Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, I will take that interjection, Senator Williams—the mining tax, the car tax. We did notice that they managed to get rid of the cash for clunkers though, didn’t they, in amongst all of this tax business? Cash for clunkers—there was another brilliant policy idea from the government! All this ties into the bad management and bad policy decisions that are being made by this government. The bill that we are talking about today, the  Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Budget Measures) Bill 2010, is yet another bad policy decision being made by this government. In simple terms, to anybody listening around the country, to anybody that is paying attention right now, this childcare bill is going to make things tougher for working families in Australia, not easier. It is this Labor government that is going to make things tougher for Australian families through this bill. That is just unacceptable. The very people the government should be helping by assisting them with their childcare costs, by helping them with a rebate, have had this government turn its back on them. This government is making it harder.

I would pretty much bet, and I think I am pretty safe in betting this one, that every single family that has children, or a child, in child care is going to look at this legislation and say: ‘What on earth is the government doing? Why are they making it tougher for me?’ It is hard enough with the rising costs of living—electricity prices, fuel costs and the cost of education—particularly in regional areas, where things are much tougher for people in terms of accessing services and where costs are much higher than in the cities. They are going to look at this government and say: ‘What are they doing? Why are they making it harder for us? I need to have my children,’ or my child, ‘in child care. Why are they coming up with this piece of legislation to make it even harder for me?’ Now that is just not on. This government has no idea about the needs of families in this country and this piece of legislation proves it. How can they possibly say with any credibility that they are for working families when a piece of legislation like this is going to hurt those very working families that they say they support? It is just ridiculous. It is yet another case of this government having absolutely no idea of the needs of Australian families. It is about time they started listening to the Australian people, started paying attention. Maybe one-day, colleagues, they could come up with a substantive bit of policy that is not going to hurt Australian families like this piece of legislation is going to do. We do not agree with it. We oppose it. This Labor government should be making things easier for working families and not harder.