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

In addition to waiving the activity test for grandparents, we are providing for those grandparents who are the primary carers and on some form of income support essentially a complete exemption from the likelihood of paying childcare fees. We are introducing an hourly cap on childcare fees, against which will be paid the subsidy of $11.55 for long day care. This is intended to place downward pressure on childcare fees over time and ensure that the extra $3 billion our government is contributing to child care does not have an inflationary impact on fees. To make sure that grandparents within that cap are able to access services they need, we will be providing an up-to-120 per cent subsidy against that hourly cap to ensure that, even where services are above the cap, grandparents are, hopefully, not out of pocket. We estimate this will support around 3,900 grandparents around Australia in their love and care for more than 6,000 grandchildren.