Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Minister, in 2006 Labor made a commitment to building 260 new long day care centres in areas of need—25,000 places, 100 places per centre. Why then did the budget provide for only 38 early learning and childcare centres, with an average of 50 places per centre and, therefore, a maximum of 1,900 childcare places? Can the minister explain why the Rudd government’s childcare policy is now essentially the same as the previous government’s, which proposed 35 childcare centres? Can the minister explain what has happened to the missing 222 centres and the 22,000 places that should have been in that budget?