Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

There are a few points there, and some of the points that Senator Bernardi made, that I will address. Some were a bit broader than his specific question going to understanding how the savings actually worked. Senator Bernardi pointed out that when his children were in care it was very expensive then. Indeed, I recall that, possibly about the same period of time. This brings me again to highlight that the cost to families or households by this government's measures have been brought down from 13 per cent to seven per cent. Senator Nash knows this. Senator Nash also knows that if we are committed to a national quality framework, which I remind her is a COAG measure with all states and territories committing to improve quality, then it is incumbent on a fiscally responsible government to look to savings to address those measures. We cannot just sit here with a $70 billion black hole, as is the case in the direct action measures. We do need to look at responsible savings. This government has found these savings and proposed these savings. They have been on the record now for a good 12 months. There is nothing new or astounding in them. The impact on families is relatively limited.

However, this debate has also conflated the impact of these savings measures on the 0.9 per cent of families with incomes less than $100,000 per year who are utilising this assistance up to the cap level and will not receive further than the cap, with the costs associated with the National Quality Framework. I think I need to address that in a bit more detail, since Senator Bernardi raised the Access Economics material. Independent economic modelling from Access Economics, commissioned by COAG, indicates that the expected impact of the national quality framework on any cost increase will be moderate. A family on $80,000 a year would expect to pay an additional out-of-pocket cost—and I stress that: out-of-pocket cost, not fees—of 57c per week in 2010-11, rising to $8.67 per week by 2014-15 for one child who attends full-time care, and we have been through previously how most children attend roughly two days per week of care. The most extreme example of a child who attends full-time care per week is that, going out to the out year of 2014-15, the cost would rise to $8.67 per week.

As I said to Senator Nash yesterday anecdotally, I am yet to meet a family with children in care, particularly a child under the age of two, that would not be prepared to pay a marginally additional amount of money to ensure they had a better carer-child ratio. The national quality framework measure is delivering that. Families are not meeting those costs on their own. Families will receive additional childcare support through the childcare rebate and the childcare benefit for additional costs they face, and the critical figure is what the out-of-pocket costs would be. The most extreme example in the final out year is $8.67 per week for a child in full-time care. That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about figures such as those bandied around today and previously, the $22 per day; we are talking about $8.67 per week to ensure measures such as a child-carer ratio of one to four, rather than one to five, is delivering better quality care to our children.