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

Thanks, Senator Hanson. The activity test that we're focused on here today is the one where the government have said we've tasked the Productivity Commission with conducting a comprehensive review of the sector, which will include whether the current activity test settings are appropriate.

We expect the review to commence in the first half of next year. However, we thought that there was an urgency to act in the current environment, particularly to support education outcomes for Indigenous children. In 2021, for the first time, the proportion of First Nations children on track developmentally in all five domains went backwards, so the gap is actually getting bigger and not smaller. We need to turn this around, and that's why this bill provides a minimum of 36 subsidised hours a fortnight for First Nations children, benefiting at least 6,600 families.

According to the Australian early development centres, in 2021 two in five Indigenous children were developmentally vulnerable in one or more domains when they started school. That's compared with one in five children who are from a non-Indigenous background. Last year the proportion of Indigenous children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains was 34.3 per cent, which is a drop from 35.2 per cent in 2018. As the Prime Minister has said, we've tasked the Productivity Commission to investigate affordable—