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

This government gets it. We know that too many families are facing unacceptably high costs as they try and do something about something that, as a society, we all should all support— juggling work and family. We know that, in a time of genuine cost-of-living pressures, one of the largest expenses for many families is their childcare bill, and we get that too many women—and it is mainly women—are unable to take up that extra day of work because the cost of child care is currently just prohibitive. The consequences of that are felt not just by them and their family but by us as a community and a society.

In a period where we have workplaces desperately looking for workers, we are disincentivising a huge chunk of our workforce from being in jobs, helping our businesses get on with it. And, of course, we also know that we are setting women up for being at risk of poverty later in life. In fact, the greatest group at risk of homelessness at the moment is older women, and that is often a consequence of women, earlier in life, taking up caring responsibilities. There are so many ways in which this bill is really important and in which it is going to change the lives of families in Australia and going to make our communities stronger. It's for all these reasons that I'm very proud to be speaking in support of it today.

I have young children myself. As someone with young children, I spend a lot of time in playgrounds. Quite often, I've come to have what I like to call the swing conversation. This is where you're pushing your child on the swing and there's another mum next to you pushing their child on the swing. You start having that chat: 'How old is your kid? What do you do? How often do you work?' And it always ends up with, 'How often do you work?' and, nearly always, the line is: 'I'm just working three days a week at the moment. We wanted to look at an extra day, but we sat down and did the maths, and it doesn't make sense for me to work that extra day—child care is just so expensive.' I genuinely have this conversation with women in my community over and over again. It doesn't need to be this way. Early education is something that benefits our children, and it benefits families.

We know from the data that last year there were 73,000 people who wanted to work but didn't look for work because they couldn't make childcare costs work for their situation. With our plan, our government is encouraging these people; we're encouraging those mums at the swings to be able to work that extra day, to know that they can do that without actually paying more for their child care than they're being paid to do their job. This bill is all about supporting women to increase their participation in the workforce and, through this, accelerating work to close the participation, pay and superannuation gaps. It is a win-win-win—good for children, good for families and good for the economy.

One of the really important parts of our plan is that 96 per cent of Australian families will be better off. This is important because child care should be one of those services that we can all rely on and all use. I'm very pleased that our government has been clear that this is not the end of the childcare journey—that we also want to look at how we make this a universal system that does benefit all families.

The changes we're introducing will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with a combined income of under $80,000. For some of the families in Jagajaga, in my electorate, that will be a really big, beneficial change. A family on a combined income of $90,000 a year—they might be in Heidelberg Heights or Watsonia in my community, for example—with one child in child care three days a week currently receives an annual subsidy of about $13,000. With the future subsidy delivered by our government's plan, a family in this situation will save $1,140 in the first year of our new policy. This is significant money going back into the pockets of local families to help bring down their costs. Of course, there are many families in my community who have more than one child attending child care—my family is one of those—and our government understands this. Our plan will retain the higher childcare subsidy for families with more than one child aged five or under in care, to maximise the benefits this policy has across communities and ensure as many families benefit as possible.

We also know that part of this equation is supporting the people who work in early education. I want to give a big shout-out to all of those people who do this incredibly difficult work that we have undervalued for too long. The people who work in early education do deserve a pay rise, and I am very glad that this government will also be bringing legislation to this place that goes to some of the historic issues that have meant women in feminised industries like early education have not been paid as they should. Any of us who have spent time caring for children, trying to educate them, know what a huge job that is and what an important job that is.

I want to give a shout out to all the early educators in my electorate and to the people at Goodstart Ivanhoe, who I visited recently for Early Learning Matters Week and who took me through everything they were doing in a day, running around after teeny, tiny children and helping older children start to learn their letters. It's a huge breadth of both care and education that these educators are providing, and at the moment we don't recognise it as we should. As we continue to look at how we improve our childcare system, that's absolutely something that we must improve. I also want to give a shout-out to all the educators at my children's centre. Again, I see every day how hard you're working to keep things on track in really difficult circumstances, often feeling underappreciated for that.

We make all these changes because Labor understands modern families. We understand that in our families we want to be able to juggle work and care and we want to be able to do that without it ruining us financially. I hear this time and time again in my community: we need to make these changes that for too long—

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, member for Jagajaga. I call the member for Mallee.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I draw the Deputy Speaker's attention to the state of the House.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 55(d), the House will be counted at the first opportunity on the next sitting day if the member then so desires.

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

I will note that I was interrupted. This is an important bill. It matters to families in my community. It matters to early educators in my community. It matters to businesses in my community, who will benefit from having more workers available to them. It is good for children in my community, who will be assisted to get the best possible start in life. For all those reasons I am very pleased to support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm happy to rise to speak on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. The goal of cheaper child care is admirable but, as always, the execution is really important. The electorate of Nichols is typical of many regional electorates, with larger cities, smaller townships and rural areas, with little community infrastructure. I think back to my family's own experience. Even in a city like Shepparton, which is a big population area in my electorate, there were applications and significant waitlists. Affordability is always a factor with child care, but it isn't the only one in regional communities—accessibility is critical. My wife and I were fortunate to find places for our kids, facilitating a return to work and a participation in the economy by myself and, more importantly, my wife, who is a very serious and significant professional. But many regional families are not so fortunate.

While this bill tackles the issue of affordability, the price tag of this policy has changed three times now. First it was $5.4 billion, then $5.1 billion and now $4.5 billion. Labour's $4.5 billion policy is costed for three days a week, not the five days a week that most parents work and, therefore, require care for. Labor, under this policy, will blow out the amount a household can earn and still qualify for the childcare subsidy to $530,000 in joint income. Under this bill, taxpayers will fork out an additional $22,524 dollars for a family on a combined income of $360,000 a year with a minimum of two kids, compared with just $2,488 extra for a family earning a combined income of $80,000. This isn't an attack on the aspirations of high-income households who work hard and deserve equal access to childcare support. It is, though, an acknowledgement that lower-income families, who often can't afford for one parent not to be working, deserve greater support.

In Nichols, the issue for many families is not affordability but access to child care. The Mitchell Institute's report Deserts and oases: how accessible is childcare in Australia? was published in March 2022. It shows that metropolitan-style consolidation of services is occurring in regional centres at the expense of small towns. In Shepparton, between 2.14 and 3.59 children compete for each childcare place, depending on the neighbourhood. The population centres most likely not to have any child care accessible within a 20-minute drive are towns with a population under 1,500 people, the Mitchell Institute found. It gets worse in more rural and remote communities.

The township of Tatura—a wonderful place—is a 15-minute drive from Shepparton. It's where I went to kindergarten, too. It is a great town with a strong and independent community. When the report describing childcare deserts was released, Tatura resident Jay Corrigan spoke to the Shepparton News, telling it:

I could only get my daughter in to Shepparton, which is annoying having to drive over and back,

Of course, when floods block the causeway—that linking road between either side of the river—as they did last week, even doing that is impossible. The article also said:

Report lead author Dr Peter Hurley said for many regional towns, Australia's policy approach to early learning was a complete absence of provision, especially for towns with a population of fewer than 1500 people.

In this report they are called 'childcare deserts'. I have many childcare deserts in my electorate. The absence of child care is not because there isn't a market. People in small towns and people on farms have children and they return to work, just like everyone else. There is an absence of policy from Labor to encourage viable child care to operate in smaller communities. In areas designated as inner regional, nearly 45 per cent of the population live in a childcare desert. In outer regional Australia, 61 per cent of the population live in a childcare desert. There is no joy for a huge proportion of regional and rural Australians in a bill that makes child care they don't have access to more affordable.

The coalition firmly believes in choice. Parents who work or study should be able to access care, whether through formal or informal arrangements, but there appears to be no plan to address access to care, with many parents struggling to find a place for their child, and no plan to address thin markets and childcare deserts, where there are little to no services. Equally, there is no plan to address one of the biggest issues facing the sector, the current workforce shortage and pressures being faced by educators. The headline figure of $4.5 billion sounds great. It sounds fantastic. It's a big figure. But not one single cent will be spent to create additional places or services. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in the sector and no plan to train and recruit educators. Without such a plan, the likely result of this bill will be more families competing for places in an already strained marketplace. What's the point of having lower out-of-pocket costs if you can't even get your child into care? What's the point of having lower out-of-pocket costs if you live in a childcare desert and don't have access to child care?

There is more to be done, and we need amendments to this bill that do something to address the gaps in childcare services, workforce shortages and the real prospect that any benefits delivered to families by this reform will be eroded by higher fees. There is no commitment to the coalition's Connected Beginnings program, which provides childcare access to Indigenous Australians living in rural and remote Australia. This program operates in Mildura, the only site in Victoria, and it should be expanded to other regional centres, including Shepparton, in my electorate, which has the largest Indigenous population in the state, outside Melbourne. In 2021 the coalition government provided an additional $37 million to the department of health and $42.8 million to the department of education to expand the Connected Beginnings program to a minimum of 50 sites by 2025. This should occur.

This bill will extend the activity test from 24 hours to 36 hours of subsidised care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and, as part of this, will introduce a new definition of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child. This has raised some concerns, as it doesn't exist in the family assistance act currently and it is different to the definition within the Social Security Act. It is possible that a child could be eligible under one act and ineligible under another. That's a mess that needs cleaning up.

In government, the coalition almost doubled childcare investment, to $11 billion in the 2022-23 budget. We locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens and made big reforms to the early childhood education system. Under the coalition, 280,000 more children joined early childhood education, and we made it simpler to access support, with around 90 per cent of families currently eligible for a subsidy of between 50 and 85 per cent. We support families. We support the opportunity to work and study. We're incredibly supportive of choice. If parents want to send their kids to child care, we want them to be able to do it. If they want to keep their kids at home, we want them to be able to do it. But it's not just about having the fees subsidised; it's about having the facilities that actually exist.

Under the coalition, we saw women's workforce participation reach record highs at 62.3 per cent, and long may that continue. An aspiration to heighten women's workforce participation is something we should all share and something that's extremely positive for our nation. But it's not just about saying, 'Here, we'll give you a bit of money to help with child care.' The facilities—the places—actually need to be there. This particularly affects places like my electorate of Nicholls and the electorate of Mallee. There are many childcare deserts. We want professional people to be attracted to these places because the economies are going well under nine years of coalition government.

For a variety of reasons—including COVID, but also just for the lifestyle choices and for the economic benefits and the opportunities—people want to come to regional Australia. Often they say: do you want to live in a flat in suburban Melbourne and travel to work for an hour and a half on substandard public transport or do you want to live in a beautiful regional city like Shepparton, Seymour, Mildura or Swan Hill and do some really exciting work for a region that's really moving forward? But young professional people moving to these places want to know that, if they go down the track of having a family—I've been through this myself—they can make the choice to put their children into care and get back into the workforce.

Sometimes it's not about money; sometimes it's just about wanting to participate in the exciting economy of a community like the Goulburn Valley. That was the experience for me and my wife. Sure, we wanted to earn some dollars, but we wanted to get back into agriculture and the wonderful agribusiness industries that exist in the Goulburn Valley. We could see where that was going and we wanted to be part of it, but we had to have places to put our children into care. We were very fortunate, but there were some long lists. Had we not lived in the large population area—for example, had we lived in another part of the electorate or in some of the childcare deserts in the electorate of Mallee—it wouldn't have mattered how much money we had to spend on it. We just wouldn't have been able to put our kids into care, and that would have stopped one or two of us going back to work, and we don't have the opportunity to get ourselves ahead. The great organisations that benefited from our agricultural professional qualifications wouldn't get those skills and services and we wouldn't be able to move forward. So there are a variety of reasons why we need more child care, not just subsidised child care.

I refer, again, to the need for amendments to this bill to ensure that families with limited or no access to child care, most of whom are in regional and rural communities, are afforded the same opportunity to access affordable and accessible childcare.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the government's Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. Before I speak about the substance of what will be for many families in Boothby a transformational policy, I want to tell this chamber a story. It's a story familiar to thousands of Australian families, but with a slight twist.

My experience of motherhood is in some ways slightly unusual but in others very familiar. I had an established career when my former husband and I decided to start a family together, and my intention was to work as late into the pregnancy as possible, take maternity leave and then return to work sometime later on. However, this all happened a lot faster than I had planned, when I discovered I was pregnant with triplets. A triplet pregnancy puts a fair strain on your body. Consequently I ended up going on maternity leave at 18 weeks of pregnancy because I could barely walk. Going on maternity leave 20 weeks earlier than planned obviously puts a pressure on the family budget, as did suddenly having three babies instead of the usual one. Three times the cost of nappies, three times the cost of formula—you get the idea.

My babies came home with me a couple of weeks after they were born, and we were on the four-hour sleep cycle that parents of newborns know so well. As someone who valued her career, I still wanted to return to work in some capacity. I also needed a bit of a break from doing the same thing every four hours, to keep my sanity. So I returned to work two days a week at a nearby town, working as a rural project officer in the medical industry. It was really interesting, worthwhile work and reasonably paid. But three lots of childcare fees really bites into the family budget. Between child care, tax, and petrol to drive to work, I calculated that I was taking home an extra $20 a month. From memory, a packet of 60 nappies cost about $20 in the year 2000, and we would go through more than a packet a week. So, while every extra dollar helps, my $20 didn't contribute very much to the additional costs.

There were other benefits to me going back to work. Staying home with three newborns—preemies—24/7 on a four-hourly sleep cycle was overwhelming, and, when they were very small and couldn't sit up in a pram by themselves, I couldn't even leave the house by myself. The opportunity to work on something different from my role as a mother and have adult conversations was very valuable in helping me maintain my mental health in those early days. In retrospect, it also helped me to continue my career without paying the 'mummy price'—having a gap in my resume that would set my career progression back. And, as I was working in a rural area at the time, and there weren't too many other people with my background and skill set in the local area, I was also meeting a local skills need.

Despite the novelty factor that a triplet birth gives my story, my experience is one shared by many families. For that reason, I cannot commend this bill highly enough. First and foremost, once this legislation is fully implemented, child care will be cheaper for 96 per cent of Australian families. Passage of this bill will mean that 1.26 million Australian families will be able to access cheaper child care. In my electorate of Boothby, approximately 7,300 families will be better off, and, crucially, none will be worse off because of this bill. At a time when, as the Treasurer rightly noted last night, the cost of running a household and raising a family is going up, cheaper child care will be very welcome. That $20 packet of 60 nappies now costs around $35, and of course that's only the start. Over the past eight years, childcare costs increased by a whopping 41 per cent. It's absolutely no surprise to any of us here to hear that families are doing it very tough. That's where this plan for cheaper child care fits perfectly, for this key cost-of-living relief measure will not only benefit the family budget directly but also deliver social and economic dividends.

All the research tells us that one of the key strategies to tackle intergenerational poverty is intervention in the early childhood years. Children who access early childhood education are given an opportunity to learn through play and to develop social skills and developmental patterns that they simply don't get otherwise. And, as in my own example, it can be a huge relief for many new mothers.

But this is also a reform that will tackle gender inequalities that continue in this country. We know it is most often women who experience the greater disruption in their careers for taking time out to care for children. The 'mummy gap' and the 'mummy track' set back career progression for women. We pay the mummy price. This is partly illustrated by the fact that Australian women are more than twice as likely as men to work part time because of their caring responsibilities. Now, it's absolutely true that for many women this is precisely how they wish to structure their home and work life. But we also know that for many other women the cost of child care is simply too high for them to work as much as they would like to. If we make child care cheaper, it gives more families, and particularly women, greater choice in how they structure their family responsibilities.

This also points to the way in which this reform is a key economic reform. Given the global and local economic circumstances the Treasurer outlined, the government has had to be extremely strategic and targeted in the types of cost-of-living relief measures we are implementing, to make sure they build productivity and don't feed inflation.

We know that women's workforce participation is a huge untapped potential resource in the Australian economy. Female workforce participation was 57 per cent in 2005. Seventeen years later it has slightly improved to 62 per cent. That's five per cent in 17 years! Boosting women's workforce participation would help with one of the greatest economic challenges I hear from businesses when I'm out and about in Boothby. Pretty much every business I speak to, large and small, no matter what the sector, tells me about the skills shortage. They are crying out for workers, and this skills shortage has a very real impact on their viability and their ability to grow their businesses, and so it has a very real impact on our economy. One of the clear strategies to address this shortage is to tap into those people already in our community who want to work and who would work if we could remove the barriers. We know the impact childcare fees have on women when they are making decisions about whether to go back to work. If we make child care cheaper, at this bill does, businesses potentially gain access to thousands of workers. Treasury estimates that the measures in this bill will allow Australian women with young children to work up to 1.4 million additional hours per week in 2023-24 alone, and that's equivalent to an extra 37,000 full-time workers, at a time when industries across our economy in our community are crying out for staff.

There is one more really important factor that we should not overlook. Women returning to work has another financial benefit to their own long-term financial security. We know that women over 55 is the fastest growing demographic experiencing homelessness and poverty, and I can tell you that, when I worked in the homelessness sector, these women arrived at the doors of the shelter, and if they have any superannuation it was so small. This is partly due to low wages in the caring professions, but it's also partly due to interrupted careers. Long periods off work mean there are no contributions to their superannuation during those periods, and, by removing the financial barrier of childcare costs and enabling women to choose to return to work if they so choose, those women will also be contributing to their superannuation balance, to their own financial security.

This bill is a key piece of legislation taken to the last election, and I'm thrilled that we are here now, within the first six months, introducing it to parliament. It will benefit women, it will benefit families, it will benefit children, it will benefit businesses and it will benefit the economy. I commend this bill to the House.

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

E () (): I rise to speak on the proposed Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022. While this side of the House supports the amendment put forward by the member for Moncrieff, we won't be opposing the bill in its substantive form.

Our country is experiencing a childcare worker drought. The field is diminishing as the pay and conditions are inadequate. With this drought of workers, childcare deserts are forming across the country, and, according to the Mitchell institute, about nine million Australians, or 35 per cent of the population, live in neighbourhoods classified as a childcare desert, which are areas where there are more than three children under four per childcare place. There are currently 7,200 vacancies in the childcare sector, and many centres are capping enrolments and asking families to keep their kids at home because they don't have enough staff to operate at full capacity. An increasing number of centres are applying for waivers because they can't retain teachers, who leave the sector for better pay and conditions in the education sector. With more children set to enter the sector from July 2023, we ask: how will the government ensure there is a workforce to meet that demand? This bill is silent on that issue, yet it is a crucially important issue for regional Australia.

Alarmingly, there are also 1.1 million Australians who live in regional and remote areas where there is no child care available whatsoever. This bill does not even begin to consider the severe shortage of early childhood services in areas of rural and remote Australia, including areas that require mobile playgroups and early education programs. Remote and outer remote areas have the highest levels of childcare deserts, at 87.5 per cent and 79.9 per cent. About 453 remote towns do not have a childcare centre within a 20-minute drive.

Just as we've seen with the Building Better Regions grants and with the Distribution Priority Area classification system, Labor is once again forgetting the people of regional Australia. In that regard, we know that Building Better Regions has been cut and, with that, the opportunity for many childcare centres to be developed and built. The other side talk high and mighty about integrity in grant funding distribution, but on my reading of the budget that was handed down last night there are about $1.35 billion of grants that are only going to be available to government-held seats. Where's the integrity in that?

The Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority estimates that an additional 39,000 childcare workers would be needed next year to keep up with demand, and this was before this bill was introduced. According to Labor, this bill is meant to be good for careers and good for families. However, in an industry that is 39,000 workers short, I would query what it does for an already overstretched childcare worker and whether it's good for the multitude of families that have no access to child care in the first place.

While making child care more accessible is absolutely a good thing, we also need to see real change in the recruitment of, and the pay and conditions for, those working in child care. Katherine Wilson is the owner of a childcare centre in Blaney in my electorate. She recently contacted me with a desperate plea. She said:

I'm crying out for educators, but they have all left the industry because of low pay, bad conditions … the government has forgotten us. We need to know the government at least understands we are struggling. We are in crisis with no light at the end of the tunnel.

That's a plea from the heart, but this bill does nothing to answer that plea or hear those concerns.

Sadly, Ms Wilson is not alone. Lauren has also contacted my office. She's emailed: 'I have a seven-month-old son and cannot find child care anywhere. I know I am not alone here.' She goes on in her email: 'I need to go back to work for financial reasons but may not be able to because there is no-one to watch my son. I rang around this morning: 120 families before me on the waitlist and one child care has shut its baby rooms due to staffing.' Charlotte has written in, and she says: 'Our daughter is enrolled in a centre in Orange that is closed to anyone other than essential workers most weeks, and the inconsistent access to child care is making it impossible for both of us to work. As a result, we are thinking of moving back to Sydney so we can access reliable child care.'

Caroline has written to me. She's from Orange in New South Wales as well. She says this: 'I would like our parliament to be aware of the severity of this crisis in Orange and welcome any measures to encourage more staff into Orange or to encourage new staff already in Orange to join the sector, such as school leavers. This is a matter of urgency for families, mental health and the economy.' Nadia has written: 'I'm writing to see what is being done about the acute childcare crisis in Orange. I am a small-business owner and a new mum desperate to have access to child care. As a first-time mum, I am appalled at the situation for families seeking child care. I have been on a waiting list at numerous childcare facilities since my daughter was born in October last year. As a small-business owner, I have not had the opportunity to take a break from my work as labour is scarce. The current situation is holding women back from re-entering the workforce and, as such, is contributing to the ongoing gender inequality that is exacerbated in regional areas.'

Kelly has written in. She says this: 'I've had a dad on the phone today desperate for child care as the Hill Street centre is shut for a third day in a row. I've had families from the Albert Street service calling me in a complete mess as their service is shutting up completely, and they are left with no options. I just had a nurse from the hospital call me this afternoon saying she will have to quit her job, as the Dalton Street early learning centre has classrooms closed due to a staff shortage. I, myself, have reduced our opening hours to make things run more smoothly.' Her email goes on: 'It concerns me that the Labor government is going to make child care cheaper next year, which will only increase the number of children coming our way, and I think we need to start thinking about this now.' That's what we're talking about in this House tonight. Lucinda has written to me as well. She writes of the 'childcare crisis facing our community in Orange'. Jessie has written to me and she says this: 'The problem is staff. There are not enough early childhood educators to maintain all the current and new childcare centres in Orange. Orange is expanding with so many new families moving to the region, but, with a lack of early childhood educators, you will have skilled workers unable to return to work.' She goes on to say, 'There are so many families in the same position.' Nerine has written to me. She says: 'The government's plan to make childcare more cost-effective will make the current issue of low staff in the childcare industry much worse. Currently my son's day care is closed more often than it is open, due to lack of staff. New centres that have capacity cannot open rooms due to low staff, and waitlist are hundreds long to get a spot.'

Annual data released by the Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority shows 13 per cent or 163 of the childcare centres in South Australia were rated as 'working towards' the National Quality Framework standards at the end of September 2022. If there are 163 childcare centres in South Australia alone that are currently not meeting the National Quality Standards, why isn't the government proposing solutions to support existing facilities and ensure they are providing high-quality education and care? The minister for early education recently said:

Anyone who really cares about Australian children and understands just how important good-quality education is for children in their formative years can't argue with the fact this is good for our children.

Unfortunately this statement assumes, as this bill assumes, that there is an adequate number of high-quality childcare providers and educators available in the first place. This is the heart of the problem. The expansion to 36 hours of care per fortnight for eligible Indigenous families, while positive, also doesn't account for the lack of childcare availability. Unfortunately, without increasing the number of childcare workers in both metropolitan and regional areas of our country, the danger is that children will have no greater access to early education than what is available to them right now.

And then, of course, there is the issue of out-of-pocket costs. The last time Labor was in government, childcare fees skyrocketed by 53 per cent in just six years. Out-of-pocket costs are already rising, and fees will likely rise before 1 July 2023, which may erode a significant proportion of the increased subsidies before they're even in place. During our time in government, we kept out-of-pocket costs low. The latest CPI data, from June 2022, showed that childcare costs came down 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022.

Labor has no plans to address the rising out-of-pocket costs or rising cost-of-living pressures in child care, and Australian families need relief now and, Deputy Speaker, you've seen and heard that in the emails that I've just read out to you. With early education costs set to increase under this government, Australian families deserve to know if they will really be better off under what is being proposed. It's time the government focused less on politics and more on a plan to ensure a strong economy that supports Australian workers and families and, unfortunately, one of the glaring omissions from this budget that we've just seen is a total lack of any plan to deal with the rising costs of living. And, from interest rates to power costs to gas costs, with high inflation, it's a very difficult situation for families and it hasn't been addressed properly.

Instead what we've got are inquiries. A further $10 million has been allocated for the ACCC to complete an inquiry on this issue, despite the fact that the findings of this inquiry are not scheduled to be announced until some six months after Labor's intended start date for this initiative. The concern is that the government has done no due diligence on this policy and next to no modelling to show what the outcomes of this policy will be, and it's deeply concerning to the people of regional Australia. The time for talking and inquiries is over. And I point out to those on the other side of the House that they may take great delight in blaming the now opposition—the former government—for everything, but I can tell them that the feedback that we're getting from around Australia is that the public are tired of it. They want the government to start taking responsibility for their actions. The public are not interested in the blame game. You're in government now, you've just had your budget and you need to start taking responsibility for your actions and stop passing the buck.

Stop having inquiries and start delivering policy on the issues that matter to Australians. Do something to address the chronic childcare labour shortages that Australians are crying out for you to do something about. You've heard that through the correspondence I have read to this House tonight. I urge those opposite to do something—to stop playing the blame game and take positive action to address this acute childcare and early education worker shortage that is affecting so many families around Australia. It's having a very detrimental impact, as you've heard in those emails from my electorate.

I urge all members to support the amendments moved by the member for Moncrieff and I again urge the government to take concrete steps to address the labour shortages in the childcare and early education sectors.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do want to thank the member for Calare for his contribution, as well as those emails that he read out. I wanted to offer him some assistance with responding to those emails. May I suggest that you put in the subject line 'I'm sorry'. 'I'm sorry I was part of a government that for nine years neglected this sector. I'm sorry that I failed to value our early childhood educators. I'm sorry I was part of a government that, as a key policy plank of ours, held wages down.' What's the best way of attracting people to an occupation? Increasing their wages. Not those in the opposition—they don't think that increasing wages is the best way to attract people to this profession.

So let's look at their record on this. They had an opportunity to support a pay rise for early childhood educators at the Fair Work Commission. They opposed it. They had nine years to try and improve access to TAFE, to skill up and train more educators. Instead, they gutted TAFE and left us to pick up the pieces. Right now they have the opportunity to help elevate wages in the sector through multi-employer bargaining, but guess what? They opposed that too. Yet those on the other side have suddenly woken up and discovered that there is a workforce shortage in our childcare sector! This did not spring up overnight. This did not spring up over the last few months since the election in May. This has been going on for years, and they did nothing about it.

I remember the day my son came home from child care and was rattling off the names of the planets that he had learnt. He was so excited to be learning about space, and I was delighted to see his love of learning. Early childhood education is vital for our kids. It introduces them to the wonders of the world and sets them up for life.

The Albanese Labor government is making early childhood education more affordable and accessible for 96 per cent of families with children in child care. It is the single biggest commitment we made in the budget. The child care subsidy will be lifted for all families earning less than $530,000. For example, a family on a combined income of $120,000 with one child in care will save $1,780 a year. After eight years of escalating costs—jumping up by 41 per cent over that period—finally families will get some financial relief. Our cheaper childcare measures are a $4.5 billion package, but I don't see it as a cost; it's an investment. It's an investment in the future of our kids and in the future of this country, because we know that, for every dollar spent on child care, we see $2 in benefits.

The research tells us that children who receive high-quality early education are more likely to enter primary school with the social, cognitive and emotional skills needed to succeed at school. I know this to be true because I saw it in my own son. Max started school this year, and he was ready to go. He had learnt his alphabet; he knew how to write his name and do basic maths. And that was because his early childhood educators had worked so hard to ensure he was ready for school. Last week, I had the opportunity to go back to my son's former childcare centre, Lighthouse in North Strathfield, to thank all the amazing staff there, from the centre director, to the early childhood educators, to Mr Anthony, the chef. They all had a part to play in my son growing, learning and thriving.

Of course, talking about access to early childhood education is just one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is our early childhood educators. We know that child care isn't about babysitting our kids; it's about educating them. I'm grateful to be part of an Albanese Labor government, who finally values and recognises the contribution that our early childhood educators make to our kids and our society. Our cheaper childcare bill is transformative. It's transformative for kids because it will give them access to quality early education. It's transformative for families, as parents will be able to return to work. And the increase in productivity will be transformative for our economy. I'm proud to be part of a government that is introducing this vital reform.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after "reading" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

the House:

(1) notes this bill only provides limited support for families that are currently paying exorbitant fees for early childhood education and care; and

(2) calls on the government to make early childhood education and care universal and free, and address the workforce crisis by ensuring educators receive better pay and conditions.

This bill provides some limited support to families that are currently paying high fees for early childhood education and care. We welcome that the new government is making the right noises about the fundamental importance of early childhood education and care for children's development, for families and for our society. But, realistically, this is only a very limited investment. Families will still be paying high fees, and many will continue to be locked out altogether. Early childhood education is just as important as primary or secondary education, yet we don't means test access to public schools. But, under Labor's plan, parents will still have to pay thousands of dollars to access what should be a universal right—not only that, but, by retaining the complex means-testing system, you also retain the perverse situation where it is often cheaper for one parent to quit work than to pay for child care, forcing often women to stay at home and leave work, even if they don't really want to.

At a broad level, this bill fails to address one of the major structural flaws in child care—that is, that an essential service like early childhood education is increasingly dominated by large for-profit providers. Corporations shouldn't be making a profit out of providing an essential service. Once again, we do not leave primary and secondary education to for-profit providers, so why is early education any different? We know that early childhood education costs have risen by 41 per cent over the last eight years. Australia is regularly near the bottom of global lists of wealthy countries on affordability for child care. In a UNICEF report released last year, Australia was ranked 34 out of 40 on affordability. Rather than spending $254 billion on the stage 3 tax cuts, we could have universal free child care at a fraction of the cost.

It's not that we just don't think this bill goes nearly far enough. In the Senate inquiry into this bill so far we have heard from a range of stakeholders—centres, peak bodies, advocacy groups and early childhood development experts—who agree this bill doesn't go nearly far enough to ensure that early childhood education and care is considered by the government as an essential service. This bill does not tackle the workforce crisis in early childhood education. Early childhood educators do extremely important work but have been underpaid and undervalued for far too long. We don't have to wait for the proposed Productivity Commission inquiry in two years time to know that early childhood education workers are underpaid and undervalued. The Greens will push the government to act immediately on workers' demands for better wages and conditions.

There are a range of ways this bill could be improved. I understand my colleague Senator Faruqi will elaborating on this in the Senate. One terrible aspect of this childcare policy is that retained in this bill is the activity test. The activity test—a classic coalition measure—restricts the amount of subsidised child care a family can receive, based on the number of hours they work, study or volunteer. The fewer the hours of activity, the less subsidised child care that household can access. It is estimated that at least 126,000 children are missing out on child care due to the activity test, and the majority of these children are from low-income families. The government should stop punishing low-income families with insecure work, who are most likely to miss out on child care, by getting rid of the activity test. That disastrous coalition policy deserves to be consigned to history.

We absolutely know what will fix child care, and that is: making it universal and free. It is absolutely affordable. We know we can afford it by scrapping the stage 3 tax cuts. And that's exactly what this government should do.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

ANANDA-RAJAH () (): The welcoming of a child into a family is a joyous experience. Families are brought together, dreams are fulfilled, gifts are given. But nothing really prepares you for it—the chaos, the exhaustion, the brain fog, the multitasking. The demands on families are relentless and mounting, and most of the care falls on the shoulders of the woman, the mother, who has to then balance raising a child with looking after other children and attending to household duties, while her career—or what is left of it—slowly ebbs away. Now, this story is familiar to millions and millions of Australian women, including me.

If it takes a village to raise a child, all I can say is: that village has disappeared from modern life. We simply don't have the help around us that we once did. Multigenerational families are the exception rather than the rule in our culture. It falls, then, on early childhood education and care to pick up that load, that slack. Child care is not a prop; it is a pillar—a pillar for so many families and for society at large.

So the blessing of children comes, unfortunately, with a trade-off, and that trade-off has lived in the shadows for too long. For the mother, the motherhood penalty is very real. And it is insidious; it creeps up on you; you don't even realise it's happening—until, as I said in my maiden speech, ambition is dimmed until it's snuffed out altogether. And the effect is compounding. The effect on the individual spells less job security; career progression that effectively stalls, in some cases; less pay; less super; fewer assets; and, in later life, increased vulnerability. In other words, women in their older years are less resilient to the shocks in life, whether they be illness, relationship breakdown or worse.

For the nation, the effect is also significant. What we have is a denial of talent and of the energy that women bring to the table.

We are reaping, unfortunately, nine years of neglect of this entire policy piece of work. Those opposite deprioritised women. Women were airbrushed out of the economic narrative. Those opposite stood by, hands in pockets, watching childcare costs balloon—a whopping 41 per cent in eight years. This was felt acutely in my electorate of Higgins. Why? Because Higgins actually has the highest childcare fees in Victoria. That is according to a study by the Mitchell institute, Victoria University, that was published this year. It has the highest childcare fees. This weighs like a millstone around the necks of my constituents and my families.

Debate interrupted.