Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, it is a great pleasure to congratulate you on your election to the position of President. I thank Senator Seselja for his question. I think in the last sitting period I updated the Senate on the Department of Education quarterly data which showed that childcare fees over the six-year term of the previous Labor government had risen by 53 per cent, an absolutely extraordinary legacy that was left to the coalition to clean up. The senator has asked about a very important matter, which is: why have childcare fees increased by such an extraordinary amount in such a short period of time? As those on this side of the House well know, one of the major factors leading to those sorts of fee increases in business is an ever-increasing red tape and regulatory burden. The strangling of our economy that had been caused by those opposite has hit the childcare sector as well; it is no exception.

We can see firsthand the impact of that obsession with red tape and regulation. The National Quality Framework—Labor's national quality framework—imposed around 1,000 pages of laws, regulations and guidelines on childcare services. They smothered those organisations and extraordinarily increased their administrative burdens. In fact, a report by the National Regulator into the NQF found that the ongoing cost to administer the 1,000 pages of new laws and regulations was upwards of $140,000 a year for a long-day-care service with 75 places and 15 staff. How can you possibly be expected to do business in that environment, and to look after children properly as well—that obviously being the focus of the entire operation—when the National Regulator determined that that was the case, and when providers around Australia, like Little Cottage Preschool in Penrith—which might be familiar to some of those opposite—have said exactly the same thing? (Time expired)