Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, Senator McKenzie, we know that there are many challenges in many parts of the country around access to early childhood education, which is why we are confident that making it cheaper and more affordable will see more families take up that option. We also see that there will be a response from the market to increase these facilities, because they know there will be more demand. We've also got the commitment that we made to the Community Child Care Fund; that will obviously go some way towards tackling some of these challenges.

You mentioned some of our regional funding. Well, we do have a focus on that and a fund is being set up that will be available for regional communities to apply for. But, unlike your funds, ours will be transparent, ours will be accountable, they will open at regular times and there will be guidelines for people to follow. So communities know when they can apply, they know the rules that will apply, they know how they can apply and when they will be successful. That's rather than those ones that yourself and the former Deputy Prime Minister dreamed up, that suited you but didn't actually suit the majority of Australians. We take these issues seriously. We take integrity and accountability seriously, and that's why we're setting up appropriate funding mechanisms for regional Australia that can benefit from those funds.