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

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. It is available to cover a percentage of the out-of-pocket expenses associated with approved child care. The aim is to assist parents who are working, studying or undertaking training by providing that extra financial assistance that they need. It covers 50 per cent of those out-of-pocket expenses.

Before the last election the coalition committed to change the payments, which currently happen quarterly, to weekly payments. We certainly believe that a weekly payment is going to be far more beneficial for families who are struggling, as many of them are, to meet the costs of child care. It certainly seemed appropriate and the right thing to do to support the move to have that rebate paid weekly. This is about affordable and accessible child care for parents. It is interesting to see—and the coalition is very pleased that the government has followed our lead—that this bill requires the change in those payment to a weekly or fortnightly arrangement. The bill says it can be either a weekly or fortnightly arrangement because that depends on whether the childcare centres’ reporting is weekly or fortnightly. The majority are done weekly.

The rebate under this bill can also be paid directly to the provider. That is an option that has not been available before and one that we support in terms providing assistance to those childcare providers. Of course, if those parents choose to have the rebate come directly to them, that will continue to be the default mechanism and the rebate will still go to those parents. It is about helping parents. It is about ensuring that they have ease of access to that funding mechanism from the government. As I said, we support that from the government and we are supportive of that aspect of the bill.

It is interesting that this legislation to ease the way these payments happen for parents is actually even more necessary for parents because of the government’s changes to the childcare rebate. What we have seen them do recently, through a bill that was debated here recently and is still before the Senate, is to decrease the childcare rebate from $7,778 down to $7,500. The government has also cut the indexation for that rebate completely.

I did make some comments in the last sitting around that bill on that aspect. I certainly believe it shows that this government is out of touch with the needs of families out there in our communities, particularly our regional communities. What we have seen from this government is a cutting of the rebate through that other legislation and taking away the indexation completely. This government should be doing more to assist families with their childcare costs and childcare expenses. They should be making it easier, not making it harder. Parents will welcome this speedier mechanism for that childcare rebate because at least it will be one thing—one very small thing admittedly—that will assist to ease some of their childcare burden.

I know many of our families out there in the communities have been quite astounded by the fact that the government would actually move to cut the childcare rebate. I know many families in regional areas were quite furious that the government would move to cut that. When the government talks about assisting families and assisting working families and then turn around, drop the rebate and cut the indexation simply just does not make sense if this government really believes that families need to be better assisted.

The government has said that $86.3 million will be saved by those changes that it has made. The government claim that they need that funding to fund the national quality framework. It seems quite extraordinary that this government would be identifying funding that is going to make it more difficult for parents to fund the national quality framework, especially when you compare it to some of the waste and mismanagement that we have seen under this government. It was $81.9 million that has been wasted by this government administering an emissions trading scheme that does not even exist. It is no wonder that families out in our communities are at least perplexed and probably at worst furious with this government where they need to strip $80 million off families by lowering their payments for the childcare rebate when they have wasted around the same amount of money administering an emissions trading scheme that does not even exist.

If this government had any ability at all to manage the economy properly we would not need to see that cut in those childcare rebates to go towards funding the national quality framework. We only have to look at things like the pink batts debacle, the Home Insulation Program—$2.4 billion that has been wasted and mismanaged in that program. Yet here is the government ripping $80 million away from Australian working families to pay for another program because they have wasted and mismanaged so much money in other areas. We only have to look at things like the BER, the school halls, the Building the Education Revolution, Madam Acting Deputy President Fisher. I know you have been very focused on that and making sure that people out there in the Australian community are aware of the waste and mismanagement. It is about a $1.7 billion blow-out on the school halls program. Yet here we have the government—