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

Thank you, Senator McLucas, I will take that. For the Hansard record Senator McLucas did indicate that she didn’t doubt that I spoke to those people out in the communities and I thank her for that.

The lady who was in charge of the childcare centre had 15 years experience in this centre and was working 12-hour to 13-hour days and had an amazing connection with and a real love for these children that she was looking after. It was a brilliantly run centre. Yet she has no formal qualifications, so she is in this limbo land at the moment—and I am sure there are many senators, even on the other side of the chamber, who would agree with me that this is an issue that needs to be addressed—of not knowing if she is going to have a job next year, if she is going to be able to apply for an exemption and how it is all going to work. I think we need to be very clear as to what we hear from government about how this situation is going to be managed, because we all support improving quality but we have got to be practical and realistic in how we deliver that improved quality. So we will certainly be listening very closely to the government as to how those exemptions are going to be applied and how that is going to impact on those childcare centres.

The National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care is going to put increased pressure on families. That is very disappointing for people out in our communities, particularly those in our regional communities, when what they need is assistance. They need things to be made easier and not harder. The cut to the childcare rebate is going to affect about 20,700 families. While the government have all the arguments up their sleeve about why this is a good thing, it is interesting to note that Childcare Alliance Australia has indicated, from the work that they have done, that about 74 per cent of parents will have some difficulty in meeting the $13 to $22 a day extra cost that is going to be put on their families.

That is something that we really need to be very aware of. If we allow things to get more difficult for our families in terms of being able to access child care then it is going to be harder for parents to return to the workforce, to manage that juggling between work and family. I think many of us in this place know that juggling between work and family, and it is certainly not something that relates only to this place. Families right across the country are having to balance their work commitments with their family commitments. Many choose to do it and many have to do it, but we in this place have to be very mindful of that and we need to be mindful that any of the decisions that the government takes and any of the policies that the government wants to put in place through legislation should be of benefit to those families. There should not be policies that are going to make things more difficult. Increasing the costs, so making it more difficult to access those childcare places, is by any stretch of the imagination a step backwards for those families.

I and many others in this place including, I am sure, Senator Hanson-Young, who is down at the other end of the chamber, have all faced the issue of having children in child care. It is vitally important that we get it right. On that basis, the coalition certainly believes that the government should reconsider the national quality framework to put some practical common sense into it, to put some realism into the requirements of that framework. As I said, we are all supportive of improving quality right throughout the childcare sector, but it has got to be sensibly done. There have got to be measures that improve opportunities for families and parents and in the meantime do not place a greater burden, an unnecessary burden, on the operation of childcare centres. We certainly believe that indexation should be reinstated immediately. To cut indexation simply to find some money to be able to fund the national quality framework, given that this government has wasted billions and billions of dollars, is simply absurd and quite abhorrent to many of the Australian families out there in the community.

It is interesting to note as to that national quality framework that the bill has not yet been passed but apparently Centrelink has already enacted the reduced rebate, which means a lowering of those dollars being paid to parents. It is really quite extraordinary, and I stand to be corrected if that is not the case but I do understand that indeed it is the case, that the government would move to have Centrelink do that before the legislation has actually been passed. I am sure colleagues on the other side will correct me if I am wrong about that. If I am right, I think it is an extraordinarily arrogant act of government to move down that path, to enact this before this place has even had the opportunity to deal with the legislation.

As for the bill before us and the related childcare measures, the government made promises before the 2007 election that they simply have not kept. The government said that they would make child care more affordable. We can see from the fact that the rebate is being cut that that is simply not the case. There is no way anyone can argue with that. Before the election they said they were going to make child care more affordable. Now they have cut the rebate, which is going to make it harder. Senator Williams, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that is going to make it more difficult for families.