah O'Carrigan and Dr Jenna Condie, who looked at the problem of not being able to find a childcare centre and set up Bub Hub Mountains, a co-working creche space. I've visited it in Winmalee. It uses existing OOSH facilities and brings mums together. There is a shared way of caring for the kids. This is a really innovative way of going about it, and I really take my hat off to these women. They knew they wanted to work. They knew that it was hard to do it in a way that worked for them. They have come up with a design, and they're piloting it to see how well it works for other mums. This is women solving women's problems, and this legislation is driven very much by the women on this side of the House but also by all the men who are dads and want to see a really fair deal for families with young kids. I'm very pleased to be supporting our Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the second reading of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 and the amendment that has been moved by the member for Moncrieff. As people have already covered comprehensively, this legislation will provide some cost-of-living relief to families that have their children in child care, and it will dramatically expand the ability to access the CCS and increase the amount that some people are realising.

Unfortunately we saw in the budget last night—and it's been made worse with the release of the inflation figures by the ABS today—that Australian families have never needed support more to help them meet the ever-increasing and escalating costs that they have to bear. That applies to families with children, in particular. Last night we had the revelation—perhaps confirmation—of how dramatic the increases in electricity and gas bills are going to be for Australian families. We've seen the ABS confirm today a surprisingly high inflation rate for the September quarter, of 7.3 per cent—much higher than was anticipated by economists that had been surveyed by the various media outlets in the last 24 or 48 hours. Unfortunately the underlying rate, which is probably the one we are more interested in, was even higher as an order of magnitude compared to what people were expecting. So we're in an environment of dramatically escalating costs across the board. That is putting an enormous amount of pressure on families, so I'm very happy to support this measure which will help some families who have childcare costs to get more support from the Commonwealth, because they need it. The government are talking about when they made this commitment. It was a few years ago, early in the last term of parliament, when they were in opposition. Of course, the significance of this support is dramatically diminished with inflation being at the rate that it is at now, and, of course, we don't know where it will be by the time this takes effect on 1 July next year nor how much more will be lost control of by this government as revelations of our electricity prices, like were made in the budget last night, came into effect. Imagine what the impact would be for those families if, on top of all that, the stage 3 tax cuts were repealed. Imagine saying to those families you want to help them with childcare costs through this bill and then taking that money—and probably more—away by reversing the stage 3 tax cuts.

If you care about people re-entering the workforce and being properly valued for that and having the support that they need, sure we can and will increase support for childcare costs. But even more importantly let's put some money back in their pocket by reducing their taxes in responsible ways that ensure this bracket creep and these escalating costs being put upon them through all these various inflationary pressures are honoured and that there is not an attempt to, in this budget, implement this measure. Yes, you did take this measure to an election, and, yes, you are putting it in place, and, yes, we are not standing in the way of it, but the government needs to make sure it does not dare undertake the hypocrisy of removing this kind of support from parents that access child care and of penalising every other person that pays income tax that earns more than $40,000 a year by thinking that the people of this country will fall for this kind of measure being dressed up as a way of supporting them, particularly women, to re-enter the workforce by removing a tax cut. This will only address the bracket creep they are suffering, which is not only what we envisaged when it was legislated years ago but that is now a more significant bracket creep that will come in because of inflation running at what has been confirmed in the September quarter as 7.3 per cent. And we have no idea where this is going to end, because, unfortunately, quarter after quarter after quarter it's only continuing to go up. If electricity prices are going up by 56 per cent over the next two years, and gas is going up by more than 40 per cent over two years, then I don't really understand how, with those sorts of cost pressures in place, inflation is going to be brought under control and will be reduced from 7.3 per cent. But we will wait and see, and I hope the government bears that in mind.

We're happy to support this bill and the cost-of-living support it will provide, but it's nowhere near enough what people need. We need much broader support to reduce the cost pressures that the budget confirmed last night. Last night in the budget the government said, 'Hey, your costs are going up, and we will do nothing to help you meet those costs.' That's what we found out in the budget last night, and that is bitterly disappointing for the families that are going to get hit really hard by this and the businesses that will get hit really hard. We have a government that wants to say in a budget, 'Strife is coming your way, and you're on your own.' That is truly terrible for some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who, in particular, will find it the most difficult to meet the costs—with interest rates going up at the same time.

If you want to talk about global uncertainties and how they're feeding into things—and I think we can agree that the planet isn't getting more certain in the months and years ahead. So, if you want to say that there are external forces at play here and they are a factor, I don't think any of us would suggest that they, as a factor, are coming to an end any time soon.

The childcare system needs a lot more than just this measure, and it would be unacceptable for the government to think that this legislation puts into place some great fix. I'm not qualified, like some of my regional colleagues, to talk about the significant challenge of accessing child care in this country whatsoever, because it is a very different environment from an access and service point of view depending on where you live, and that's not right. There's nothing in this bill that helps people in regional areas that can't access child care no matter what it costs because it doesn't exist. I'll obviously let my colleagues give their examples—and they already have in their contributions so far about that, and there'll be more tonight. But I really implore the government to listen to those contributions from people who come from communities that are not serviced at all and don't have any access to childcare. Whether or not it is cheaper for them, if it doesn't exist that is completely irrelevant.

I'm very lucky that my electorate is well serviced. I'm in a metropolitan electorate, and I haven't heard other metropolitan members talk about no service existing in metropolitan areas, though they have—and I have the same issue in my electorate—huge challenges still with people accessing child care, because the centres might exist but that doesn't mean that there are places in those centres that are available for people who need access to them.

I visit these centres, and I had the opportunity to take the shadow minister, the member for Moncrieff, to one about a month ago. The story we heard there—which I hear regularly from my childcare centres and which she confirmed she was hearing right across the country—was about these enormous challenges with workforce. There are thousands and thousands of unfilled roles under the current system today, right now. Childcare centres across the country have thousands and thousands of vacancies for staff that they are currently unable to fill.

We understand and respect that there are workforce issues across the economy right now. I don't suggest that it is unique to child care, although that even more compounds the problem. It's not as if, when you talk about training places that you're making available, there's a huge slack capacity of people to shift from some sector that has a massive oversupply of labour that can be redeployed into the childcare sector by retraining people—quite the opposite. We have huge problems more broadly across the care sector. Obviously, the NDIS is growing significantly and there are huge demands for workforce in disability services and disability care. The aged-care sector equally has enormous workforce challenges and needs enormous growth in that workforce into the future. We've got a situation where the Victorian state government health department is trying to cannibalise nurses from the South Australian health system by offering them significant inducements and sign-on bonuses to leave—

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's free association time, is it?

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, take it up with the South Australian Labor government. We have this situation where, of course, that will be retaliated against, and all that means is that, while these shortages are not unique to child care or to the care sector more broadly, they are enormous challenges. What are we going to do to find the workforce we need just for the system as it is, let alone to increase the capacity of the system? The sector are saying as we speak that they don't have the ability or that the workforce doesn't exist to meet their current requirements, let alone what the new requirements will be if this policy succeeds in the way in which the government is indicating it is.

So that's an enormous challenge that needs to be addressed, and I haven't heard any really serious, credible suggestion for how that's going to occur. I'm all for training places in the various skills that are needed to provide that workforce, but I'm very concerned about where the people are physically coming from to work in all these different areas that have major workforce shortages. We've seen in the agricultural sector the government not supporting the agricultural visa, which would have brought more than 40,000 people into the country to address massive workforce challenges in agriculture. We get it. We know that that's an instruction from the union movement and that the government's not allowed to do these things. But it's heartbreaking. We know that the unions went to meet with the various embassies that we were seeking to negotiate with to have bilateral agreements on the agricultural visa, and we know that the government are not allowed to do these things because the unions won't let them. In the meantime, we have these spectacular, dramatic skills shortages across many, many sectors, and obviously the childcare sector will have an enormous challenge to meet because they don't have the workforce to meet current requirements, let alone future demand.

I'm also very curious about what's going to happen in my home state of South Australia. We're now having a royal commission to look at universal preschool in South Australia. I'm sure this wasn't just election announcement to win votes. I'm sure it was really well thought through, and the government in South Australia knows how much it's going to cost and what the impact is going to be on the childcare sector. But, if they do know the answer to those questions, they haven't talked to the sector about it. The disruption that that would cause in the sector would obviously be spectacular. I don't understand, if they did go down that path, how that would allow them to interact with the childcare system and the funding that the Commonwealth provides for child care, as opposed to what we provide for preschool, and if they're extending preschool. All those sorts of things are spectacularly complex, and I don't know, and the sector doesn't know, where that's heading, so we look forward to getting answers to those pretty significant questions.

But, with those points of clarification made, I welcome the support to meet the enormous cost-of-living pressures that are being felt by the young families of my electorate and others across the country. It is a very depressing and bleak outlook from a cost-of-living point of view in this country, whether it's electricity bills, whether it's meeting your mortgage, where it's possibly having stage 3 tax cuts ripped away from you in the months ahead—and with inflation at 7.3 per cent and on a trajectory of continuing to climb. If electricity bills are going up by more than 50 per cent and gas by more than 40 per cent, I don't see what is going to lead to inflation falling from that level for some time into the future. People's incomes are being dramatically eroded as we speak, and that is going to continue to happen into the future. Of course we on this side of the House support anything we can do to help meet the very enormous pressures that are on family budgets, and on that basis I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.