Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I'm disappointed that we were unsuccessful in our motion to pass the question before the chair, because the government seems to have no agenda in this place and because the bill before us fixes a litany of problems that this government caused. I've got no problem with continuing to debate the issue and the problems that it has subjected families to in this nation, but this is simply a manifestation of the fact that the government is determined to keep padding out the parliament's agenda because it doesn't have the capacity yet to move on with its agenda.

For three terms of government, we've been subjected to this government banging on about how it cuts red tape and cares about the Australian people while all the while we've had to watch the dismantling of child care and watch the gambling of our children's future. Here we are again debating needing to fix these problems, and the government seems happy enough to spend lots of time debating this bill and having its face rubbed in the mistakes that it has made in this space because it can't get on with its parliamentary agenda today. It's simply not ready to keep the parliament's business moving.

In June 2018 the government introduced a new childcare system, and it became obvious almost immediately—and Labor knew this was coming, because we saw the design flaws in it—that it would place significant burdens on at-risk families and early-learning providers. The additional childcare subsidy—or ACCS (child wellbeing)—is a payment for at-risk and vulnerable families who need support with the cost of child care. Typically these are children who are at risk in terms of child protection and safety needs.

We know that all children who are on the additional childcare subsidy receive free early learning because of this subsidy. The government wants to keep debating this issue before the chamber today. You're simply here to bang on about your supposedly great childcare system. The very bill before us today highlights the government's deeply flawed agenda. The system was designed to make sure that the help most needed by people was as difficult as possible to get and to be an administrative nightmare for people who already have enough to deal with. These are the core issues being fixed in this legislation today.

In continuing to debate this issue, you seem happy to have your face rubbed in the mistakes you've made. This debate reminds Australians of the massive mistakes that you have made in our childcare system. The changes that you introduced back in 2018 included reducing the initial approval period from 13 weeks to six weeks, approving eligibility certificates for only 13-week periods, and deeming any applications not approved by Centrelink within 28 days to have been refused. How can a system find an application to have been refused because—through no fault of the applicant—a government department doesn't make a decision within 28 days? It is a ridiculous state of affairs. I'm glad you're fixing it. It's years since these issues came to the fore, and I'm sure that your office, along with my office and all Centrelink offices, have dealt with this administrative burden and administrative nightmare on a regular basis in recent times. I understand firsthand the high level of pressure that families have been under since this government came in and began systematically putting pressure on, and defunding, Services Australia. While you defund Services Australia as well as put these administrative burdens on both Centrelink and families, it is little wonder that we end up back in this place needing to fix the crappy problems that you have put into our childcare system.

The fact that it took a pandemic to get more funding for Services Australia says a great deal. It also says a great deal that the government has cut millions of dollars from the department and then, as this bill highlights, set impossibly short processing times for them to approve applications for vital education for vulnerable families. What a short-sighted government! It shows a lack of the human element. It's supposed to be the department of human services, but you think that the system can somehow just keep up with understaffing and short administrative time lines. And where does the burden then fall? It falls on vulnerable families who can't possibly meet the bureaucratic funding expectations of the government. It's supposed to be a system that is there to serve them, but what you've done and what we're fixing today is the callousness and the poor management of this government. We warned the government—and the sector warned the government—that these changes would have a detrimental impact on vulnerable families, and this government chose to ignore it.

There was a 20 per cent collapse in the number of vulnerable children receiving the payment in the first six months of the new system. That is a disgrace. In the context of the aged-care disgrace, we have seen with blinding clarity that this government ignores and denies problems until they become bigger than Ben Hur. After months of submissions to the Senate inquiry highlighting the urgency of fixing the flaws in the policy, after months of the education department and the sector fighting to change the new system, the government finally acted. Finally, the debate on reversing this collapse is before the chamber today. I say: just get on and pass the bill. Get on and pass it.

Thanks to the department of education and the sector creating a working group, the bill before the Senate today does indeed reduce the administrative burden placed on both early learning providers and at-risk families. Providers now have the opportunity to enrol children in child protection under the name of the provider rather than that of the parent or the foster carer for up to 13 weeks while the paperwork is applied for. So I don't see any reason why the government needs to keep debating this issue today. Of course, if you're going to chew up the time then Labor senators are also going to want to point out—and I'm sure Greens senators will too—how ridiculous you are being in just not getting on with the business before the Senate.

These changes seem like an obvious decision to allow breathing space for people who already have enough on their plate. It's taken too long to get the government to the table to fix these issues. It shouldn't have taken months. I call on the government to stop making life harder for those who are already having a difficult time, both parents and children, and who are struggling. And I call on them not just with respect to child care but for all of the major challenges confronting our nation at the moment. Our children should not be constrained from getting an education and getting the care that they need. They should not be constrained from getting that care and support, thanks to the bureaucratic disgrace that this government has subjected those families to and the bureaucratic disgrace that this system was in its original form.

Labor understands that the childcare subsidy for child wellbeing is a very critical program. It provides a safe and nurturing learning environment for children in what can sometimes be extremely vulnerable situations at home, and for many children it's the difference between being able to stay at home with the support of their family who might need the respite to deal with their own issues or health issues. It can mean the difference between being able to stay with their family and going into the child protection system.

The government needs to play an active role in keeping children out of the child protection system and keeping children safe. For too long we've had this confected debate about child protection simply being a state responsibility and not a Commonwealth problem. But, as we see, the funding of our childcare system and access to services through child care play a critical role in keeping children out of child protection. The system must be treated with sensitivity, and we need to ensure that families and providers are not burdened with red tape. The most important people in this debate are those children. So we want the focus to be on them, not on the administrative burden and administrative time lines that this government has previously imposed.

In recent times, during the pandemic, it's been really obvious how important childcare workers are to our economy and what a struggle it is for families not to be able to put their child in child care—and I shouldn't just refer to it as child care because, importantly, it is early learning—which makes balancing life incredibly difficult. Families are now working from home, have their children at home with them, are juggling family conflict and have pressure on their family finances. I understand why children need to be kept out of the childcare system in some circumstances at the moment, but what it highlights to me is how critical early learning services are. For millions of families around Australia, the experience of COVID simply reminded them about how grateful they are to early childhood educators in our nation for the work, support and learning that they provide to our nation's children.

This is despite the fact that childcare workers are among the lowest-paid workers in our nation. They are 96 per cent women and they're paid as little as $22 an hour. When the pandemic hit and the free childcare initiative was brought in due to the importance of child care, again, ironically, free child care meant childcare workers were the ones to suffer and to lose their jobs. The government only subsidised 50 per cent of the cost of child care. This meant that the childcare providers were expected to run the same service plus deal with extra costs, including things like personal protective equipment. During a pandemic, it is patently ridiculous to be expected to be able to run an effective childcare service with, in some instances—as we certainly experienced in, say, the north west of Western Australia—exactly the same levels of demand taking place. In fact, there were childcare centres that simply closed because they could not afford to operate. People who are going to work—people who weren't staying at home because of the pandemic and who were required to go to work—simply couldn't get a place in the childcare system.

So—free child care. Yes, it was great, but only if you could get it and only if you were paid. Again, it highlights that this government creates a bureaucratic nightmare for families and workers in our early learning system day after day, with every move they make. We have seen childcare providers being forced to act as unpaid debt collectors for the government. This has happened because families have been struggling to stay on top of the complicated activity tests and means tests at the moment. So here today— (Time expired)