Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

I wanted to start by responding to the last part of Senator McAllister's contribution where in attacking the coalition she ignores the record rates of female workforce participation in this nation under a coalition government. She ignores those inconvenient facts for herself. She talks about there being no women in this coalition government when we have the highest number of women in a cabinet in the history of our Commonwealth. Those criticisms should be seen for what they are, because they are not backed up by the facts. This government will always prioritise participation in the workforce for women, allowing families to make choices. That has been our government's record, that's what we'll continue to do and that's what our policies are directed at.

You do have to take a step back—before I go into some of the stats re child care and the support that the coalition and the Morrison government has been giving to child care and to families accessing child care over a number of years—and ask the question when you hear from the Labor Party and their critique on child care: who does the modern Labor Party represent? They are arguing against a childcare policy which has absolutely prioritised those on low and middle incomes. This is the government that actually said we are going to give a higher rate of subsidy to those on low and middle incomes, yet we have a Labor Party who claims to represent workers and who would say: 'No. What you actually have to do is give more subsidies to those on very high incomes.' That is the Labor Party's policy and that is the Labor Party's critique when it comes to child care. When we hear this line of questioning and this line of attack from the Labor Party, I am reminded of the comments of Joel Fitzgibbon, when he said he wanted to put 'labour' back into the Labor Party, because it is extraordinary. I'm old enough to remember when people didn't have to say things like, 'Let's put "labour" back into the Labor Party,' because perhaps many years ago, perhaps when I was just a young man—a very young man—Labor may have had a reputation as actually supporting workers and perhaps a reputation, once upon a time, once perhaps in the distant past, as actually supporting low- and middle-income workers. But what we have is a modern Labor Party who has forgotten about those noble roots, dare I say it, of a once great Labor Party who used to represent those kind of workers and now needs to be reminded—