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

(—) (): These reforms will help empower more Australian families to choose the days they work and the hours they work to suit their family circumstances. Evidence indicates that around 230,000 Australian families would be likely to increase their workforce participation under the Turnbull government's childcare reforms. In fact, just yesterday Goodstart Early Learning, Australia's largest early education and childcare provider, issued findings of their survey of more than 1,500 parents: it found that 61 per cent of families, including 78 per cent of non-working families, would look to work more hours or start work, if more affordable child care was available to them. And that is exactly what our reforms will put in place—more affordable child care that will allow those families to choose to work more hours if that suits their needs, without fear of the impact of childcare costs—because, for the lowest-income families, under our reforms childcare would become available at a cost of about $15 a day: far more accessible to all of them. (Time expired)