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

To answer the last question first, yes. Again, as I have indicated to the Senate, the volunteering components of the activity test do encourage parental engagement and mean that volunteering at a school, a preschool or a childcare centre is an eligible activity. This, of course, encourages parents to, hopefully, read with children, enhance their skills, contribute and, overall, benefit from that engagement, as well as meeting the eligible activities.

In terms of children at risk, again, I outlined to the Senate before—and I will go through it in a little more detail if you like—that the government has clear policies to provide not just a 12- or 15-hour safety net for children who are at risk, as has been debated, but indeed a 50-hour safety net for children who are at risk, and not just a subsidy of 85 per cent or less for their childcare fees but a full subsidy for their childcare fees. Children in those circumstances are not just children who are in the child protection system; they are children who have been identified as being at risk before they reach such a crisis point.

The additional childcare subsidy under this safety net component is initially applied for by the childcare provider. Parents who may be in such circumstances of mental health difficulties—or others that you have identified, Senator Xenophon—do not need to be the ones making the application. The provider itself makes a certification that the child is at risk.

If we are talking about a child in the child protection system and that child is known to the child protection system, then essentially automatic eligibility is granted, and the provider need take no further action in that regard. But if the provider is identifying them for other reasons, such as family mental health difficulties, then the provider must take steps to provide that evidence over a period of the first six weeks. The proof of doing so is that a provider must be receiving a letter or statement from a state or territory body which was notified during the six-week period, or other evidence from a relevant professional, regarding the child's situation. That can include mental health services or other family welfare services and is part of the rules governing the childcare subsidy. The states and territories are working with us to identify who those relevant bodies for notification during that period are.

But it is absolutely intended as a subsidy mechanism to step in and to ensure that assistance is there for children at the earliest possible opportunity, before they reach crisis point. It is available not just if there are particular issues with their parents but also potentially if there are mental health issues impacting on siblings or others in the home environment, or other circumstances that might involve the engagement of family members in the criminal justice system or those types of threats to wellbeing that could eventuate down the track.