Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

As I've also indicated publicly, we don't have any proposal in front of us. We're not considering any proposal. We're not expecting any proposal to end the JobKeeper program for any other sector. In relation to child care, it was a specific proposal that was initiated by the sector itself because there was a better, fairer, more equitable way to provide transitional support to that industry given that activity levels across childcare centres had significantly increased again. The reason JobKeeper was put in place for the childcare sector was that, in the context of a drop in activity levels, the childcare subsidy was no longer generating revenue. With activity levels going back up, there is, of course, now a capacity to generate government revenue through childcare subsidies as well as parental contributions as well as a transitional payment of $708 million by the government. So what we're doing here is entirely appropriate. You're argument is that we should keep childcare free forever. (Time expired)