Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I feel sorry for Senator Galllacher that he has to stand up and defend the merits of Prime Minister Gillard's so-called empathy with women and, in particular, mothers as to the difficulties that they have and choices that they have to make in weighing up how they remain in the workforce and balance that with childcare and working considerations.

I say that because it was only last sitting week here in question time that Senator Bob Carr chose to impugn me as a mother and hide behind my children in deflecting a question, in deflecting scrutiny of his portfolio. Rather than answer a very direct question, he sought to hide behind my children and directed extraordinary criticism and abuse at me as a mother. I raised this with the Prime Minister to seek a qualification of those comments, her support for the institution of motherhood and an explanation of how that related to the development of policy. The Prime Minister not only did not respond to that directly but had an adviser write to me to say it had nothing whatsoever to do with her and it was a matter for the Senate if there was concern that one of her cabinet ministers was impugning another senator as a mother. So, Senator Gallacher, I have great sympathy for you because, if the Prime Minister is not prepared to stand up for women not only in this place but around the country, I do not think we can hold out much hope for the policies she implements in relation to child care.

That question in question time went to the fact that the National Quality Framework smacked of policy on the run and sniffing the breeze. This issue was hurting the government, certainly in the electorate of Chisholm, where I had a huge number of parents come to me seeking advice as to how they should deal with the implications of a National Quality Framework which not only increases their costs in providing child care for their kids but in many instances reduces the availability of childcare places on the ground. That is essentially what we are talking about here. It is choice that families are seeking. They need to be given choices so they can balance the very difficult life, work and family decisions that they have to make.

In every policy decision that the government have made since the last federal election we have witnessed policy on the run—not, as Senator Cash rightly pointed out this morning, based on deep-seated principle but based purely on what they believe the electorate wants to hear. It has a political basis; it is not based on any principle. This is yet another example of that. It does not take a chartered accountant to ascertain that, if you reduce from one to four to one to five the ratio of staff members to children, and at the same time increase the academic requirements of staff, it is going to increase the cost for providers of providing childcare places and therefore reduce or eliminate the choices that families have. I applaud the Leader of the Opposition's announcement that if and when we come to government—and I hope for all families that it is sooner rather than later—this approach will be explored by the Productivity Commission. (Time expired)