Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate condemns the Howard Government for ignoring in the Budget the urgent needs of parents struggling with the cost, availability and quality of child care, noting:

(a)

the incompetence of the Howard Government in allocating $60 million for child care places that will never be delivered given that there are already 100 000 unallocated places due mainly to the shortage of child care professionals;

(b)

the failure to bring forward the 30 per cent rebate on out-of-pocket child care expenses despite criticism of the rebate from the Government’s own backbench and the fact that child care fees are rising far in excess of other goods and services; and

(c)

that parents who can not find child care, can not work, adding to the skills shortage.

This motion condemns this tired and arrogant government for their incompetence and failure in handling child-care policy and programs. This budget disappoints parents who cannot find or cannot afford child care. I remind those opposite that if you cannot find child care you cannot work. It is the budget where skills shortages and education are ignored by this government. Not only have they ignored the needs of Australia’s future growth; they have ignored the negative effect of the lack of child care on workforce participation.

To illustrate their folly, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a survey on 6 February 2006 titled Barriers and incentives to labour force participation, which shows that: child care is one of the top barriers to work; problems finding suitable or affordable child care is the number one reason why women who want to work are not looking for work; almost 98,000 mothers who want to work are unable to start within four weeks because child-care and family factors prevent them; and another 160,500 women who want to work, or to work more hours, and consider themselves available to start immediately are not looking for work due to child-care and family factors. We also know that, at last count, more than 174,500 children were waiting for child-care places.

So what was in the budget for child care? Last night the government announced that it will get rid of the cap that currently applies to outside school hours care—which includes before- and after-school care and vacation care—and family day care from 1 July 2006. The government claims this will result in another 25,000 new places at a cost of $60.2 million over four years. But there is no modelling or any evidence at all to support this claim. In fact there is evidence that no new places will eventuate from this measure whatsoever. That is why Labor condemns this government’s figures.

There are already 67,000 outside school hours places and 30,000 family day care places unused from previous budgets. So any increase in the cap previously has not had the claimed effect of translating into actual care. These places are not being used for a variety of reasons, none of which have anything to do with the cap. With respect to family day care, for instance, the 30,000 existing places are not being used because family day care schemes cannot attract enough workers to deliver those places. The pay is poor, and many women are better off staying at home, raising their children and receiving family tax benefits.

The Howard government has cut operational subsidies to family day care schemes, which exist in order to recruit and train family day care workers. More than 50 per cent of family day care schemes have had their funding reduced at a time of increased compliance costs and an exodus of skilled people due to low pay. Recently, locally, here in Canberra, I was advised that there are existing services under pressure for these reasons. So when the government creates or announces what they claim are new child-care places this means they are creating new places in services that the federal government controls the supply of or caps. But because the federal government does not cap—indeed does nothing to stimulate the supply of—long day care, ‘new places’ never refers to the problem of ongoing chronic shortages, which are in the long day care centres.

It is as though this government does not understand the difference between out of school hours care and long day care. They are different. A parent with a child of nine months or two years who is pursuing care arrangements faces a very different prospect from one who is looking for out of school hours care. Creating places that will not be able to be utilised in the after school hours is no help at all to someone who has a baby and wants to return to work after six months.

The bottom line is: this policy and funding announcement in the budget relating to child care is a con. The Howard government wants to give the appearance of creating places while actually giving up on the supply problems and leaving parents and providers to struggle on with the real problems that have plagued the system for a long time. How dare the government claim that parents’ worries are over—as I note my Senate colleague here in the ACT tried to do in this morning’s Canberra Times. It is just untrue.

There is not a single extra place guaranteed to eventuate, and child care will not be a single cent cheaper. It is not just the Labor Party saying this. The CEO of the National Family Day Care Council, Linda Latham, said, ‘You can have all the theoretical places in the world, but if you can’t find carers then they remain political promises.’ This government is taking the unplanned, market based system that has created shortages—and, indeed, gluts in some areas—in long day care and is now applying it to other types of child care. It is adopting a system that is failing parents and providers in many areas of Australia, and it is turning a blind eye to the reasons why family day care places in some areas languish unused while desperate parents still cannot find child care near their work or home. This is why the Labor opposition condemns this government. It was outrageous and misleading in the build-up to this budget to promise that child care would somehow be a big winner.

It is also a painful irony that the only money in this budget that is actually guaranteed to be spent is $2.3 million that is earmarked for advertising the 30 per cent rebate on out-of-pocket child-care expenses. Yes, you got it: more advertising—on top of the millions of taxpayers’ dollars that have been spent on promoting the government’s extreme industrial relations changes and other Howard government policies. I remind parents that the rebate was promised to them in the lead-up to the 2004 election. It is still not being delivered.

The tax offset is payable on out-of-pocket expenses for approved child-care services—for example, the gap fee paid by a parent between their child-care benefit entitlement and the actual child-care fee. The offset is payable for the first time in the 2006-07 financial year through the 2005-06 tax returns; so government expenditure starts in the 2006-07 financial year at $280 million, followed by $305 million and $330 million in subsequent years. So, as a continuation of the arrogant character of 10 long years of the Howard government, the rebate has been delayed, capped and now denied to some parents.

As I said, during the 2004 election campaign the coalition promised that all Australian parents would be able to claim 30 per cent of their child-care expenses back on 1 July 2005 and look forward to a tax refund in a matter of weeks. But, two months after winning that election, the government announced that it was pushing back the rebate by 12 months. Claims can now be lodged for the first time on 1 July 2006. Also, there is a cap on the amount claimable, so parents can claim only a maximum of $4,000 per child—even if this amount is considerably less than 30 per cent of the child-care costs. Finally, the rebate cannot be claimed at the end of the financial year in which child-care bills were paid. Instead, parents have to wait another year. For example, child-care fees for 2005-06 cannot be claimed until July 2007. This appears to be the first offset in Australian history that cannot be claimed at the end of the financial year in which the relevant expenses were incurred—at least for individuals and parents, as opposed to companies in some of the R&D schemes.

Due to post-election changes to the rebate, the following groups of parents will not get the amount of rebate they were promised during the election: parents on minimum child-care benefit who have a child in full-time care and fees over about $65 per day—they will hit the cap; single parents who are starting up a business or who are on low incomes will miss out on every cent of the 30 per cent rebate that exceeds their tax liability in a given year; parents who have not kept receipts for all child-care sessions for each child dating back to 1 July 2004; and parents whose children attend a preschool—because preschools are regulated and run by the states—or are cared for by a nanny or other carer. No amount of advertising or awareness raising will change the fact that many parents are now not eligible for the child-care rebate. These parents are bearing the brunt of a shameless broken promise.

The government has also committed no money to planning. Despite promising to expand the existing Child Care Access Hotline so that parents can find out about the vacancies that exist in child-care services and centres in their area, there is no funding allocated for this phone line. The government also announced that it would introduce a child-care management system, which appears to be at least a start to collecting much-needed facts and data to better manage child-care centre places. Strangely, there is no money for it in the budget.

It is ludicrous for the Howard government to finally admit that child-care planning has been sorely neglected—which they appear to have done by virtue of the inclusion of that particular item in the budget—after having been dragged, kicking and screaming, by child-care providers and Labor to this point and then not fund the solution. It is smoke and mirrors. It is all talk and no action. Just on the side, there is news today that the ACCC is allowing the merger between two of the very large corporate providers, ABC Learning and Kids Campus, which will create just two very large corporate providers. Where is the competition that ought to help parents make sophisticated choices—and, indeed, allow them to have choices? I know that there are some towns, like Tamworth, which will have only one provider after this merger takes place. With no choice of provider, what will happen to the fees?

I would like to turn to this issue of fees. Some families are paying in excess of $20,000 on a net salary for child care—for instance, those with two children under five in care for three or more days a week. Many other families cannot even afford this. They cannot come close. The take-home pay of the second earner would be less than the child-care fees, so working becomes a bad financial proposition for these families.

In the 2005 budget, the Howard government reduced the number of parents studying who qualified for the JET Child Care program. This was last year. Under JET, eligible parents, who are very low income parents reliant on welfare benefits whilst they are looking for work or training, do not have to pay for child care. JET pays the gap between the fees and the child-care benefit. Those 2005 budget changes meant that JET Child Care was available only to those studying for less than 12 months, which knocks out parents wanting to be hairdressers, mechanics, social workers and child-care workers, for example, given that all these diplomas take more than 12 months to complete. Note again that these professions include many that are in great demand in Australia due to the skills shortage, yet the Howard government’s policy is counteracting the efforts of these people who are being encouraged to study and train.

In this year’s budget, the government has committed to providing a one-off boost in funding for the JET Child Care program for next year. While Labor welcomes this extra money, it is a mere drop in the ocean. Tens of thousands of sole parents will be forced into the labour force from 1 July 2006, and many of them will not even be aware of this child-care entitlement. They will not be told about it by Centrelink and they will never benefit from it. If the government were serious about JET as an affordable solution for sole parents, it would advertise this entitlement—it would use the money that it spends on advertising on this entitlement, not on the 30 per cent rebate that parents have been expecting for the last year.

It is clear that the main reason for the overall decline in affordability is that fees are rising very fast; in fact, they are rising five times faster than the average cost of other goods and services. Here are some important facts. In 2002-03, the cost of child care rose by 17 per cent, whereas CPI was 3.1 per cent. In 2003-04, the cost of child care increased by another 12.2 per cent, whereas CPI rose by three per cent. In 2004-05, the cost of child care increased by yet another 12.4 per cent, compared to a rise in the general CPI of 2.5 per cent. And in the first quarter of 2006, from January to March, child-care costs rose by five per cent, compared to the general rate of inflation of 0.9 per cent. This 5.1 per cent rise in the cost of child care in the first quarter of 2006 is a huge rise for one quarter—the largest, in fact, in three years. Many parents already know that the primary government subsidy, the child-care benefit, has not kept up with fee increases. It only increases in line with CPI.

The following figures show the average cost in each state of full-time centre based care for one child five days a week. These figures came from the federal government in reply to a question on notice from the opposition in August last year. Perhaps not surprisingly, the arrogance of the Howard government has led them to refuse to update these figures. I know Ms Plibersek, Labor’s shadow minister for child care, has been putting questions on notice about more recent fee figures since November 2005. Let’s have a look at these numbers. Average weekly fees in each state for full-time day care in 2004 were, from highest to lowest: the ACT, $251; Victoria, $242; New South Wales and Western Australia, $225; Tasmania, $215; South Australia, $211; the Northern Territory, $207; and Queensland, $204. Apply these amounts to your average weekly household budget and it is easy to see why full-time child care is almost out of reach for most of middle Australia.

In speaking to this motion, which does condemn the Howard government’s poor handling and neglect of child care, it is impossible to ignore the impact of other extreme policies on the ongoing struggle for families to achieve the right balance between work and family. A big part of this equation is of course how family friendly workplaces actually are.

In 2005, the Howard government passed through the parliament the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Bill 2005. The act came into effect in May 2006. The new industrial relations system puts employees at risk of being made to work longer hours at shorter notice and for less pay. Women, especially those who have caring responsibilities and who are low paid, are most at risk of losing under these new industrial relations laws. In 2005, the former independent AIRC, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, prescribed in their family provisions case that employees should be able to take an extra 12 months unpaid parental leave, return to work on a part-time basis after parental leave until the child reaches school age, and extend simultaneous parental leave to a maximum of eight weeks. But not one of those provisions was protected by the Howard government’s extreme industrial relations changes. The flexibility that the government champions is one way, and it is all the employers’ way.

Unpredictable hours affect family life. It is impossible to arrange child care. It is impossible to coach your son’s or daughter’s soccer team. Unpredictable pay affects the family budget. You cannot get a car—let alone fund the petrol—or get a mortgage if you do not know what you are earning from week to week. And what about holding a child-care place? If you have unpredictable casual work, it is almost impossible.

The Howard government’s removal of unfair dismissal protection has also had an immediate effect, and we need look no further than the example of a child-care worker here in Canberra, Emily Connor, who only a few days after the introduction of the industrial relations legislation was sacked unfairly. Emily’s situation was dire. She was given no reason and was told she had 10 minutes to leave the premises. When she—an employee of nearly five years—asked to finish her shift or at least farewell the children, she was refused these reasonable requests. This is the Australia we live in under Mr Howard’s government. It is unfair, those changes are extreme and the neglect of child care has meant that many people—predominantly women but men too—do not have any choice. (Time expired)

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to participate in this debate and indicate, not surprisingly, that I see a very different, much brighter, outlook for child care in Australia, particularly as a result of the budget announcements made just two nights ago by the Treasurer, Peter Costello. I see a situation for parents seeking child care for their children that indicates a growing opportunity for accessing subsidised child-care places, and for the growing availability of child-care centres within particular regions of Australia which may not have had adequate services in the past. I see growing affordability, and I believe that all the evidence points to a dramatically improved outlook for child care in this country as a result of the work of this government over the last 10 years.

You would not glean from anything that Senator Lundy has said in this debate that funding for child care in Australia in the last 10 years has doubled, or that the number of approved child-care places in this country has doubled from around 300,000 in 1996 to approximately 600,000 in 2005 and more, of course, in the budget announced on Tuesday night. I would like to know from another speaker on the other side how you could possibly have achieved the kinds of outcomes that Senator Lundy has spoken about for children and for parents in this country if you kept levels of subsidised child-care places to the sorts of levels that you had under the former Labor government. On average, families today are now receiving over $2,000 per year in child-care benefit—way up from the government assistance they were receiving under the Labor government.

The government supports families to choose the way that would best suit their circumstances for the care of their young children. As well as supporting families with the cost of child care, we are also of course providing a range of other family payments which are increasing the capacity of Australian families to meet costs of that kind—things like the family tax benefit and the maternity payment. On average, families are now receiving $7,700 in family tax benefit alone. Think of how much capacity there is for many Australian families to meet the cost of child care with payments of that kind.

Senator Lundy makes reference to the fact that inflation in the cost of child-care services has increased at a greater rate than general inflation in the community. That is no doubt true, but I want to draw to Senator Lundy’s attention and to the attention of senators in this chamber that the Australian government does not itself provide child care in the community, and nor indeed do the state and territory governments. They do not run government child-care centres. Perhaps one day—I hope in the not-too-distant future—when we get a child-care centre in this particular workplace, it might be possible for a government to once again be in the business of running those centres. But at the moment governments themselves across Australia do not run these centres. So the government cannot click its fingers and create the particular circumstances where supply and demand are matched up or where centres have particular features, are located in particular places and so on. We have relied for many years on the reality that the marketplace must meet the demand for child care with appropriate subsidies to those centres reflecting the community’s interest in affordability and with appropriate support to families to meet the cost of providing or paying for child care. I would argue that the evidence clearly demonstrates that we have delivered that, notwithstanding increases in the cost of child care over those years. Subsidies have risen and the number of subsidised places has risen. That has had a major impact.

I would like to somehow regulate the marketplace to prevent those costs rising, but we all know that you do not do that. You do not step in and say what it is that people must be paid and cap that amount to somehow ensure that child care remains affordable. If child-care workers are in demand—if there are not enough child-care workers—then the cost of those workers and the wages they are paid will tend to rise. That in part is the problem that we have faced. I might say that the rising cost of child care and child-care workers is a reflection generally of the skills shortages, of which many have spoken in this chamber even today. We are working hard as a government to fix those problems by investing in training and skills acquisition across this country, and there are many measures in this budget and in previous budgets that I think assist that process. But you cannot as a government wave a magic wand and somehow prevent child-care workers from asking for and receiving higher wages.

Government can create or contribute to the circumstances where child care is more available and more affordable, and in that respect this government has delivered and delivered in spades. I do not necessarily want to refer to all the things that have been done in previous years’ budgets, or to the addition of $9½ billion over the next four years alone, or to the other many things that the government has done to increase the number of child-care places from 300,000 to 600,000 in the last 10 years—notwithstanding of course that we have not seen a doubling of the cohort of eligible children in that time. I will not refer to those. I want to refer to what is in this year’s budget, announced two nights ago.

In this budget, the government committed to an additional $120.5 million in the coming financial year to provide an even more responsive child-care system for Australian parents. The government removed the caps on the number of approved child-care places for out of school hours care and family day care so that those forms of care matched long day care in having no cap. Again, that delivers a system where demand can be met wherever it occurs and does not rely on the designation of a certain number of places in particular regions or areas of Australia. If there is demand in an area, that area is eligible for child-care places.

This means that 99 per cent of places in the sector will be uncapped from 1 July 2006. Services will be able to set up or expand to meet demand when and where it occurs, provided they meet approval requirements, including quality assurance and licensing. Parents using these places will be eligible for subsidised child care through the child-care benefit. This is one of the most significant changes in the provision of child-care places in Australian public policy history and certainly the most significant change since the Howard government introduced the child-care benefit.

That is a general benefit available to all Australian parents irrespective of their conditions or means. Of course, parents on income support such as the parenting payment who are re-entering the workforce will also benefit from this budget’s increased funding for the JET Child Care program, which pays almost all the gap between the fees at their child-care centre and the child-care benefit—a huge benefit that Senator Lundy seem to have overlooked in her remarks, but one that makes a big difference to the way in which parents in those categories—

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You cut that program last year!

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fact is that it did not exist under you.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You cut it last year and provided a dribble of money back—

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It did not exist under you, Senator Lundy. We created the program; we are making it happen. In this year’s budget we have improved access to that program. I do not know what more one could do in these circumstances to deliver higher levels of affordable child care to those parents re-entering the workforce on a parenting payment.

The budget also funds improvements to compliance checking and further supports the quality assurance program. Those changes mean that the full value of the record level of expenditure in child care made by this government goes to support parents who use approved child care. Parents can be assured that there will be more rigorous financial compliance and checking. This will ensure that parents get even more value from the assistance that they receive through the child-care benefit. The government is also committed to a significant investment to introduce a new child-care management system to ensure that up-to-date and accurate information is available on the supply, demand and use of child care.

A few weeks ago I indicated to parents in the ACT how they could use this facility, particularly online, to work out where places are available in their particular community. That is of enormous benefit for those who have children reaching an age where they require child care. There is also a child-care access hotline—1800670305—available from 1 July. I warmly encourage people to use that service to find out where they can get those places and what the circumstances of access and government support programs are. Far from not advertising that fact, I have put out a press release to make it clear that those things are available. Senator Lundy is free to do the same thing and I hope as many members as possible on both sides of the house take the opportunity to tell people about the new accessible services and ways in which parents seeking support for caring for their children can access that support.

I think it is worth listing all of those things because this debate on the government’s provision of child care occurs in the context of a stark lack of alternatives—that is, we know what the government’s plans are and we know about the increase in the number of child-care places. We know that the 30 per cent rebate on the out-of-pocket expenses that parents meet in Australia, irrespective of the age of the child or the number of hours of care they receive, is available to parents. We know that there is now an uncapping of the number of places in Australia for family day care and out of school hours care.

We know about all of those things because they have been very widely broadcast in this budget and in previous budgets, but we do not yet know what the alternative policy is. We have heard a litany of complaints about access to child care in Australia, but we do not know how Senator Lundy’s Labor Party would actually fix those problems. I believe we are entitled to view this criticism with a great deal of cynicism because only a year and a half ago the Australian Labor Party had the opportunity to present an alternative vision for child care in this country and, frankly, failed miserably. I say that based on the very sorry story of the debate on child care that took place in 2004 under then leader Mark Latham. It is interesting that Senator Lundy in the debate today used the phrase: ‘the government’s measures, announced in the budget on Tuesday night, are a drop in the ocean’. It is a very interesting phrase because it was only a year and a half ago that the then-shadow minister responsible for child care, former senator Jacinta Collins, admitted on radio in September 2004 that Labor’s child-care policy ‘certainly is a drop in the ocean’ and has ‘not many places’. Those are the words that the then shadow minister responsible used in respect of the policy that had been announced not long before by leader Mark Latham.

Indeed, there was a very heated community debate about the inadequacy of the proposals that were put forward by the Labor Party to deal with the litany of problems that, before and since, they have been complaining about with respect to child care in Australia. Members of the Senate will recall that Mr Latham announced that a child-care policy under the Labor Party would consist of one free day of care—just one—in any given week. It was only for children aged three or four, and it was the case that that subsidy would be provided up to the amount of only $4.88 per hour. Anything above that it was up to the parents to meet. That policy went nowhere near addressing the issue of the affordability of child care, particularly for parents who seek full-time child care for extended periods of time.

In the debate this afternoon, Senator Lundy said that full-time child care is virtually out of the reach of middle Australia. I pose this question to Senator Lundy and to those who will come into this debate later: how would a policy of providing just one free day of care a week for only three- or four-year-olds up to the amount of only $4.88 an hour—I would like to know where you can find child care for $4.88 an hour in this town, Senator Lundy—help fix the problem of accessibility to full-time child care? Of course it would not. It would not have gone anywhere near fixing the problem, yet here we are being lectured to by the Australian Labor Party about how we are not doing enough to fix the affordability of child care. If you cost an alternative and put it on the table then we will have a real debate about where child care should be going in Australia, Senator Lundy. Then we will talk about what we should be doing to further broaden the accessibility of child care.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Social engineering of the worst kind.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am in favour of social engineering if you can afford it, Senator Lundy. But you worked out that you could not afford anything more than one free day of child care a week. We have already exceeded, just in this budget alone, the amount of the outlays on child care that you were proposing in the last federal election. And I suspect that we will continue to do so as we make good, prudent use of the money which has been generated by prudent fiscal management over the last 10 years.

The fact is that the 30 per cent rebate provided by the coalition government is far more effective at meeting the cost of child care to Australian families. It is not based on age. It is not based on the cost of a particular provider of child care. It is a flat 30 per cent rebate for all out-of-pocket expenses for every hour of child care that families incur in a given week, and it is provided regardless of age. That is a fair policy. That is an effective policy that makes a big difference.

What is more, incidentally, do not forget that Mark Latham also proposed to scrap the family tax benefit part B; he was not going to continue with that. Stay-at-home parents would have lost that benefit under the family and tax policy announced by Mark Latham. Of course, that would also have substantially eroded the affordability of child care in Australia.

Senator Lundy talked today about sole parents and their access to child care. Mark Latham said on 14 September 2004, during the election campaign, that sole parents would be worse off in the annual calculation under his family and tax policy. So I think we need to see the whites of the eyes of the policy of the Labor Party before we have a chance to judge it. But, on the record to date, there is not much that is worth considering or taking seriously from the other side of the chamber.

We are not failing families, parents and providers, as Senator Lundy has suggested. We are dramatically improving the affordability of child care in Australia. We cannot control all of the circumstances in which child care is provided—that is true—but it is a matter of record that many more Australian families can access child care today than was the case before.

Senator Lundy criticised the decision recently by the ACCC to allow for the merger of the two biggest child-care providers in Australia. I would like to know what Senator Lundy considers to be the alternative to the process, whereby the ACCC would consider such proposals. It seems to me that they are extremely well equipped and well led to be able to make decisions of that kind. If Senator Lundy does not like it, I think she needs to tell us what process she would put in place to ensure that such mergers did not occur. But, as far as I am aware, it is not the policy of the Labor Party to dismantle the ACCC.

We have in front of us a policy which is working; a policy which is delivering affordable child care to Australians; a policy which is doubling and more the number of approved subsidised child-care places in Australia; and a policy which is now freeing up the physical geographical placement of child-care places through uncapping. I think that system is pretty good. It is delivering to Australian families. There are, of course, still problems in delivery of child care, but those problems have been substantially addressed in recent years. When I hear what the alternative is, I will be very happy to take on— (Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Lundy’s notice of motion, and I congratulate her for bringing this issue on. There is a great deal of debate in the community—emotional debate, of course, because this issue is an emotional one—about how we care for our children. Unfortunately, I do not think that the government’s recent announcement on child care went a long way or very far towards addressing the issues that face our child-care sector and the parents of this country.

The debate revolves around a number of issues: access, affordability and, very critically, quality. I would like to quote Emma Rush from the Australia Institute, who very recently—in April—released a paper on child-care quality in Australia. She starts by saying:

An excellent child care system is important to enable parents to balance work and family life, to encourage the workforce participation of parents, and to foster the development of Australian children. Recent public debate about the child care system in Australia has focused primarily on the availability and affordability of child care. This paper considers an aspect of child care that has received much less attention, that of the quality of the care provided.

I will address the issue of quality shortly, but the first point I would like to make is that I do not think the child-care system in Australia, as it presently stands, enables parents to balance work and family life. In fact, it makes it extremely difficult. It is not encouraging workforce participation of parents, and we have seen a great deal of analysis over the last two days, particularly from women, saying how hard it is to get back into the workforce under the current circumstances and, in particular, child-care arrangements.

I am deeply concerned that the current child-care system in Australia does not foster the development of Australian children. I believe we should be putting that at the centre of our child-care system. I found the announcement about lifting the cap on the provision of family day care centres and before and after school care deeply concerning. I do not think it goes any way to addressing the entrenched issues we have in our current child-care system. I think it is a short-term solution from a government that does not appear to appreciate some of the deep-seated issues that are involved in this issue. The allocation of child-care places is not just a question of supply and demand in broad economic terms—it requires identification of the needs of children and their families in the towns and suburbs of Australia.

The government’s simple approach seems to be that the market will take care of the allocation of child-care places. Quite simply, that is wrong. There needs to be a comprehensive needs analysis of the sector to determine where resources need to be allocated and for which particular services—because you need a combination of services—and what the long-term needs of the industry are, including training. This is particularly so in rural and regional areas. Just recently in a committee hearing I had the opportunity to ask some questions about assessing demand in, in particular, rural and regional areas, and it became quite obvious that they do not have an idea of demand in rural and regional areas. Again, it seems to take the approach ‘let the market provide’.

We need a clearly targeted strategy that aims to deliver appropriate child care in the places where it is needed and address the current and future demand for properly trained and accredited child-care staff. This government had an opportunity in this budget to set the direction of the child-care sector for future generations. I contend that if the Treasurer had put as much attention and understanding into child care as he put time and energy into dealing with the financial sector and superannuation for baby boomers, we would have a much better start to the child-care system in this country right now. We do in this country have the capacity and financial means to build what I believe we could have, and that is a world-class child-care system—not one that simply makes places available by cutting corners and dropping standards. A quality child-care system is important not only to prepare the next generation of Australians but also, as I said, to enable parents to balance work and family life and to encourage their participation in the workforce.

A number of worrying trends have been debated in the community, and I would like to touch on one of them—the privatisation of day care and child care. The danger is that if the funding is not targeted to clearly address areas of high demand for child care then we will see a wave of big, private child-care centres setting up in what could be described as the ‘nappy belt’ in response to the price of real estate rather that in response to the demand for services from parents wanting to return to the work force. This has been extensively covered in the media.

From the point of view of maximizing returns to shareholders, the most attractive proposition is to set up mega day care centres where the real estate is cheap, to cut corners on the quality of the facilities and play equipment provided, to push staff-to-children ratios as far as you legally can and to save your overhead costs by requiring staff to do all of the other admin, cleaning and maintenance activities at the same time. Clearly, there is a need for child-care places in regional centres, but setting up in these areas is unlikely to be financially attractive to the big private providers. As I said, the nappy belt is more financially attractive.

I want to make it clear that the Greens are not opposed outright to private enterprise, despite what many people say, nor are we arguing that there is no place for private providers in the child-care system. However, given the crucial nature of our children’s formative years, I do not believe that it is appropriate that private child care should be at the centre of our child-care system. It should help to supplement it. I for one am a strong supporter of community day care and community child care.

I am concerned that a system that puts the interests of shareholders above the interests of children is dangerous and damaging and needs to be carefully monitored and regulated. We already have clear evidence that the increasing privatisation of day care services is driving down the quality of services and the amount of one-on-one care and attention children receive, and increasing the likelihood that they will come to harm through inattention or neglect. We must at all costs avoid a factory farm mentality and must not cut corners or standards to meet demand. It is my firm belief that quality day care needs to be the heart and defining characteristic of our system. We need to ensure that we are investing in the future of our nation through our children and not short-changing or trading off that future for a few short-term gains and profits.

This issue was raised in an Australia Institute report which did a clear analysis of the current day care system. It looked at the three distinct types of day care provided: the community based centres—including all centres which are not for profit—the independent private centres and the corporate chains. As I said, the study by Emma Rush of the Australia Institute, which is called Child care quality in Australia, found:

... for all the aspects of quality care investigated, results show that community-based long day care centres offer the highest quality care. Independent private centres offer a quality of care that is usually similar to the high quality offered by community-based centres. Corporate chains offer the lowest quality of care on all aspects of quality surveyed, and in some cases it is markedly lower than that provided by community-based long day care centres.

It went on to say:

The ability to develop relationships with children, and thus secure attachments, is perhaps the most important indicator of quality of care. On this criterion, community-based and independent private centres scored markedly better than corporate centres, with around half of child care staff from the former two types saying they always have time to develop individual relationships compared to only a quarter at corporate centres.

Community based child-care centres provide the highest standards of care and the best linkages between the child, the family and the community. It is my personal strong belief that the way forward is to put community based child care at the heart of our child-care system. It should be the baseline and the standard to which all others seek to conform. We should actively encourage small private centres with a culture of caring to set up, but we must ensure that all child-care centres, whether they are community or private, are strongly regulated and assessed to ensure that standards are maintained and increased. We need to keep a very close eye on what I would call the large-scale industrial child-care providers, and action needs to be taken to clearly enforce standards and ensure quality of care.

Now I would like to turn to the issue of affordability. Quite clearly, the evidence shows that time and again parents are saying that they cannot afford child care. Then there are the gradients of what you can afford as they relate to quality. I believe all parents should have access to quality day care and child care. I do not believe that the current system of rebates is helping all the people in the community who need help.

The Australian Council of Social Service released a survey earlier in the year—in March in fact—along with their plan of how to address child care in Australia. Their plan was for a fairer and more affordable system. They made a number of important recommendations which need to be considered. They had a 10-point plan, but their most urgent specific recommendation was that they felt very strongly that a schedule of government recommended fees for services needed to be produced so that parents could compare the cost and quality of different service providers. ACOSS also felt very strongly that a 30 per cent child-care benefit guarantee should be created so all families would be paid at least 30 per cent of the government recommended fee for services. Many families would be entitled to much higher levels of support to meet child-care costs, with up to 85 per cent being paid to parents on the lowest incomes. They also believed that the government should establish a national demand model and a national planning system to identify demand and match services to local area needs. These are the sorts of recommendations that the government needs to go back and have a look at to try and get child care right in this country.

The plain and simple fact is that a large number of Australians do not have access to affordable quality day care or child-care centres. It is something that needs to be urgently addressed. We will not be able to address it urgently unless we deal with the issue of making sure that we have people who are trained and accredited to work in the industry. The industry is facing a crisis in workforce availability. How is the sector going to find the staff to support the new child-care positions that may or may not be created? Where is the plan and funding for vocational training and development in this sector? It will take at least two years for the industry to train enough new child-care workers to meet demand for child care, particularly if we want workers of high quality. It may take even more time to train directors of child-care centres—and this is assuming that there is a concentrated effort to create training places. We need people who we are confident in and who have the qualities and necessary skills to look after the children we are putting in child care.

The people who work in the child-care sector are among the lowest paid in this country. I have to make the comment here that the new industrial laws are highly likely to drive those salaries even lower. There is also a clear difference between the salaries of those working in the private sector and the salaries of those working in the community sector, and that was brought out in the Australia Institute report. There is a clear disincentive for people to enter this field just at the time when we need them most. There is an absence of fair pay, quality working conditions and long-term career options, and that means that people are simply not going to choose to work in the child-care industry. Without these people to look after our children, the sector will not be able to continue.

It is essential that we address the issues of access, affordability and quality. Those are the things that we think should be at the heart of any quality child-care system in this country. It is still difficult for women in particular to re-enter the workforce because there is no access to affordable quality child care, particularly in regional areas. We do not believe that the for-profit sector at the heart of our child-care system is the answer. Quality community care should be at the heart of our child-care system. We need to change the structures so that we have an affordable child-care system with centres in locations where they are needed and not where private industry thinks that that they are needed.

We need to reassess the 30 per cent rebate so that the child-care benefits are more immediately accessible by parents, particularly those on low incomes who cannot afford to shell out money hoping that they are going to get money back in the future. I strongly recommend that the government reads the ACOSS 10-point plan and I strongly recommend that they read the Australia Institute report on quality child care to ensure that we have a child-care system in this country that we can be truly proud of.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an interesting time. It is one of those debates we have after a budget of the century and the Labor Party are desperately looking for something to talk about. It is interesting that the Labor Party have picked this area because it is an area where they have no child-care plan. We can have a bit of a history lesson as to where the Labor Party were, and I am happy to start with that.

Child-care costs rose at twice the rate under the Labor Party than they have under the Howard government. Labor provided only half the level of funding and number of places that are provided currently. Labor did not provide a child-care benefit or a child-care tax rebate. Labor opposed recent legislation to ensure that unused places could be more easily reallocated to areas of need. Their proposed amendment would have locked up places with providers who did not use them for over 12 months at a time, denying parents in need of a place. Mothers did not get too many choices under Labor, and I think that is where we should start this debate.

It is going to be interesting to hear Mr Beazley—for as long as he is going to be the leader of the Labor Party, and tonight could be his last hurrah. Presuming he goes on, it is going to be fascinating to see what Mr Beazley puts on the table for the people of Australia as his alternative plan.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Lundy interjecting—

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Webber interjecting—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, out they come! We know that it is going to be an absolute work of art. Mr Beazley’s comments tonight will be an absolute work of art, absolute financial acumen, of how he is going to run this nation should—God forbid—he ever be given that mantle.

Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is going to be very entertaining.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are right, Senator Santoro. Tonight will be like an obituary speech for Mr Beazley. He will give his own obituary of what he would have delivered to the Australian people had he been given that option. What we should really be listening to tonight is the speech of possibly—

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are not going to be able to fill up 20 minutes. You are already struggling.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it is going to be interesting. There is a range of people to whom we could be listening tonight as alternative Labor Party leaders. We have had one gentleman down at the mine site in Tasmania, and he is obviously positioning himself for a tilt at the leadership. We look forward to his anecdotes of how he would run the country. We have another gentleman from the Labor Party who has been on the Kokoda Trail. He will give us a few anecdotes of how he is going to run the country. No doubt, Julia Gillard will give us a few anecdotes of how she would run the country. We have a multiplicity of possible policies that the Labor Party could come out with tonight, and I hope they all get a chance. We do not know who is going to be the leader of the Labor Party, but it could be one of them.

Let us look at what the Liberal-National government have delivered—because we deliver; that is the difference. They promise, they talk; we deliver. In the 2006-07 budget the government have committed an extra $120.5 million over four years to the child-care package. This is in addition to the $9.5 billion the Howard government will spend over four years to 2008. The Howard-Vaile government have doubled spending on child care compared with Labor. That is a very important point for the Australian people to realise—behind the rhetoric. This is the point: Labor are going to attack the budget on child care yet the Howard-Vaile government have doubled spending on child care compared with Labor. It is important to get that on the record.

The number of approved child-care places has doubled from around 300,000 in 1996—there are a few people in the Labor Party who were probably not born then; that was just after they got booted out—to 600,000 in 2005. On average, families now receive over $2,000 per year in child-care benefit. I know that is astounding, I know it leaves you without breath, but that is the fact of delivery of a Howard-Vaile government. It is going to be interesting to see what your future Labor leader Bill Shorten has to say about that. We are all waiting for Bill to arrive in the lower house to lead you out of the valley of gloom to take you to that higher mantle. We are looking forward to the arrival of Bill Shorten, the knight in shining armour who is going to save the Labor Party. But there are a few things he should be aware of. On average, families now, under a Howard-Vaile government, are receiving $7,700 in family tax benefits. They say, ‘Oh, that’s middle-class welfare.’ Well, so be it; we on this side of the house are happy to look after the middle class. They are the people we want to look after—the mums and dads. They are the people we go into bat for.

The Howard-Vaile government have removed the caps on the number of approved child-care places for out of school hours care and family day care. Long day care is already uncapped. This means that 99 per cent of places in the sector will be uncapped from 1 July 2006. Services will be able to be set up or expanded to meet demand where and when it occurs provided they meet the approval process, including quality and licensing requirements. Maybe the new leader, Bill Shorten, will want to change that. Maybe he will be throwing money helter-skelter so we can get ourselves into a $100 billion deficit again. It is the prudent economic management of the Howard-Vaile government that has given us this opportunity to look after the middle class—the people we endeavour to go into bat for.

Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The battlers, the workers, the forgotten people.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The battlers, the forgotten people. It is interesting to see what Latham, their former knight in shining white armour—and what an interesting character he was—was going to do. I think he was going to remove part of the family tax benefit. In climbing his ladder of opportunity he was going to sell families down the toilet. It is good to get these things on the record.

This is one of the most significant changes to the provision of child-care places in Australian public policy history—and I put that on the record. The Howard-Vaile government have made one of the most significant changes in Australian public policy history. That is the sort of record that Senator Scullion and Senator Santoro can stand behind because we are proud of delivery. We are a government of delivery, and this budget has been the biggest deliverer in the history of this place. This budget still gives you a $10.8 billion surplus. This budget is the result of the accomplishment of developing a trillion-dollar economy and taking Australia back where it should be at the front end of the Western developed world. It is one of the pride economies in the Western developed world and it has been managed under the good stewardship of our Treasurer, Peter Costello, with the strong support of his colleagues in both the Liberal Party and the National Party.

Parents on income support such as parenting payments who are re-entering the workforce will also benefit from this budget with increased funding to the JET Child Care program, which pays almost all the child-care gap between fees and the CCB. The budget also funds improvements to compliance checking and further supports the quality assurance program. It is very important that we do not just arbitrarily throw money around, that we get some control of what is happening, because it is important that the kids out there in these child-care centres are looked after—and they fall silent on the other side. Parents can be assured that there will be more rigorous financial compliance checking. This will ensure that parents get even more value for the assistance they get through the CCB.

The government has also committed to a significant investment to introduce new child-care management systems to ensure that up-to-date and accurate information is available on supply and demand on the use of child care. Parents seeking information on available child care in their local area will be able to ring the child-care access hotline, and it is good to see that we are delivering a quality controlled mechanism so that people can check how their kids are being looked after.

The long day care places—and that is an important policy aspect of this Howard-Vaile government—are already uncapped. We have had some conjecture are out there today about this. Someone can set up a child-care centre when and where they want so long as they meet the state and territory licensing regulations. All places at approved child-care centres are CCB funded so parents will receive subsidised child care. The Australian government’s role is to assist parents with the cost of child care, not to build or directly provide a child-care centre. We believe in the concept of small business and business being a benefactor of the policy of the government rather than the government being the business. We are happy to stand behind that on this side of the chamber and give people the opportunity to go into this marketplace and to make their money from that. That is what builds our trillion-dollar economy. It is one of the aspects that has developed our nation.

Maybe we will have an alternative policy tonight but I bet we do not. I bet there will be nothing but the poor, sad, sorry sight of Mr Beazley giving his obituary whilst Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan—and Bill Shorten on the television—sit back, their eyes peeled, sharpening their blades in true Labor fashion, ready to jump in there and start tearing him apart. It will be interesting to see not so much the applause that Mr Beazley will get from this side of the House but the applause, the conjecture, the eyes, and the daggers being sharpened up on his own side. It is going to be an interesting night. I cannot wait for Mr Beazley’s book after he is jettisoned by the Labor Party—as they have done so well with the rest of their former leaders. The government is providing a record level of funding to families for child care through child-care benefit and the child-care tax rebate. On average families are receiving $2,000 in child-care benefits per year.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have already said that.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It should be said again, because people should know—

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You said $7,000 last time.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much—a Daniel come to judgment! She knows the figures that the Howard-Vaile government is delivering. Yes, it is $7,700 per family—

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why did you say $2,000?

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because it is a point that we should get out and I think that people should know about it. It is very important. Low-income families already get the maximum rate of CCB. That on average covers around 65 per cent of child-care costs. In addition, the government has increased this funding because it has a vision for the future, for the progression and the nurturing of those who are probably the most important in our community: the new generation coming through. The children are the people this government intends to look after, and has.

As I have said before, we have got double the number of places that were available under a Labor government and I do not think that the population has doubled since the Labor government were in power. It might have, because it was a fair while ago, but I do not think that it has. Nonetheless, it has been a Liberal-National government that has really gone to the fore in trying to develop the child-care system. If the Labor government warrant such outrage about this, we just want to go to one thing: where is your plan? Surely after all this time you should be able to deliver some document to the chamber showing what you intend to do. But there is no such luck. There is nothing there. Why should you worry about delivering a child-care plan when you can go to Manuka for a Chinese meal? Why would you bother? There are other things to do around this town than deliver policies so let us not worry about policies. Let us just sit on the other side of the chamber and arbitrarily pick pieces out of the most brilliant budget of this century, the budget that has delivered the major tax cuts that we have all been looking for.

Who would ever have believed that we would live in a time when the top marginal tax rate in Australia would start at $150,000? That is a tax cut for everybody in this house; that is more money in your pocket. You can do that when you manage to balance the books. There is a bit of an art to balancing the books and this side of the house has the capacity to do that, and the Australian people know that. The Australian people know that when it comes to economic management there is only one side they can turn to and that is the Liberal-National government, and that is what has happened here.

Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They do that election after election.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They deliver it again and again, and even after having to start with a $96 billion—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is too much across-the-chamber shouting, interjections and unruly conduct.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Acting Deputy President. It does rile the blood and get people upset when they understand how we started off with $96 billion on the credit card and we had to pay that off. It was a bit of a struggle but the Australian people went along with us. They had to go through the pain because you had lumbered the credit card with $96 billion worth of trinkets that had to be paid for.

It is through the payment of that debt and the fact that we do not have to pay off $8 billion worth of interest each year that you stacked up on your credit card that we now have the capacity to spend some money on children. That is amply shown through what the Liberal-National government have done in this budget for child-care places. It is going to be a great day when this budget is passed. I imagine that if the Labor Party have some serious problems with it they will be voting against the changes to the tax rates. It would be an absolute piece de resistance to vote against the tax changes and to say to the Australian people: ‘We couldn’t do it, so we’re not going to give it to you.’ They would also be voting against this new package for child care. That is something that remains to be seen. We will hear about it tonight and we will see what Mr Beazley has to say.

With the introduction of child-care management systems there will be more up-to-date data on demand and supply. This information will be made available to potential providers—and that might be former Labor leaders. If necessary, we will provide more information, if any particular intervention is required in the future. Also, there are a range of payments under the Australian government Child Care Support Program that help eligible FDC and OSHC services to be established in areas of high need. We are going to the areas of high need because that is what you have to do. You have to target the areas of need. You can target the areas of need when you have the money to do it, and you get the money to do it when you manage the economy.

Even after paying off the $96 billion that the Labor Party racked up on the credit card for the Australian people, this year we have delivered a $10.8 billion surplus. Is that not amazing? Even after giving all that money back to the Australian people through tax cuts, looking after our defence forces, looking after our health system and giving better rollover relief to small business, we still have $10.8 billion extra in the bank account. I reckon that is a pretty special outcome. It is amazing. I can see my good friend and colleague Senator Scullion sitting over there. Even after protecting our northern fishing waters against incursion from potential poachers, even after putting up the money for that, we still have $10.8 billion to put in the bank.

That is the difference between the two. The Labor side of the parliament rack money up on the credit card. It is a big day at the shops when the Labor Party get into government. It is a car full of trinkets. It is a booze-swilling affair and lots of fun. Then this side of the parliament have to take 10 years to try to repair the damage. We have done it now and we are delivering back to the Australian people. In delivering back to the Australian people, we hope that if we do the right job they will give us their confidence.

I have to remind the Australian people that Labor have no child-care plan. Everything that has been said today is not backed up in substance by one document. They do not have one document. There is nothing. Is it is just an abstract, airy-fairy attitude of: ‘We don’t think this is going to work. We don’t quite know what to say. We can’t talk about the tax cuts. We can’t talk about what you’re doing in defence. We can’t talk about anything else, so we’re going to talk about child care.’

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s not true! We’ve got policies out there, but you wouldn’t know.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Webber interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order!

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot hear myself talk.

The Acting Deputy President:

Order, senators on my left!

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Acting Deputy President. I can understand why there is this amount of feeling. I can understand the frustration that you must have, because you have no arrows in your quiver to fire at this budget. You are completely at a loss. What do you say about the budget of the century? What can you possibly say about the budget of the century? There is nothing you can say. Every day when you walk through the front doors, how do you answer it? I would be fascinated—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order, Senator Joyce! You have less than a minute to go but you should direct your remarks through the chair and not across the chamber.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise for that. I shall endeavour to address my remarks through the chair; I mean that. Labor did not provide a child-care benefit or a child-care tax rebate. So what we are talking about today in this budget is something that the Labor Party did not even consider. They did not have it. We will go through the whole charade of you talking about something that you do not have and us defending the budget of the century. It is a debate we are going to win.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After that tirade, that babble, of misinformation and acronyms which Senator Joyce would have no idea of the meaning of, I am really sorry that you did not stay down with the penguins in Antarctica.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Crossin, address your remarks through the chair, please.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am still very sorry that he did not stay down there with the penguins in Antarctica. I have a friend who is stationed at Casey this year. A couple of dozen of us were prepared to nominate him for an Order of Australia if he kept Senator Joyce down there for the whole of the winter period. Unfortunately, my friend has failed. Senator Joyce must have slipped through their net and got back on the boat to join us again. Unfortunately, it means we have to put up with ill-informed—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. It is a ship, not a boat.

The Acting Deputy President:

That is a debating point.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He slipped through the net, got onto the ship and headed back again. Perhaps his time would have been better spent with the penguins down in Antarctica, rather than us having to put up with that tirade. Let us get to the issue of child care and the federal budget. I want to start by reiterating something that the Treasurer, Mr Costello, recently said to the Press Club, on 1 March this year. He said:

I think ... we ought to be looking at making this—

Australia—

the most female friendly place on earth.

This government has talked a lot about trying to make this country female friendly, but the details of the budget on Tuesday night tell a very different story, particularly when it comes to the issue of child care. You can stand up and talk for as long as you like—until the penguins waddle home, in fact—about the number of places you have created and how much money you have injected into the child-care industry in this country, but to most women and families who are confronted by having to find child care that really does not mean anything. It means nothing to them.

There are millions of people in this country—in fact, thousands of families—who need to ring centres every week to try to put a child or a prospective child on the child-care waiting list, and they will need to ring centres to see when that child-care place comes up. They need to try to balance their work and family life around the availability of child care. Then, of course, when they are confronted with the cost of child care, they need to work out and analyse whether it is worth the wife or the partner going back to work. They need to work out whether going back to work is cost effective for the family. Most long day care places are charging anywhere between $220 and $260 a week for a full-time place. So you can talk about what you have injected into the system—how many places or how many millions of dollars—but the cold hard fact is that the day-to-day reality for most families in this country is that child care is not accessible and is still unaffordable.

The Howard government is paying lip service to the real concerns of families across Australia by simply suggesting that it is throwing money at child care. My colleagues have talked about the smoke and mirrors trick with the child-care places that have been allocated—that is, the ASHC or after school hours care places, Senator Joyce—in this budget. The allocation of those places does not really address where the need is in this country. The real need in this country is not only in long day care but also in child care for babies. People are looking for child care not only for kids under the age of two but also for babies under the age of one. That child care is the most expensive child care in this country. Why is that? States and territories license and regulate child care and, in order to mind babies up to the age of one, you need a ratio of one carer to five babies. For older babies, it then goes to one carer to 10 babies and, for children over three years of age, you can have one carer to 15 children. So to provide child care to babies under the age of one is actually quite expensive for the provider, and the costs therefore flow on to parents and families. It is quite expensive for families because the child to carer ratio is much more intense.

The details are still to be explored in the Senate budget estimates—and we on this side look forward to doing that in about three weeks time—but it is apparent from the budget documents that the Treasurer and this government have no real strategy for resolving the real issues, the issues that actually confront families—and, let’s face it, mainly women—when it comes to child care. This budget has a proposal for fixing child care that is simply a con. Families and women know that. There are absolutely no measures in this budget to deal with two of the most critical issues facing the child-care sector—that is, the increased cost of child care and the availability of quality child care. The two issues really facing women who want to use child care, who want to get back into the workforce after they have had a child, is whether there is a place available and what the financial cost of the child care will be for them and their family.

The Treasurer has provided no guarantee that his proposal will lead to any reduction in child-care costs. There is no guarantee that it will increase the availability of child care in the locations where places are needed; in fact, not one extra place is guaranteed. They are made available but only in after school care and family day care—not in long day care. There are no extra places guaranteed. There is no guarantee that child care will be a single cent cheaper and there is no guarantee that the issues of quality will be addressed or will feature in this government’s sight.

I will now turn to the issue of the availability of quality child care and the failure of the Howard government to address this problem. In the Northern Territory the actions of this government have caused real problems for Territory families. There are almost 2,250 families who want to take advantage of long day care either through community care centres or private day care centres such as the ABC Learning Centres, about 750 families who use family day care, and about 1,300 families who use before and after school care and, most likely, vocational care—in fact, I use vocational care for Kate.

Having spent 31 years in the workforce, I have noticed that times have changed a bit when it comes to child care. We needed to utilise grandparents many decades ago. Some families I know are still utilising grandparents because the cost of child care is enormously high. There were not as many child-care centres available in the past. There are many child-care centres available now but nowhere near enough to keep up with demand. The child-care industry has changed, but this is a government that does not recognise or does not want to address the real, significant changes that are occurring and affecting women and their working lives.

I hear from parents all across the Territory, and this morning I heard from women who were at a breakfast that the Labor Party hosted at Parliament House. As is traditional, two days after the budget, the status of women caucus committee hosts a budget breakfast for peak women’s organisations in this country. We did that this morning very successfully. We again heard the comment that there is a chronic shortage of quality child care right across this country. This was reiterated again this morning publicly. The women I had a chance to talk to this morning were not convinced in any way that splashing money at after school care places or at family day care places—making places available but not ensuring that there are schools, providers or operators to take up those places—would address the problem. Women are not convinced that that is where the problem lies. The problem lies in trying to find long day care places for babies.

So what has been the response of the Treasurer to this crisis in child care? While the Treasurer boasts about his $60 million towards addressing the child-care crisis, simply speaking, Peter Costello is taking the unplanned market based system that has created shortages in long day care and applying it to other types of child care. We have uncapped places in long day care and now we will have uncapped places in after school care. That simply means that you can set up and operate wherever you like, without looking at where the market is, without looking at or analysing supply and demand.

We currently have many thousands of people waiting for long day care centres, and we still have after school hour places that have not been taken up. So why are we feeding more of the same problem into an existing situation that has not been resolved? In other words, this government is adopting the system that is failing parents and providers in many areas of Australia and is simply turning a blind eye to the reasons that family day care places in some areas languish unused, while desperate parents cannot find child care near their work or home.

The Treasurer announced in the budget that the government will get rid of the cap that currently applies to outside school hours care—that is, before and after school, and vacation care, the care you use week in, week out during the traditional periods of school holidays; and family day care, from 1 July this year in fact. The Treasurer claims that this will result in another 25,000 new places at a cost of $60 million over four years. There is no modelling or evidence to support this claim but, more than that, there is no incentive, encouragement or decent policy direction under this government to ensure that any one of those 25,000 new places will actually be used or utilised. They are going to be freed up and funded, but they will just sit out there and languish, without any means by which providers or schools which run after school care programs can pick up and utilise those places.

We know that there are already 67,000 outside school hours places and 30,000 family day care places unused from previous budgets. And they are not being used for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything to do with the cap. Let us just have a look at the 30,000 existing places in family day care, for instance, and the reasons why those positions are not being used. It is simply that family day care work and family day care centres do not attract enough workers to deliver the places. Family day care centres are traditionally run by women who operate a micro child-care centre from their home base. They are probably licensed to have anywhere between three and six children, depending on the age of those children. They have to go to enormous expense to modify their homes to ensure that they meet the regulation and licensing requirements that suit the age of the children—and there are certain requirements they must have. Once they have done all that, they go about minding up to five or six children each day in their own homes.

Many women simply do not want to do it. It is very hard work, particularly when you are there by yourself. Unlike in a child-care centre, you do not have the support and back-up of an additional staff person. The pay is extremely poor—I think it is less than $500 a week—to run a family day care centre from your home. Many women are simply better off staying at home, raising their own children and receiving family tax benefits. There is no incentive to encourage women in our society to become family day care providers. There is nothing there that is going to entice them to pick this up as a career and to modify their homes and put themselves through very hard work which is usually unrewarding and, most particularly, paid extremely poorly.

The Howard government has cut operational subsidies to family day care schemes, so that makes it even harder to recruit and train family day care workers. The budget does not provide family day carers with any incentive in terms of addressing wage inequity. Around 96 per cent of the child-care workforce, as I said, is female and, under the Howard government, the gap between men’s and women’s wages has gone up 34 per cent. When you put on top of this the changes to the industrial relations system through the Work Choices bill, this gap will become a chasm as this government takes an axe to the minimum wage. The budget proposal completely neglects the fact that child-care workers have been on the national skills shortage list for seven of the last 10 years. And the failures of the Howard government do not stop there. In this budget, the government has failed to reduce the cost burden on families which child care imposes.

Let me talk for a minute about the plight of child-care workers. We can have a debate in this chamber and in this parliament about private child-care centres versus community child-care centres—and that is a debate for another time—but I maintain that, at the end of the day, the bottom line is this: they are all child-care workers. It is similar to the argument that we have about teachers who work in public and non-government schools or in the private school sector. At the end of the day, they are all teachers. In the child-care sector, no matter what kind of facility we are looking at—after school hours care, privatised child-care centres such as ABC or community based child care centres—child-care workers are trying to deliver a top quality service to the community. In fact, I see them as early childhood educators rather than as childminders, babysitters or child-care workers, and I prefer to call them early childhood educators. But, at the end of the day, their salaries are absolutely appalling. So appalling in fact that, to the credit of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, there has been a national test case run to improve the pay outcome of these workers across the country. But we do not see the federal government encouraging child-care providers to pick up that national wage case and flow it on to child-care workers in the industry.

In the Northern Territory, the Miscellaneous Workers Union has won the right to flow on that national wage case to child-care workers in the Territory. Three private child-care providers are resisting that case and want to fight the Miscellaneous Workers Union again in the Industrial Relations Commission. They are refusing to pay it on. Certainly the ABC Learning Centres have agreed to pay it, but my understanding is that four pays have gone by and the workers are still waiting for that wage case to flow into their pay packets. So, as a result, women are actually walking away from child care. They are leaving the industry. They are not about to hang around and still be underpaid and undervalued. That is another crisis in this industry that this government is failing to do anything about.

The national skills shortage list has had child-care workers on it. Why is that? They are undervalued and underpaid, and this government is doing absolutely nothing to encourage and promote the image of child-care workers as valued members—in fact, critical members—of our community. As a woman who wanted to go back into the workforce after I had each of my four children, I relied incredibly on child-care workers to enable me to do that. Part of this budget does not recognise the skill of those women and does nothing to promote and encourage the flow-on of the national wage case, let alone provide any money towards child-care centres to ensure that happens.

The only new child-care money in this budget that we will actually see spent is the $2.3 million that will be allocated to advertise the government’s child-care tax rebate scheme that they announced two years ago. Why is it now going to be used as an advertising scheme in 2006? Because two years ago, in the lead-up to the election, when the 30 per cent tax rebate was announced, people thought it would actually apply immediately. That was pushed out a year—it was not going to apply until 1 July 2005. When Peter Costello had another look at the books, he thought: ‘Oh, gosh, can’t afford that this year. I’d better push it out another year.’ So people will not actually benefit from that 30 per cent tax rebate until they put in their tax return this year. That means, of course, that when they front up to do their tax return this year they will need to have evidence of out-of-pocket child-care expenses for the last two years. It would be good luck if they still have or can find receipts or if the child-care centres can actually provide them. I think that in itself will be another story. (Time expired)

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to respond to the motion by Senator Lundy. I think it is very important that those opposite really understand what our government has done. In the 2006-07 budget, the government has committed an extra $120.5 million over four years for the child-care package. This is in addition to the $9.5 billion the Howard government will spend over four years to 2008-09. Compared to Labor, the Howard government has doubled spending on child care, and the number of approved child-care places has doubled, from around 300,000 in 1996 to 600,000 in 2005.

Under Labor, I remember well that mothers did not get too many options or support for child care on their return to work. Under Labor, unemployment was at record levels and real wages were falling. Child care was a very expensive prospect when you were already paying mortgage interest rates at 17 per cent, and the Labor government of the time did not provide a child-care benefit or the child-care tax rebate. Contrast that to the current situation where, under the Howard government, families now receive, on average, over $2,000 per year in child-care benefits.

This government supports families to choose the way they would best like to care for their young children. By comparison, Labor opposed recent legislation to ensure that unused places could be more easily reallocated to areas of need. Their proposed amendment would have locked up places for providers who did not use them for over 12 months at a time, denying parents in need of a place. As well as supporting families with the cost of child care, the Howard government provides other family payments: family tax benefit and the maternity payment. On average, families are receiving $7,700 in family tax benefit.

In other budget initiatives, the government has committed to an additional $120.5 million in the 2006-07 budget to provide an even more responsive child-care system for parents. The government has removed caps on the number of approved child-care places for out of school hours care and family day care. Long day care is already uncapped.

While I am on the subject of caps being removed, I will mention that a young researcher in my office has just given me a copy of an article headed ‘Leak shows Canberra funding delay’. Michelle Grattan wrote this on 7 April 2004 and it includes the following comment:

Yesterday, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks called for federal funding for a shortfall of 3600 outside-school-hours places in Victoria. He urged the Howard Government to lift the cap on after-school care, saying the full level of unmet demand could be 10,000. The northern suburbs of Melbourne were short by more than 1000 places, while the eastern areas needed more than 900 places. The Victorian Government would provide $10 million to the program if the Federal Government lifted the cap, Mr Bracks said.

I will now continue on the budget initiatives. Ninety-nine per cent of places in the sector will be uncapped from 1 July 2006. Services will be able to set up or expand to meet demand where and when it occurs, provided they meet approval, including quality and licensing requirements. Parents using the newly created child-care places will be eligible for subsidised child care through the child-care benefit.

The child-care industry has largely welcomed the moves to uncap the number of child-care places. I quote from the Canberra Times of Wednesday, 10 May which said:

National Family Day Care Council of Australia chief executive, Linda Latham, said she was ‘delighted’ there would be more money in the hands of parents.

Ms Latham said the child care sector would be grateful for the removal of the cap on the number of places.

The Australian on Wednesday, 10 May said:

Mission Australia chief, Patrick McClure, said the childcare reforms would help parents.

‘Removing limits on subsidised childcare places will assist sole parents moving from welfare to work’, he said.

I am also aware that Mr Amgad Botros, the managing director of Western Australian child-care centre Go Bananas in Joondalup, has written to Minister Brough to congratulate him on the news that places will now be uncapped. I would like to read his letter because I think it really gives a very good understanding of how these child-care organisations feel about it. He says:

Dear Minister Brough,

I would like to congratulate you and your department for changing the child care funding structure in relation to Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) Child Care as announced in Tuesday’s Federal Budget.

We at Go Bananas provide a high quality, dedicated OSHC service in a stimulating age appropriate environment for children. This is based on a professional development programme which includes physical activities to curb the emerging obesity problem in Australian children.

The recent changes you have made will provide opportunities for new services to be established which will address a real and significant need Australia wide.

Historically, OSHC child care places were regulated and resulted in limited services being provided from long day care child care services. In many instances, these do not provide an age appropriate stimulating environment (i.e. for children aged 5-12 years).

Furthermore, the regulated funding structure meant that parents could not afford this type of child care. Accordingly, parents were forced to stay home or reduce their working hours to care for their children before and after school and during school holidays.

We believe the changes just announced will reduce the red tape involved in establishing dedicated OSHC services and will enable more mothers, in particular, to enter the workforce.

In particular, we acknowledge the work that Dr Mal Washer did in supporting these changes along with your department.

By all accounts a long term win/win outcome for children, their parents and the broader economy!

Yours Sincerely,

Amgad Botros

Managing Director

Go Bananas OSHC Service

As I said, that centre is in Joondalup in Western Australia. This budget measure is one of the most significant changes to the provision of child-care places in Australian public policy history and the most significant change since the Howard government introduced the child-care benefit.

Parents on income support such as parenting payment who are re-entering the workforce will also benefit from this budget through the increased funding to the JET Child Care Program, which pays almost all of the child-care cost gap between fees and the CCB. The budget also funds improvements to compliance checking and further supports the quality assurance system. These changes mean that the full value from the record level of expenditure in child care made by the Howard government goes to support parents who use approved child care. Parents can be assured that there will be more rigorous financial compliance and checking. This will ensure that parents get even more value for the assistance they get through CCB.

The government has also committed to a significant investment to introduce a new child-care management system to ensure that up-to-date and accurate information is available on supply, demand and use of child care. Parents seeking information on available child care in their local area will be able to ring the child-care access hotline on 1800670305 from 1 July 2006.

Long day care places are already uncapped. A child-care centre can set up when and where they want so long as they meet state and territory licensing and regulations. All places at approved child-care centres are CCB funded, so parents will receive subsidised child care. The Australian government’s role is to assist parents with the cost of child care, not to build or directly provide child care. The government supports parents’ choices about which child-care service they use.

Child-care benefit is available to parents who use any type of approved child-care service. Long day care is not the only type of child care. The government has uncapped family day care, which also provides care for children under five years of age. While we acknowledge that there are some inner-city hotspots for demand for long day care, we also get reports of oversupply of places. The government’s child-care management system will give an accurate picture of demand and supply.

The Howard government has doubled the number of funded places to 600,000 compared to 300,000 in 1996. The government is providing a record level of funding to families for child care through child-care benefit and the child-care tax rebate. On average, families are receiving over $2,000 in child-care benefit per year. In addition, working families will be able to receive the 30 per cent child-care tax rebate—up to $4,000 per child per year on out-of-pocket child-care costs.

Low-income families already get the maximum rate of CCB which, on average, covers around 65 per cent of child-care costs. In addition, the government has increased funding for JET child-care fee assistance for eligible parents looking for work, starting work or in training. This assistance covers most of the child-care fees to help low-income parents’ transition to work. Recently published CPI figures do not account for the benefit of the child-care tax rebate. Costs of care rose at twice the level under the previous Labor government. Recent reports show that the cost of care remains lower in real terms than it did under Labor. We have more than doubled spending compared to Labor.

The Howard government has spent almost $16 billion on child care over the 10 years it has been in power. In comparison, Labor government expenditure on child care was less than $7 billion during its last 10 years in government. People often look at the child-care benefit in isolation. Not only does it provide more support than the previous government, but we have also introduced the child-care tax rebate and increased JET Child Care funding. Families also receive further assistance from the Howard government to raise their children: family tax benefit parts A and B, the maternity payment and a range of other services such as parenting programs.

The Australian government has already announced support to recruit more family day care carers. The government provided funding for the ‘Let’s get building’ campaign run by the National Family Day Care Council, which aims to recruit an extra 1,200 carers. The Australian government also announced in last year’s budget the family day care start-up payment of $1,500, which will assist new family day care carers to meet the initial costs of setting up their home based child-care businesses through family day care. With the introduction of child-care management systems there will be more up-to-date data on demand and supply. This information will be made available to potential providers. If necessary we will provide more information if any particular intervention is required in the future. Also, there are a range of payments under the Australian Government Child Care Support Program that help eligible FDC and OSHC services to establish in areas of high need. This unprecedented government initiative, together with other family-friendly funding initiatives announced in the budget, clearly refutes Senator Lundy’s claim that parents’ child-care needs are being ignored.

I would like to continue on Labor’s record. Labor has no child-care plan. Child-care costs rose at twice the rate under Labor as under the Howard government. Labor only provided half the level of funding and places that are provided currently. Labor did not provide a child-care benefit or the child-care tax rebate. Labor opposed recent legislation to ensure that unused places could be more easily reallocated to areas of need. Labor’s proposed amendment would have locked up places with providers who did not use them for over 12 months at a time, thus denying parents in need of a place. Mothers did not get too many options on returning to work or getting support for child-care choices under Labor, when there were record levels of unemployment and falling real wages. Child care was a very expensive prospect when you were already paying for interest rates of 17 per cent and getting a job was very difficult. I hope that some of the issues I have raised will go towards refuting Senator Lundy’s motion.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion. Many would think I would not have an interest in this area because, of course, I deal with justice, customs and a range of other issues. But I can speak from personal experience, as a member of a family with children who have experienced child care. They are now a little older, but let me say from the outset that we went through the range of issues that have been raised today and it disappoints me even more to find that the difficulties that confronted my family then seem to have been continued and exacerbated under the coalition government. We had the opportunity of using day care and other facilities to allow both my partner and I to work. But when you look at the Howard government’s approach to this issue you see that it leaves a lot to be desired.

For those who may have just joined the debate, the motion went to the Senate condemning the Howard government for ignoring in the budget the urgent needs of parents struggling with the cost, availability and quality of child care. It particularly noted the incompetence of the Howard government in allocating $60 million for child-care places that will never be delivered, given there are already 100,000 unallocated places due mainly to the shortages of child-care professionals. The next thing that was noted was the failure to bring forward the 30 per cent rebate on out-of-pocket child-care expenses, despite criticism of the rebate from the government’s own backbench and the fact that the child-care fees are rising at a rate far in excess of that of other goods and services. Of course, parents who cannot find child care clearly cannot work and that adds to the skills shortage. But let me deal with those in turn.

Two days ago in the House we saw this government, which is becoming increasingly out of touch, abandon Australian families and relegate the issue of child care to the too-hard basket. It is now clear that this government has totally run out of ideas and true leadership when it comes to the burgeoning child-care crisis in neighbourhoods across Australia. I think Mr Peter Costello and his government are trying to con Australian families on child care. It is almost like the pea and thimble trick, trying to hide the pea and make you guess where the empty thimble is. But of course this is an issue that hurts working families, and is more serious than that. This tired government has given up on trying to provide safe, affordable and quality child care for Australian families. That is where we are today.

In fact, it has gotten worse under this government, not better. You would expect under this government that there could have been opportunities, because we had continuously pointed out the failings for the last couple of years. It could have taken a leaf out of our book and said, ‘The Labor Party got it right on this issue and we should fix it.’ It has certainly taken many other leaves out of our book, but not on this issue. It seems to be intent on hurting families in this way.

Take a look at the government’s approach to the uncapping issue. The government announced that it will get rid of the cap that currently applies to outside school hours care and family day care from 1 July 2006. It has claimed that this will result in 25,000 new places at a cost of $60.2 million over four years. Figures, figures, figures—that is all we get from this government. This government is becoming out of touch because families do not want figures; families want action out of this government, and they are not getting it. One hand of this government does not seem to know what the other is doing. There are still 67,000 outside school hour places and 30,000 family day care places that were promised in previous budgets but are unused.

This is an obvious failure by the government to show any leadership on this very important issue for working families. The solution that the government came up with is to promise more money, which they say will create 25,000 new places over four years, with a price tag of $60.2 million. But, sadly, this completely misses the mark. This is where they should have followed the Labor Party—we had pointed out the problems—but they chose not to. The short fix was the political fix, which was to say, ‘We are throwing in 25,000 new places at a cost of $60.2 million.’ The unwritten line is: ‘but not really’, because they are not really addressing the real issue. Removing the cap on child-care places is not going to solve the problem when we have oversupply in some areas and chronic shortages in others.

One of the issues that this government has failed to address is ensuring that the age-dependent places are available. For instance, there is no mechanism in place to ensure that early child care is provided. Infants from six weeks to two years old clearly require intensive supervision, which is why two carers are required for eight children. The public expect that; families expect that; I would expect that. Of course it is extremely labour intensive, and rightly so. But none of the subsidies or payments reflects this.

If you compare two hypothetical child-care facilities, both employing two carers, where one centre caters for six-week- to two-year-olds and the other one caters for three- to five-year-olds, the centre with very young infants can offer a maximum of eight places, whereas the centre for three- to five-year-olds can offer 24 places. In this hypothetical example, these two centres have similar overheads, such as rent and wages, which is not unusual in the same area or city. They would also have similar wage structures. But this government treats these centres as the same. It is no wonder, when you look at those types of outcomes, that there are massive shortages of infant care. It is prohibitively expensive for child-care centres to provide infant care. And what is this government doing about it? Nothing at all. Every time a working Australian walks into a child-care centre and is told that there is no infant care available, they have this government to thank for it. Costs go up. Working families find that child-care fees do rise. It is not surprising. Centres have overheads and wages to meet, and their costs increase—just like insurance premiums, petrol prices and interest rates.

Recently, a family in Queensland told my office about the increasing strain on their family budget. This is a middle-income family with both parents working full time, with a combined income of around $100,000. The government has finally provided them with $19.60 a week in tax relief, but this has already been eaten up by the $30 per week in extra fuel costs, $77 each month in higher interest on their mortgage and the like and child-care fees that are rising above the inflation rate. In some respects it is the people on middle incomes who are finding these costs difficult. One would not think that at first blush. Both parents want to continue working and participate in the labour market, they want access to quality, affordable child-care facilities and they want them within reasonable reach of their home or work, depending on their arrangements. They want the child-care facilities to be able to cater to their needs. They do not expect that it is going to be easy and they do not expect child care to be provided while ignoring the associated costs, but they do expect this government to do more than what it has been doing to date. They do expect a little bit more from this government that what it has provided in this budget.

Look at the other side of the coin and at how many people out there who are care givers and who could otherwise be in the workforce—I dare say that that is a substantial number. In many cases, those parents who cannot find child care also then cannot find work. It is not that they cannot find work, but they cannot find the opportunity to participate in the labour market, because they are primary care givers.

The ABS reports that up to 160,000 women—although of course there are men who are child-care providers—want to work but cannot, because of a lack of care for their children. This country, as we have said, has no plan for skills. This country is not even looking at how it maximises its use of currently available skills in those that are locked into care but who otherwise want to participate in the workforce. And why? It is because the government does not have a plan to address this issue—to ensure that there are skills. I was shocked today to hear Senator Vanstone in question time seeming to blame the government of some 15 years ago. The problem is that the government of the last 10 years has had the responsibility of dealing with this and has not. It has failed to adequately address the broader issues. It has chosen not to. When you look at the government’s approach, you see that in 1996 it had the opportunity of continuing programs to ensure that there was skills development and to ensure that we would be able to meet our needs for a range of apprentices who would ultimately become tradespersons in trades ranging from mechanical to electrical to bakers and butchers and all the other areas. But the government has not put in a plan to ensure that this issue is addressed.

One area where the government could help is child care. Many of the Australian mums and dads looking for child care are skilled workers temporarily out of the labour market. They could return to work if there were adequate child-care facilities. The government could ensure that those mums and dads were skilled to meet needs in areas that are currently there and available but, as I have said, it has chosen to make it more and more difficult for them to enter the labour market.

If you hold this issue up to the light, you can see that the lack of child care is contributing to this country’s skills shortage right when we need skilled workers the most. Last week, the Reserve Bank identified the shortage of skilled workers as one of the significant constraints on our economy; it is putting pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. There are good examples of skilled workers who want to work but cannot because of the unavailability or lack of affordable child care. To see that brings shame on this government. We have a government that has managed—quite adeptly, when you think about it—to bring about a shortage and a surplus at the same time. It is quite an achievement for a government to be able to do both at the same time. Looking at the overall picture you could take the view that it is humorous, but this is deadly serious. Parents who want to work are finding it really tough not on one but on a number of fronts, and the child-care shortage just adds to their problems.

Turning now to the 30 per cent child-care rebate, the Howard government grows more arrogant every day. The only money from the budget that is guaranteed to be spent is the $2.3 million earmarked for advertising the 30 per cent rebate on out-of-pocket child-care expenses. This is the same rebate that the government has been talking about for years and still has not addressed. The advertising campaign should highlight the fact that many parents are not eligible for the rebate and that few families are going to receive anything like the promised $4,000. Let us have another look at that Queensland family. It is not going to receive the promised $4,000—probably nowhere near it. Depending on how much the child-care centre charges, they will probably receive just over half that amount. The government has demonstrated that it lacks leadership and direction when it comes to this important area of child care in Australia.

Does the government’s so-called solution provide more guaranteed places? I think that argument has been well and truly made, and the answer is no, it does not. The government has not been able to address that issue. Has the government made child care more affordable? The answer, again, is no. Has the government improved or brought about better quality child care? The answer is no; it is as simple as that. Has the government committed money to planning to ensure that there are no shortfalls? The problem in child care of course is that there is a surplus in one area and a deficit in another. Has the government sought or planned to make sure that there is child care available? No. Despite a range of promises, it has not been able to fix it, and this budget does not fix it.

Child care is the government’s responsibility. Senator Vanstone would like to blame others. I think that is the problem with this government: it is actually starting to believe its own rhetoric. It is starting to believe that it is not its fault when things go wrong and that it is somehow the opposition’s fault for when it was in government 10 years ago. The government fails to take responsibility for its day-to-day management and for its future plans, which it should have started on in 1996 when it came into government but did not. That is when the government should have started its planning, but it failed.

Now the government are turning around asking, ‘Who is to blame because we have failed to plan for our future needs and for the future needs of our children?’ The government say, ‘We have to find an excuse and blame someone.’ That is what the government would easily do; they sought to blame the Labor Party, as it was the closest thing they were able to latch on to. It is about time the government let go of that crutch and started to take responsibility for their own failings, because Australia cannot afford for the government to sit on their heels and do nothing. Australia cannot afford for the government to start and continue the blame game. Australia cannot afford for the government to not take seriously the inequities, the difficulties, the oversupply and the undersupply in this area and to not put in a plan to fix them. The government cannot continue to simply say: ‘Management is not our prerogative. We will leave it to the invisible hand of the market to sort out.’

It does not need to go to the other extreme of a planned economy. No-one is saying that. However, it does need to take a strategic view and plan and recognise that it does have a role to play in the market, it does have a role to assist the market, it does have a role to provide incentive in the market, it does have a role to ensure that the market does in fact work and, where the market fails, it does have a role to ensure that it can correct that failure. This government has failed to recognise those issues and rather left them to that old, invisible hand and hopes that works.

Of course, as I have said the government has not committed any money to planning, even in child care. Despite promising to expand the existing access hotline so parents can find out what vacancies exist in the area, no funding has been announced for the phone line. You have to ask yourself: ‘Where is that going to come from? Where is the phone access to a hotline going to actually be implemented from?’ The government has also announced it would introduce a child-care management system, which appears to be a start to collecting data and better managing child-care places, but strangely there is no money for that. Why is there no money for that? The government is now in position which only reinforces what I have said—that there is no plan. The government is going to promise a plan and blame the Labor Party for its failures. (Time expired)

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not planning to speak, but I have been listening very carefully, as I always do, to the senator’s remarks and I feel that it is important to put a number of things on the record so that people who may read the Hansard or may have the opportunity to hear this broadcast will see the very large gaps and, I have to say—and I regret to say it—the touch of hypocrisy in the Labor Party position. We have heard a number of Labor Party contributions on this child-care motion. Child care is important. It is important to this government and, one would think from the speeches we have heard, it is important to the Labor Party.

I will be looking at Mr Beazley’s speech this evening, as it appears that Labor wishes to spend even more on child care. Let us see whether that occurs in the alternative budget being presented this evening. Labor wants to make major changes—I will not call them reforms—to child care. Let us see whether it is given a priority in Mr Beazley’s budget reply tonight. I suspect that, like in so many things, when it comes to taking action the Labor Party will be MIA—missing in action. Those who have listened to the senator’s speech will not be surprised if little, if anything, of substance is delivered in terms of Labor Party policy. It is worth putting on record that the government has committed an additional $120.5 million in the 2006-07 budget to provide an even more responsive child-care system for parents. This is a very significant increase in funding. But the Labor Party thinks that more money should be put in. We will see in the alternative budget.

The government has removed, as a number of my colleagues have said, the caps on the number of approved child-care places for out of school hours care and family day care. Long day care is already uncapped. Let us look at the historical statistics on this. These have been quoted in the debate today, but it is worth making the point. Apparently the Labor Party gave a high priority to child care when it was in government. How many child-care place were there when Senator Sherry was on the government benches? In 1996, there were 300,000 places. In 2005, there were 600,000 places. That is astonishing growth, unmatched by anything that Labor has been able to put up over the years.

It is often said in this chamber that it is a great pity the Labor Party did not spend an extra year in office, because all those wonderful things that they had forgotten to do in their 13 or so years in office could have all been done in that final year. The trouble is, the Labor Party comes with form, and when you look at that form you find that the Labor Party talks a lot and complains a lot but does not deliver and does not deliver real policy. Senator Sherry being here in the chamber reminds me that we had to wait eight years for a superannuation policy from him. That is a very long time to be producing a superannuation policy. The truth is, I think the Labor Party and, indeed, Senator Sherry, who is meant to be their in-house expert on superannuation, would have been stunned by the magnificent reforms that the Treasurer announced on Tuesday. When great things happen, the Labor Party often say, ‘That was our policy.’ I do not think anyone is saying that Senator Sherry produced a policy which could have matched the major reforms that have been undertaken in super and have been very widely welcomed by the wider community.

The parents using child-care places will be eligible for subsidised child care through the child-care benefit, and this is one of the most significant changes to the provision of child-care places in Australian public policy history. It is a big statement, and that is the case—it is the most significant change since the Howard government introduced the child-care benefit. Parents on income support, such as the parenting payment, who are re-entering the workforce will also benefit from this budget with increased funding to the JET Child Care program, which pays almost all the child-care gap between fees and CCB.

This government has brought down one of the great reforming budgets in Australian political history. I think the stunned looks on the faces of the Labor Party when the Treasurer announced the very wide-ranging changes, from tax reform through, as we mentioned, to child care to superannuation to infrastructure to research, showed that this is a government that does have a vision. This is a government that—

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator George Campbell interjecting—

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator George Campbell is again complaining, as the Labor Party does. The great problem for the Labor Party is that the Labor Party complains, moans and groans about this budget but everywhere the Treasurer goes he is cheered for the reforms that he has been able to bring about. We will all be looking tonight, Senator George Campbell, to what your leader can produce.

Debate interrupted.