Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Senate and, in particular, those senators who have spoken on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Improving Assistance for Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Families) Bill 2020. I acknowledge the contributions to the debate and the support for this legislation coming from across the chamber. I add my thanks to Australia's early childhood education and care providers and those who operate centres, the educators and carers across the sector in particular, who have gone above and beyond in providing, not just in this challenging year but every day in every year, valuable care to Australian children and advancing their education prospects.

Our government has focused throughout the COVID-19 crisis on ensuring that amongst the support provided to families we've made sure that the childcare sector has been available to vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families and those who need it most. Through the ECEC Relief Package, over 98 per cent of childcare providers were able to keep their doors open during the period of widespread national shutdown of other economic activities, providing free child care to the children of essential workers, to vulnerable children and to children whose families had an existing relationship with the service. This bill clearly shows that as we see, across most of the nation, the return to the demand-driven childcare subsidy on 13 July our government is committed to continuing to improve access to child care for vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families and to cutting red tape for both families and childcare providers.

Since the implementation of the government's world-leading childcare reforms that provided for much more affordable and much better targeted childcare access in Australia, it is clear that our government's goal of delivering a more affordable, accessible and flexible childcare subsidy system indeed has been delivered upon. But we've also been listening to stakeholders regarding areas of improvement. They were widespread reforms that we made to the system, and naturally with those widespread reforms there will continue to be small areas of refinement and improvement. The key measures contained in this bill are in direct response to feedback received from the childcare sector. These key measures will benefit families and childcare providers by extending and backdating the additional childcare subsidy child wellbeing certificates and determinations from 28 days to up to 13 weeks in exceptional circumstances; extending the period, from 13 weeks to up to 12 months, that additional determinations can be given for children on a long-term child protection order; and clarifying that a provider may be eligible for additional childcare subsidy in respect of certain defined classes of children, such as foster children.

Notably, the amendments also continue to maintain appropriate safeguards to support the integrity of the additional childcare subsidy payment. Tragically, it's a fact that, historically, the childcare system has been open to activities of rorting and misappropriation of funds that are intended to support the wellbeing of children, the education of those children and access to care for parents and families. That's why we made sure that we had strong safeguards in our reforms, reforms that were intended to ensure that the children and families who needed care most received the greatest access to care and that those who needed financial support to pay for that care most received the greatest degree of financial support for the care that they need.

In conclusion, this bill demonstrates that the government remains committed to making life easier for providers and for vulnerable and disadvantaged families, and that we continue to make improvements based on feedback about the childcare reforms and package that we implemented. The changes in this bill will reduce the regulatory and administrative burden on families and childcare providers, will support vulnerable and disadvantaged families to access quality early learning and child care, and will help families to access the financial assistance that they need. I commend the bill to the Senate and thank the Senate for its support of these reforms.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.