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

CHISHOLM (—Assistant Minister for Education, Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Deputy Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (): As we went through in detail at Senate estimates, our focus has been on delivering the policy. We know the work that Treasury have done on some of their analyses. What we also know is that, when you make these changes around making child care more affordable, you will see more people wanting to take up these services. That is what we are confident of and that is what we are aiming to deliver on. That's why we're making some of those other changes, like having the ACCC or the Productivity Commission look at this policy and the impact.

The other focus we have is on tackling some of the workforce issues that we are confronting. They are large now, but they are going to be more challenging in the future. That is why we have substantial plans around providing fee-free TAFE places and an additional 20,000 Commonwealth supported places at university. Some of those will go to early childhood educators as well. We've got many prongs in terms of how we're tackling this challenge, and we intend to deliver while in government. We expect that there will be an uptake in accessing services, given that it will be more affordable for families to get their children into early childhood education.