Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

There is a bit of squabbling from the other side and I do not want to raise my voice, but while they are trying to interject I make the point that the Howard government has tripled the spending on child care compared with Labor. We now invest three times as much as they decided to invest in child care, which is estimated at around $11 billion to be spent over the next four years. The number of approved childcare places has doubled from 300,000 in 1996 to 615,000 today. The facts of the matter are that childcare fees rose at twice the rate under Labor as they have under us, Labor provided only half the level of funding and places that are provided currently, Labor did not release a childcare benefit and they did not provide the childcare tax rebate. Under Labor, mothers did not get too many options for returning to work or getting support for child care. There were record levels of unemployment, people were paying 17 per cent on their mortgage and it was extremely difficult even to have a job.