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

I can happily justify it because we are better targeting at every single level. When it comes to the safety net measures we are making sure it is better targeted so that resources are not being spent on services that are not being utilised and instead is targeted to ensure that services are supported to deliver high-quality early education in sessions of care appropriate for the children there and making sure that they are the maximum utilisation of those taxpayer dollars. Equally, I can justify the increased investment because overwhelmingly—almost entirely, in fact—that increased investment is going to the lowest income Australian families. It is actually going to the hardest-working Australian families. People who are meeting the activity test but earning low incomes will be thousands of dollars a year better off thanks to our reforms. These are exactly the types of measures that those opposite should embrace and support because they are delivering more dollars to support people with their cost-of-living pressures and their child-care costs and empowering those families to choose to work the hours that suit them. (Time expired)