Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to that we are onto this bill, and may I remind the committee just where we left off. We were examining some of the claims made by the then minister on duty, Senator Farrell, in his less-than-stoic defence in justifying this bill, which will, may I remind you, Madam Temporary Chairman, make it harder for families to afford child care. In his defence of the bill, Senator Farrell—and I am sure, Senator Collins, you will echo this in the talking points you have been given—said that the government took it to an election and that that somehow justifies its implementation or gives it a mandate, if you will. I heard Senator Birmingham, Senator Macdonald, Senator Nash and others detailing why this statement simply cannot stand with any legitimacy.

At the last election, the Australian people were reminded multiple times by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as well as the member for Lilley, the Treasurer, Mr Swan, that there would be no carbon tax introduced under a government that they were part of. The Australian people were promised that time and time again. They were told there would be a citizens assembly to reach a consensus on climate change. They were told again and again that there were would be a cash-for-clunkers scheme. I have said to this Senate already that the biggest clunkers are the government themselves.

The Australian people were never told front and centre in any significant public forum or in any serious policy announcement that there was going to be a restriction on their ability to access child care. If any platitudes were mouthed in this area, it was about how the government was going to make child care more accessible and more affordable. It was about doing all of those sorts of things. There was no suggestion of such a claim in Prime Minister Gillard's then unscripted statements—I wish Hansard could pick up sarcasm, because that is what I mean by 'unscripted'; it was another downright misleading untruth—at the national launch of the Labor campaign. I do not recall Prime Minister Gillard saying, 'We are going to set a cap for the childcare rebate at $7,500 per annum and suspend the indexation of that rebate until 2014.' I do not recall that. I look to be reminded of the exact words that Ms Gillard said at the national campaign launch, for which we were all glued to our seats because she was speaking as the real Julia rather than the fake Julia, without any notes except the notes there were actually on the podium and only exposed later on.

Senator Birmingham interjecting—

It could well have been the 'fake real Julia' or the 'real fake Julia' as Senator Birmingham said. What we do know is the real damage this legislation will cause families. There are 20,700 families by the coalition's estimates, and more according to the Greens, who will be affected by this legislation. Do you think they are going to feel uplifted and benefited by this? I do not think so. What is the purpose of it? This government has misspent so much of the taxpayers' money. It has squandered it. It has thrown it around like the proverbial drunken sailor—and that is an insult to sailors, and I apologise to them—and this bill is going to save a paltry $86 million over four years by making it harder for Australian families.

Now I know it is very easy for members of the Labor Party to be removed from the day-to-day realities of life when they have slush funds and union funds to draw upon through credit cards and a whole range of things like that, but I feel it is my responsibility to remind those on the other side of the chamber, those in the government, that Australian families are doing it tough; they are doing it very tough. Sometimes they are forced to have both parents out at work and so we have this sentiment that child care is an important part of empowering families to be able to make ends meet, yet it is not without flaws, and I have said this repeatedly. Institutionalised child care is something we should be mindful of; it is not always the best option for families. But, nonetheless, it is there and it deserves the support of the taxpayers of Australia.

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—

I take that point, Senator Hanson-Young. I absolutely agree with you. Some people do not have much choice, and I am about giving people choices in this area—I really am. I do not want to see us railroaded down one particular route where people are unable to access other forms of child care, including being able to afford to have a parent stay at home. It is a wonderful sacrifice, and I said that in my first speech. But I make the point that this bill also reduces the incentives for family day care centres and things of that nature to start up. It removes the benefits and the incentives, and that deprives people of choice. Senator Hanson-Young and I would not agree on every aspect of choice and every aspect of life—that would be an understatement of great proportions. But for somebody to be right somebody has to be wrong as well, and we can have that debate at some other time.

The point is that, with something as valuable to our future generations as caring for them, we want to make that care as amenable and as successful as possible. I recall that Senator Farrell said the government was going to spend $20 billion in this expanded area, but there is a legitimate concern that if you are going to spend $20 billion—20,000 million dollars, money that the government clearly does not have; it is going to borrow it—why are we trying to save this relatively paltry $86 million over four years? It would hardly pay the booze bill at the Lodge. Some 20,000 families will face a cap on their childcare rebate, with no chance of any increase whatsoever over the next four years. That strikes me as the wrong approach to take.

I know the Labor Party are desperate to claim some fiscal credibility but I think we are going to have to accept that they should wash their hands of that ambition—any credibility they may have had is just not going to be resurrected. Even with Labor's own personal desire to reclaim power at any cost, why would anyone penalise families? This is just a sense of social justice. I do not think I have used that term before, ever, but it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable that Australian families who are already doing it so very tough can be affected in this way. I think we have to agree on that, and I will look for an acknowledgement in Senator Collins's response that Australian families are doing it very tough. They are doing it very tough, particularly with food prices going up, electricity costs rising enormously and job security decreasing in the current environment, as we saw yesterday with the 1,000 jobs being lost from the BlueSteel plant.

As well, we have these great threats of additional imposts—the first of which is the mineral resource rent tax or whatever its latest incarnation is. It will divert investment in this country and suck money out of the productive economy into perhaps the most unproductive government we have ever seen. I remind the Senate and the good people of Australia that the government swore that the carbon tax would never be introduced until there was community consensus. Of course there is always community consensus for the Labor Party because if you disagree with them you are labelled a crank or an extremist or irrelevant or something like that. We heard about the convoy of no consequence—they are all very good at platitudes and sayings and demeaning others, but the fact is this: the government promised not to introduce a carbon tax and now one has been introduced and is likely to get up. That is going to put increasing pressure on Australian families. I think Senator Collins knows instinctively that this is a tax on electricity. I do not know whether she has tried to spend a day without electricity, but I cannot imagine it would be very pleasant. I deliver meals on wheels and I see people who struggle to pay the bills to heat their homes, particularly in winter. It is dreadfully disappointing to see people forced into circumstances where they have to sit with blankets on them rather than have the heater on. I guess there are some who are a obeying the government's propaganda to cuddle your pet rather than turn the heating on. That strikes me as unusual because many pensioners and families out there who are doing it tough can hardly afford to feed themselves so I do not know how they can afford to feed a pet they can cuddle to keep them warm, as the government propaganda suggests. But that is another topic. What we are establishing here is that families are doing it extraordinarily tough, not only with the price of food and electricity but also with the normal utilities. Labor administrations around the country are ramping up prices and taxes—whatever they see they try to grab and spend. Unfortunately this government is no different. I will be the first to acknowledge that fiscal prudence is a virtue in any government and that there need to be effective measures to cut costs, waste and spending, particularly in a spendthrift government like this. But there also need to be priorities. Priorities, in my view, should revolve around the primacy of the family. You do not disable or disempower families by restricting their options and availability for such paltry sums. To the men and women of Australia, $86 million over four years is a lot of money. In terms of the waste under this government it is not, but to the men and women of Australia it is a lot of money, and they are concerned that this government is wasting billions and yet trying to penalise them for that $86 million. It might not seem much when it rolls off the tongue of Senator Farrell and others that it is only $8 or $9 a week. That is notwithstanding the fact that—

Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—

Senator Collins, maybe you can answer this question. The other analysis done by industry experts suggests that it is somewhere between $12 and $23 a week. Rather than the lines that were just given back to me, I would be interested in the justification for why no serious, competent analysis was done other than the single scenario that was put forward by Access Economics which said Australian families would be $8 a week worse off. As I said, $8 a week does not sound much when you are wasting billions, but $8 a week can mean the difference between having a full belly and not having a full belly. It is the difference between receiving a Meals on Wheels delivery one day and not receiving one another day.

These are the sorts of issues that Australians are worried about and yet they see a government that does not seem to care. This is a real problem. It is a government that sees no real cause for concern about tomorrow with what they are starting. Every time you create a snowball and you push it down a hill, it gets bigger and bigger. And their disasters keep getting bigger and bigger.

There were a number of submissions on this that said that the cost of child care will continue to rise from the national quality agenda measures which will quite simply increase overheads for childcare centres. Even some unions have said that without alternative allocation of funding the proportion of affected families will certainly increase over subsequent years.

Senator Collins, I know you probably were not paying attention to the debate before but I want to remind you of the scenario we were dealing with and the picture that had been painted. Quite frankly, I was very disappointed in the responses I got on the serious concerns of Australian families. I really would like to know why there was no additional modelling undertaken. I would like to know how saving $86 million and penalising families that need and rely on this support is in our national interest given that you are squandering billions of dollars elsewhere. Senator Collins, this is the challenge for you: come clean on the broadcast. Come clean with the Australian people. Let them know exactly why you are adding an $8 a week burden to their childcare costs now and why it is going to rise further in the future. Also, please explain to them how you can justify this given that you are going to be slugging them with a terrible carbon tax that will increase the cost of almost everything else they use. Might I remind you that that was a tax that you went to the last election, as did your entire team, promising never to introduce. While you are at it, you could explain why the Australian people should be able to rely on what you tell them now when it has been so demonstrably apparent that they cannot rely on anything else this government has ever said.