Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Lindgren for her question, which of course reflects her very strong interest, as a former teacher, in child care, early learning and all forms of education. The government's significant childcare reforms, a $40 billion childcare package and more than $3 billion of additional investment, are designed to make the system simpler, more affordable and more flexible for parents, for children and for childcare providers. The system will become simpler because we are proposing to turn three different payment arrangements into one childcare subsidy arrangement, a simple system for parents to access that will ensure all parents can readily and easily understand the type of support for accessing child care and early learning that they can access. It will become more affordable thanks to the increased investment that our government is proposing in child care.

We will ensure that families who need it most get the most support to access child care to be able to balance their work and family obligations. Those families earning between $65,000 and $170,000 will be, on average, $30 per week better off thanks to our childcare reforms. That is some $1,500 per annum better off for those families to be able to get to work, participate in the workforce and manage to juggle their work and family obligations by accessing our childcare services. We will make sure that there is an appropriate safety net in place for the most vulnerable so that we can have confidence that early learning opportunities will still be available to children in low-income families and that all four-year-olds, through preschool arrangements, will continue to enjoy the support and opportunity of early learning and preschool activities.

Of course, ultimately what we want to do is make sure we do not see the type of price rise that occurred under the Labor government, where prices went up some 53 per cent over six years in the childcare sector—unacceptable. Our reforms seek to address these problems that Labor ignored.