Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in opposition to Abbott government's harsh and cruel cuts to the early childhood sector in this country, and I do so from the really fine record of the Labor government's achievement in this area. In fact, the Labor government has been the only government in the history of child care in this country to really look at not only access and affordability but also quality education and care for Australia's young children, one of the most vulnerable age groups in our community, those children between the ages of nought and six who attend long day care, family day care and occasional care services in our country every working day of the week.

Labor's record is a proud record. We came to government with a policy about early childhood education and care. One of the very first things the Labor government did was to increase affordability for families by taking the childcare rebate, the non-means-tested rebate, and increasing it from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. So Labor's record in terms of families using early childhood education and care is there on the record.

But we did not stop there. We went further. For the first time ever not only did we promote the workforce participation of primary carers—and in this case, usually women—we also looked at the brain development and what young children in early childhood education and care needed. The academic research is very, very clear that the optimal brain development is in the first three years. So Labor did a number of other things and, not only that, Labor did that in consultation with all of the states and territories and with the agreement of all sorts of different governments across this country, who all agreed through the COAG process that it was time to really put a focus on early childhood education and care in this country.

Not only did Labor do that in consultation with state and territory governments, but Labor also went out and had community consultations across the country. Every state and every territory had a range of consultations during the day and in the evenings so that the community both educators, those working in the early childhood education and care sector, parents, owners and operators, were able to have their say about the sorts of reforms that Labor felt were necessary for the early childhood education and care sector in this country.

We did that through phasing in those changes. One of the first things we did to take advantage of that early brain development was to introduce an Early Years Learning Framework to standardise the sorts of development opportunities for early childhood centres to participate in across the country. I would have to say that I took part in those consultations and they were really, really well received by the sector. The sector felt that the Early Years Learning Framework was something that would positively assist the development of the experiences that young children were receiving in early childhood centres.

Labor did not stop there. We then embarked on looking at the ratios. Prior to Labor coming into government, if you were a carer in Tasmania compared to, say, a carer or an educator in Western Australia and you were in the under-twos, in Tasmania you were expected to care for five babies—one educator to five babies. So one of the things Labor did very early on was to standardise those ratios—because why should children in Tasmania have poor ratios when children in Western Australia were enjoying a ratio of four babies to one educator? With the agreement of states and territories, Labor moved federally to reduce ratios and to improve them across the country. Again, there was consultation with the states and territories, consultation with the community and a phased in approach which is still going on as we speak.

Labor has a proud record when it comes to early childhood education and care in this sector. What we know about early childhood education and care in this sector is that around 70 per cent of centres are run by a single operator or operators who operate one or two centres—and these are private operators—and around 30 per cent of the long day care sector is run by community organisations. We then turned to what the Abbott government, when it was in opposition, looked to do in terms of a policy. You would have to look really hard because it does not really have a policy. In fact, what we saw was a lot of chatter and a lot of rhetoric by Mr Abbott when in opposition and, indeed, from Susan Ley when she was the opposition spokesperson on early childhood education and care. They seemed to be focused on two areas. One was cost to families, and, yes, cost to families should always be at the forefront of our considerations.

But what the Abbott government did when in opposition was simply blame Labor for increasing costs when it acknowledged that it is a market. Child care in this country is a market, and it is up to those single operators to determine the price. Interestingly, the then opposition supported private business but did not seem to understand that child care in our country is largely a private business. In opposition and in government the coalition promotes competition but does not seem to promote competition in the early childhood space. In fact, they seem to ignore it.

We saw the Abbott government do two things. It does not have a comprehensive policy on early childhood education and care. It flicked early childhood education and care off to a Productivity Commission inquiry. In doing so, it completely abrogated its responsibilities in relation to early childhood education and care in this country. It flicked a report off to the Productivity Commission and asked the Productivity Commission to look at how to make child care more accessible and more affordable. I am not quite sure why a government would abrogate its responsibilities to the Productivity Commission, but that is what it has done. A draft report is due out soon. The final report is due out sometime in October. But, as we know, it is really up to the government as to when that report sees the light of day. Given that October is getting towards the end of the year, I doubt—although I would like to be found wrong on this—that the report will see the public light of day until early next year because the government does not have to do anything at all. The release of the final report is clearly in the government's camp, so let's see how long it will take them to release the final report.

The other thing Mr Abbott did prior to the election was write to every childcare service in the country complaining about the high cost of child care. Yet what we have seen this government do in the budget, for the first time in our history and for the first time in the history of early childhood education and care in this country, is attack the childcare benefit. The childcare benefit is paid to low-income families—it is a means tested rebate—because families right across our community need child care to enable parents to go to work. But the government has chosen, for the first time ever, to cap the upper limit of the childcare benefit. That will deliver a very significant saving to the government. During Senate estimates I tried to get some response from the government about what that money—that savings measure of over $200 million—was going to be used for. All they could tell me was that it would go into general revenue into the childcare space. But they had no targeted plan about helping very low income families into child care—nothing, complete silence.

In relation to the affordability question, which for some strange reason the government has lumped on the Productivity Commission, it seems—and you hear this in their rhetoric every day—that they like the Australian community to believe that somehow Labor failed to address the increasing costs of child care and somehow it was our fault. The government is trying to paint a picture that shows it can control the costs of child care, even though child care is largely a private market in Australia. So in Senate estimates I asked Ms Wilson, one of the department officials, about this and she said:

The market is the market; we do not intervene in the market.

So here we have, seemingly, a direct contradiction from Mr Abbott, the Prime Minister, and Ms Ley, the minister for early childhood, implying that somehow they can control the market, when their very own department, in Senate estimates, says very clearly that the department does not intervene in the market. So let's see what rabbit Mr Abbott pulls out of the hat once we get the Productivity Commission inquiry report sometime in the future.

The other interesting piece about the Productivity Commission inquiry increase is that, in opposition, Mr Abbott was very, very clear that he wanted to take the envelope that is currently available for childcare benefit and childcare rebate and ask the Productivity Commission how to stretch it even further. At the time, Labor warned that doing that would mean costs would increase for parents.

We do not even have the final Productivity Commission report. We do not know what ideas the Productivity Commission report is going to include. But we already see the Abbott government increasing costs for the users of child care in our community by capping the childcare benefit. That means that as parents' income increases and they go beyond the cap they will no longer be eligible for childcare benefit. And the government has extended the cap on the childcare rebate. So there are huge savings that the Abbott government are making at the expense of working families in our country. That is absolute hypocrisy.

We have a government that has no plan for child care, despite what it said in opposition—no plan at all, except its referral of the whole matter to the Productivity Commission. You would have to ask why it didn't wait. Why did the government choose, during the budget, to really hit working families through the changes it has made to the childcare benefit scheme and to the recapping of the childcare rebate? We will see market costs continue to increase in child care. NATSEM has a report out this morning that shows it is barely affordable for low-income families to work. We had figures quoted where the primary caregiver—usually the woman—earns as little as $3.45 an hour. It demonstrates how critically important it is for both parents in a family to be working—or, indeed, to have one parent working—when women, in the main, are working for as little as $3.45 an hour and they still need that very low hourly rate to contribute, to try to balance their family budget. Mr Abbott has made it much harder for those families to make ends meet. Never mind all of the other harsh and cruel outcomes for families in the recent budget, like the $7 GP tax and all of the other imposts that families are going to suffer in our country. In the one area where we had some certainty the government has now created uncertainty. Those low-income families will be very concerned about losing their childcare benefit and the childcare rebate, that it will not be able to sustain them for the whole 12 months that they need child care.

The NATSEM report goes even further. It reports—and this has been known for a while, too—that the childcare rebate benefits those families at the top end of the income scales, those who are more able to afford care. What will this mean for families? It means they will probably cut back on using quality early childhood education and care, so vital for the development of their children. We will see cutbacks. We may see a greater use of unregulated backyard care. That is certainly not good for families. It would be a terrible decision for working families to have to make. I am sure that we will see, where grandparents are available, a greater impost on grandparents to take up the caring responsibilities.

Is it the response of the Abbott government to say to families, 'You're on your own'? Time and time again I have heard in this place the government saying that it is the responsibility of states to provide education and health, and on and on it goes. Obviously the Abbott government has taken that to a new low by saying to families, 'Actually, the responsibility for early childhood education and care is yours and yours alone, because we are interfering with the childcare benefit, and while we are at it we are going to cap the childcare rebate.' They are doing this almost on the eve that the draft report of the Productivity Commission inquiry is due out. Why would a government do that? For two reasons. One, they demonstrate very clearly their complete misunderstanding of the early childhood sector in this country. Two, they are so intent on making budget savings that they do not really care where they come from. Attacking the lowest paid in our community by this move on the childcare benefit is really a disgraceful act. It is quite disgraceful.

It is hypocritical, too, given that the Productivity Commission, as we speak, is looking at accessibility of affordable care. What a mockery that is, when the Abbott government has now made care more expensive. Do we now have an addendum to the Productivity Commission? 'Oh, by the way, can you look at what we've done in the budget and include that in your recommendations?' At the eleventh hour they are suddenly changing the whole of the Productivity Commission inquiry, because we have a whole new rule applying to childcare benefit, that the Productivity Commission may or may not have the time to take into account. But, given the draft report is out shortly, I doubt that it will be able to.

As I said, the Prime Minister personally wrote to all centres about the impact of capping the childcare rebate—that is something Labor did—saying that it would mean increasing out-of-pocket costs for families. Yet in the budget we see that the Abbott government has done just that. What hypocrisy. What hypocrisy to say on the one hand, before the election, so desperate to win votes, that somehow they could control a market which their own department says they cannot, that they could somehow try and hoodwink parents into thinking that the government could control the costs. Parents know full well, because it is parents who are fronting up to services in this country every day of the week, who are forking out greater and greater amounts of out-of-pocket expenses, thanks to the Abbott government. They know the truth. Mr Abbott and his minister, Ms Ley, will not come out and say the truth, but families experiencing those rising costs will know every day of the week—will know very clearly—who increased their out-of-pocket expenses. They will know it was the Abbott government who, before the election, in a hypocritical way, tried to pretend something quite different.

So I do not know how long Australian families are going to have to wait before we see a comprehensive, detailed plan and policy from the Abbott government, maybe never. Their record in this area is really poor. They went to the election with a promise they certainly could not keep, and we have seen an absolute breaking of that promise by this move on the childcare benefit which will impact low-income families. The Abbott government is no friend of families; that is for sure. Not only will they increase childcare costs but will also increase a whole range of things that families have taken for granted such as visits to the doctor. This is absolute hypocrisy from the government which clearly does not care about the early childhood education and care sector.