Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011. Since 2008 the Australian government has introduced a range of new measures to ensure the financial viability of childcare providers, including strengthening approvals processes and requiring additional notification of closures of centres. This bill makes a number of administrative amendments to allow the government to strengthen debt recovery provisions, compliance and administration of the childcare benefit.

The legislative changes in this bill which amend the Family Assistance Administration Act and other acts of parliament will improve accountability within the childcare sector. As someone who has worked for over a decade in the childcare sector, I understand how important this is to care and learning outcomes for children. During the collapse of ABC Learning in 2008, the childcare centre in Margate—a town, close to my electorate office, where I spent much of my childhood—was facing the threat of closure. I was really impressed by the fighting spirit of that community as they vowed to do all they could to keep that service open.

The receivers of ABC Learning chose not to close the Margate childcare centre immediately but could only guarantee that it would stay open till June 2009. The childcare centre was bought by Tasmanian group Stepping Stones, which subsidises the running costs of many of its regional childcare centres through its city based services. Hundreds of other centres were saved because the Australian government provided $34 million in assistance to keep them open. The government's decisive action meant that 90 per cent of these centres continue to operate for Australian families today and, indeed, the Margate childcare centre is still working to this day. Being 20 minutes south of Hobart, that is very important for people in the region. One of my staff members utilises that centre for her children and I know how important it is for her.

Affordable, accessible child care is vital to parents and caregivers in small towns like Margate. However, what I think this story also highlights is the importance of integrity in the childcare market because we all know the dramatic effect that early childhood education has on the future of our children. This bill will improve the accountability of the childcare market and protect the market from unscrupulous operators. For instance, it will allow the Australian government to offset and recover payments owed by one service from other services operated by the same operator. This will ensure that operators that run up debts to the Common­wealth in one service can be held accountable for their actions. If an operator exits the market after accumulating debts to the Commonwealth, they will be stopped from re-entering the market under a restructured company with similar but not identical directors.

The bill will also allow payments made to childcare services to be offset against subsequent payments. In other words, where the recalculation of a childcare benefit fee results in a reduction of the amount payable but the higher amount has already been paid, the debt owing to the Commonwealth can be recovered from future payments.

If a service notifies the department of an intention to cease operation, the secretary will have the discretion to cease making enrolment advance payments to the service. The powers of the secretary to refuse approval of a childcare service will be clarified and broadened. The secretary will be allowed to refuse any applicant that does not meet the conditions for approval. This will provide stronger powers to ensure that applicants are fit and proper people to operate childcare services and will improve the standard of the childcare industry. The bill will also ensure that the conditions for initial approval and continued approval are aligned.

The bill will clarify the provisions concerning eligibility for childcare benefit if a child is absent from a childcare service. The minister will be authorised to specify, by legislative instrument, the circumstances under which the service will be taken to have permanently ceased providing care to a child who is absent. Also, the bill will amend protected information provisions to allow the Commonwealth to share information about childcare services with state and territory regulatory authorities. The sharing of information between authorities supports the National Quality Framework agreed to by COAG.

The Australian government has invested $273.7 million in the National Quality Framework. The framework will improve educator to child ratios so that each child gets more individual time and attention. It will also introduce educator qualification requirements so educators are better able to lead activities that inspire children and help them learn and develop. Early childhood learning is vital to a child's development and these two initiatives under the framework will ensure that children attending child care will get a quality learning experience. The National Quality Framework will also include a new ratings system so parents will know the quality of care on offer and can make informed choices. This is very important because not all forms of child care suit all parents. There need to be different types of services available so that parents can choose one that best suits them and their child's needs.

Finally, the framework will reduce the regulatory burden. Services will only have to deal with one regulator. This is particularly important in reducing the overheads of operators, especially those operating in more than one state or territory. The information-sharing provisions will also benefit services as they will not have to provide the same information to more than one body. Reducing the regulatory burden on childcare operators will allow them the opportunity to focus more resources on care itself, and this is obviously a great outcome for our children.

I am a member of the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee and was on the committee at the time of the inquiry into the provision of child care. It was a most interesting inquiry to be involved in. We heard evidence from a large number of people, including childcare providers and parents, and visited a number of childcare services to see the effects of the collapse of the ABC Learning centres. As we know, that left many thousands of families stranded, as they were not sure whether they had care or not, so the Labor government jumped in and put that money in to make sure that child care was not compromised. I am not sure that other parties, if they had been in government, would have done it that way. I know that, having worked in the industry for over a decade and still having many contacts within the industry, it was greatly appreciated that we did it that way.

I was on the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Reference Committee in November 2009 when it handed down its report from the inquiry into the provision of child care. The committee's recommendation 8 was for:

… the establishment of a new statutory body, widely representative of the sector, for the purposes of advising the Minister on childcare policy and its implementation, with powers to oversee a uniform regulatory regime operating across states and territories.

The national quality framework is broadly in line with that recommendation.

I am sure you would agree that quality, affordable and accessible child care is important for parents and other caregivers, but it is especially important for the children. We know from years of international research that the first five years of a child's life shapes their future. I am sure everybody in this place has heard the old adage: give me a child until they are five and I will give you the adult for life. Their health, learning and social development are so important in those first critical years and we want to make sure that their future is bright. That is why the Australian government is committed to improving access to quality, affordable child care.

Overall, we are investing $20 billion in funding for early childhood education and child care over the next four years—almost $12.8 billion more than was provided in the last four years of the former coalition government. We are investing $16.4 billion to help hundreds of thousands of Australian families annually with the cost of child care, and that includes $9.2 billion to help reduce the cost of child care through the childcare benefit. It also includes $7.2 billion to assist working families with the cost of child care through the childcare rebate. We raised the childcare rebate to 50 per cent of parents' out-of-pocket expenses and increased the maximum for each child in care to $7,500 per year. This compares to the previous government, where the rebate was at 30 per cent and the maximum was only $4,354. That has made a huge difference to a number of working families. A number of working families have told me that it has made a huge difference to them and that it has allowed one parent to be a bit more flexible in their work arrangements, which is obviously important.

We also promised to pay the childcare rebate quarterly and delivered on that promise. However, we do understand that families need to budget weekly or fort­nightly. That is why, from July 2011, parents are able to receive the rebate no later than fortnightly, giving them access to this important assistance when their fees are due. This is another area that has made a huge difference for families. Since 2004, out-of-pocket costs for families earning $75,000 a year have reduced from 13 per cent of their disposable income to only seven per cent. In addition to the assistance given to families to pay for the expenses of child care, the Gillard Labor government has enhanced the information available on local childcare services. The MyChild website provides a searchable database of 13,500 childcare centres. It includes information about the types of services available in local areas and the vacancy and fee information of those services. This is really important information for parents who are looking for child care. It means they do not have to run around to all the different services to find out.

We have invested $126 million through the 2008-09 budget over four years to train and retain a high-quality early education and childcare workforce. Having worked in the childcare industry for over a decade, let me say that they are a group of very dedicated people. That is my personal opinion, of course. Probably the key issues that brought me to politics were the working rights and conditions of childcare workers and the way society views childcare workers. The more we can give them quality training the more likely they will be more recognised in society for the valuable work they do. After all, parents leave their most valuable possessions with these people, no matter what type of service they work in, and they should be suitably recompensed. That is an argument for another day. It is one I have had for 25-plus years. As people in this place know, it is not something I have given up on yet.

Other government childcare initiatives have included the Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters, which has been delivered in 50 disadvantaged communities, and Budget Based Funding payments that provide care to some of Australia's most vulnerable children. Of course, as I have mentioned, there is the new national quality framework of which this bill is a key feature.

Announced in the 2011-12 budget were new requirements for teenage parents to actively participate in developing their skills from the birth of their child until their child turns six. These new measures will com­mence from 1 January 2012 and will apply to teenage parents on Parenting Payment in 10 disadvantaged communities. Supporting these measures, the government will cover close to 100 per cent of a teenage parent's childcare costs while they are studying or training through the Jobs, Education and Training—or JET—Child Care Fee Assistance scheme. Because being a parent is tough for anyone, but especially for a young parent, and often they are single parents, we will expand the successful Communities for Children services to provide teen parents and their children with new playgroups, parenting education classes, mentoring support and early learning programs.

As I have said, the Gillard Labor government has put an enormous amount of money into child care. It is unfortunate that the previous government did not see fit to treat child care at the level that it deserves to be treated. We have had some catching up to do. There was the collapse of the ABC Learning Centres as well, which, as I men­tioned, caused quite a lot of stress for the families involved and meant that the government had to find some extra money to help keep those centres going.

Overall, I am very impressed with what we have been able to do. We are always working to improve child care and I know that the Gillard Labor government considers child care to be part of early education. I am very pleased about that because, as I said, the first few years of a child's life, when they are quite often in a childcare service of one sort of another—some for a short period of time and some for longer periods of time—is the critical time for their development. This time shapes the future. The young children of today are the future for all of us. The best care that we can give them and the better and more affordable the child care we give them the better it will be for the nation as a whole.

This government has shown that it is very serious about child care and the broad range of issues around child care. We are making record investments in childcare assistance—quality, training and workforce retention. This bill before the Senate will improve accountability within the childcare industry as well.

As I said, I still have a lot of contact with people within the childcare industry—predominantly in Tasmania, but certainly in other states as well. I have spoken to a number of them about this bill and they all see it positively; I have not had anyone from the childcare industry tell me anything negative about it. So I urge all senators to support it and to help make the future better for Australia by making sure that we get things right within the childcare industry.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make some remarks on the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011. There is no doubt that child care is one of the most important issues for families right across the country, particularly in regional areas such as the one where I live. Too often we see families in regional areas facing difficulties when it comes to getting childcare places for their children, compared to families in city areas. As a mother I have certainly availed myself of childcare services—admittedly a long time ago now as I have two boys who are 18 and 16—and I recognise that it is vitally important that those childcare services are available and operating appropriately and affordably right across the country, particularly, from my perspective, in regional areas.

The primary purpose of the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amend­ment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011 is to provide for the implementation of a new national regulatory system for early childhood education and care prescribed under the new education and care services national law. The bill seeks to amend a couple of acts: the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 and A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Adminis­tration) Act 1999. There are other acts, as I understand it, as well. This bill will allow for greater scope for the recovery of debts from approved childcare operators and clarify when a childcare service has stopped providing care for a child and, thus, when a childcare service or a carer is no longer eligible for childcare benefit. It will allow for instruments made under family assistance law to be part of family assistance law and thus be subject to the internal and external review mechanisms provided for in the FAA Act.

The bill will allow the minister to make guidelines for the release of protected information collected by Centrelink relating to education and care services for the purposes of the new education and care services national law. The coalition has some concerns around the privacy issues contained within that amendment. The understanding is that they will work appropriately but I think it was important that those concerns were raised to ensure that the proper privacy measures were in place so that parents and families could be reassured that it is appropriately delivered.

The bill will also provide greater scope to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to refuse approval of childcare services. That is particularly important to ensure that, when a childcare provider is looking to end their service, payments are made to the provider right up until the very last point in time. My understanding is that this bill will address that and allow the department to deal with that early.

In addition, the bill will allow for information which has been collected by Centrelink in relation to the childcare benefit to be shared with state and territory bodies. The privacy issue comes up again there. We need to be entirely sure that that will work appropriately. I understand that the intent is for the shared information to be streamlined. That is a worthy intent as long as those reassurances are given to people out in the community.

In essence, this is fairly complicated language for what is quite a simple intention. The intention of the bill is to improve the effectiveness of the recovery of fee reductions, enrolment advances and business continuity payments paid to improved childcare services. The intent of this bill is supported by the coalition, particularly, when we look at the cost to government. The bill is trying to ensure that payment recovery can be done in a timely manner. It is quite right that the bill intends to address that, given that the cost to government of having payments sitting there for an extended period of time has been significant.

I note that DEEWR officials in the 2010 budget estimates indicated that the debt owing to the Commonwealth was around $70 million, with about 6,000 childcare providers owing a debt to the government.

Those being taxpayers' dollars, I am sure the Australian people would be supportive of a far more timely and efficacious process. I am sure that people would be quite concerned to hear that $70 million is, in essence, being held up in the system because the system is not working as best it could. They would be quite concerned to know that a figure of that amount was being caught up in the bureaucratic process. It is something that needs to be addressed, and is addressed by the government in this bill.

There has been a lot of discussion in this place around a number of childcare measures that the government has introduced lately, but one thing of note has been the government's move to cut the childcare rebate and remove the indexation. While that is not related to this particular bill, there are a number of bills, there is a range of legislation, at the moment in this place within the childcare basket, so it is important that we take child care holistically and do not just pull off piece after piece as we go through bill after bill. When the government moved to remove the indexation and cut the childcare rebate, many families that I talked to were very concerned about the government looking to cut that rebate. Indeed, it seems counterintuitive and quite extraordinary, if they are trying to encourage and assist families in affording child care—particularly when so many families are faced with the rising cost of living at this point in time—for the government to move to cut the childcare rebate.

I note that Senator Bilyk before me touched on a range of areas throughout the childcare system, and it was quite right that she did so. But families in the community, particularly regional communities, are struggling in particular to come to terms with why the government would want to cut the childcare rebate to families. It simply does not make sense. If this Labor government wanted to give families greater access to child care, to lighten their burden, to give them assistance in placing their children into child care, you would think that cutting the rebate would be the last thing they would move to do. Unfortunately, that is what we are seeing from this government.

As I said, it simply does not make sense. Of all the things we could do, within the range of changes we are seeing in the childcare sector, to reduce the rebate, putting added pressure on families across the country—as I say, particularly in regional areas—really does not make sense. I think it is simply a matter of the government not understanding the very real financial pressure that families are under. When you compare families in regional communities—and I know that Senator Moore will under­stand very well what I am talking about—with many of those in cities, you see that the tyranny of distance, the difficulty of finding appropriate child care and the lack of choice in child care that we often see combine to make it that much tougher, that much more difficult, in regional communities for families trying to access childcare services.

When families across the country look at the reason that the government has moved to cut the childcare rebate, it becomes even more extraordinary to them as they realise that the reason is to put funding towards the national quality framework that Senator Bilyk was talking about earlier. The government has said that $86.3 million will be saved by the changes that it has made. Again as Senator Bilyk said, the first five years of a child's life shapes their whole life; it is a very important part of the child's upbringing and education, and shapes who they will be in the future. But the govern­ment are saying to Australian families working very hard to give their children every opportunity that they are going to take $86.3 million from them to put towards the national quality framework.

I am sure Senator Moore will stand up after me and argue how appropriate it is that we reduce the level of the rebate, how important it is that we have that funding go to the national quality framework. I am sure we will then get a good 10 minutes on how good the national quality framework is. But at the end of the day this government should not be cutting the childcare rebate to fund the national quality framework. This government should be able to manage the economy in such a way that they are able to fund that framework without hitting the mums and dads and carers across the country through this childcare rebate.

It becomes even more alarming for families across the country when we realise that the reason that the government has to raid the piggy banks of the children of parents across the country by cutting the childcare rebate is that they simply cannot manage money. Let me discuss with the chamber how obvious that became recently. For the last couple of years, the government has had a borrowing limit of $200 billion. That is right, anybody listening out there in voter land: $200 billion. In the last few weeks, legislation was put through the parliament to raise the level of borrowing to $250 billion. Can I point out that, historically, that type of request of the parliament for increased borrowings has come as a separate piece of legislation. It has gone forward separately and debate and discussion has occurred separately. That requirement from the parliament happens on its own. But this time we saw the government tuck that request of the parliament in with the other appropriations bills, which are normally passed by the parliament so the government can get on with the business of running the country. So there was no opportunity whatsoever for this parliament to deal separately with that piece of legislation that increased the borrowings of this government from $200 billion to $250 billion.

The reason I make that point is that, when families across the country realise that is the state of this nation's finances, they will be doubly annoyed this government is going to the hip pockets of mums and dads and carers across this country by cutting the childcare rebate. That is simply not on. It is no wonder that the parents, families and carers talking to me are saying: 'Why should I take a cut to the rebate for the government to pay for something else when it simply cannot manage the country's budget? It simply cannot do it.' That $250 billion borrowing limit is going to place enormous pressure on the economy. This financial year this government is going to be paying $15 million of interest a day. Families with children in those childcare places have watched this government blow billions of dollars on the pink batts scheme, on the Building the Education Revolution debacle and on the $900 cheques of a few years ago, and that very same government is now coming to them and saying, 'By the way, we're going to cut your childcare rebates.' I do not think that is acceptable. I do not think that is the way to govern. I do not think it is fair for the parents and the carers across this country, who are doing it tough.

Those parents and carers are going to do it even tougher when this government brings in a carbon tax. Heaven help us then. Even though the government has announced that fuel is not going to be subject to a carbon tax, everything else still is. The increased cost of food, electricity, transport—a whole range of products right across the sector—will be passed down to people in their homes. Every time the coalition make comments like that, the government says we are scaremongering. Rubbish! It is a fact. The Prime Minister keeps saying that she is only going to tax the big emitters when she knows full well that those costs will be passed on. The expenses in the budget for all of those families out there with children in child care are going to be worse under a carbon tax.

It will be interesting when we see the detail. The Prime Minister has said there will be no tax on fuel, but let us just watch; let us just look and see. For each service station incurring those increases in their electricity costs, you watch those getting passed on as more cents on the bowsers. What about companies like Shell which transport the fuel? They are obviously a major company. Our understanding is that they are going to have to pay the carbon tax. You watch that cost go onto the bowser of the service station at the corner. There will be a range of things that become clearer over ensuing days once we can have a proper look at this, and those increased costs will affect mums and dads and carers right across the country.

This government is trying to cut the childcare rebate but is going to give a double whammy down the track with increased costs through a carbon tax. No matter what this Prime Minister says, I simply do not see how you can believe her. This is the Prime Minister that said we were not going to have a carbon tax. Now apparently we are not going to have a tax on the carbon from some fuel. How can you believe her anymore? Her credibility has gone. Those families who have their children in child care or are looking to have their children in child care want this government to have policies in place to support them. They want this Labor government to have policies in place that have some vision for this country, that have some vision for those children in child care. The government keeps talking about their futures being bright. Their futures will not be bright if this government saddles the parents and carers of those children in those childcare places with a carbon tax. It is going to be a nightmare for them.

When he introduced the legislation the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth said—and, interes­tingly, Senator Bilyk made similar comments; I am sure she has been listening well and truly to her minister:

We are doing this because we know from years of international research that the first five years of a child’s life shapes their future—their health, learning and social development—and we want to make sure that future is bright.

That does not stop at five. We want our young people's futures to be bright, whether they are one, whether they are five or whether they are 18 and trying to get to university, and if this government truly believes that it wants a bright future for young people it would have made independent youth allowance fair for regional students long before now. This government says on the one hand that it wants the future of our children to be bright and on the other hand consigns thousands of students living in inner regional areas to unfair treatment because they cannot access independent youth allowance in the same way that those students living in regional areas which are not classed as inner regional can. That is simply appalling.

The Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, Senator Chris Evans, will say, 'We're going to make some changes; we've just had the review done.' The government will not be making any changes until next year. These thousands of regional students who are currently being treated unfairly have no choice but to continue being treated unfairly at least until next year—and who knows until when? The minister has already said that any changes have to be within the current budget context. That means no more money. It is no surprise that there is no more money because the government now has a $250 billion borrowing level and it has billions of dollars of debt. No wonder there has been no money to make things fair for those students when there should be. Those in the government should hang their heads in shame that they have let those students in the inner regional areas continue to be treated unfairly. Those students deserve just as much support as the young children in the one-to-five age bracket.

The coalition is supportive of the intent of this bill. It does make sense to streamline the process. It does make sense to make claiming back of finances easier. It certainly does represent a good step forward in ensuring that the process can be as stream­lined as possible for the benefit of the government and those families and services that are the recipients.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was good that Senator Nash got back to the bill that is actually before us today, the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011. This bill, as has been discussed by other senators, makes a number of administrative amendments to family assistance law to strengthen debt recovery and improve compliance in the administration of the childcare benefit. That could sound extremely litigious, because what we are talking about is a bill that is looking at tightening up compliance so that we can have true accountability in the system.

Senator Bilyk in her contribution referred to the concerns that spread across our whole country when the ABC childcare centres collapsed. In fact, many of the processes in this bill have come about because of what happened in communities. I think there was absolute shock around Australia, in every region, about the collapse of these childcare centres. These centres had been highly promoted. There was a great advertising campaign and they were out there selling their services to the community, and in some cases they were doing a really good job. But there were great concerns with the way the compliance system was operating and with the administrative arrangements that were in place.

I am sure all the senators in this debate will be talking very seriously about the great influence of trust that must be around in the community about child care and the certainty that parents, families and communities must have when they are placing their greatest asset into the care of others. In our com­munities many families are making that choice. It has been established as a worthwhile and valuable exercise for a whole range of reasons, particularly for people involved in the workforce. Our government is committed to ensuring that more people have the opportunity to work and, when they have child-caring responsibilities, they must be assured that the services that are out there in the community are completely reputable and there will not be a repeat of the overnight shock that occurred in our community due to the collapse of the ABC childcare centres. The government took active and immediate action in that case to ensure that we would work with families, childcare providers and the people involved in the ABC issues to ensure that they would be able to have effective child care in their regions.

This bill puts in place the administrative arrangements that have to happen to ensure that there is accountability and certainty in the system. The amendments will make important changes to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999 and other legislation, as pointed out by Senator Nash, to improve accountability in the sector. Importantly, it will broaden the powers of the secretary of the department to refuse the approval of a childcare service for the purposes of family assistance law to ensure that operators are fit and proper persons. We often hear the term 'fit and proper person', but in this case—and more than in most others—we need to have the assurance that childcare service providers are indeed fit and proper.

The bill will give the Australian govern­ment greater scrutiny over operators and their past practices. This is an important process that is coming into play. The bill will enable the Australian government to offset and recover payments owed by one service from another service operated by the same operator—keeping that knowledge of similar people involved in providing the service and ensuring that there is absolute certainty that the financial trace will be able to be made. It will ensure that operators that run up debt to the Commonwealth in one service can be held accountable for their actions. It does seem that that is a straightforward process and must be put in place. For instance—and this is just an example to make sure that we understand how it will work—it will stop an operator who accumulates debts and then exits the market, as happens, from coming back into the market under a restructured company with similar but not identical directors. It is pure company law. It is maintaining the scrutiny so that that element of trust can be put in place.

Under the current legislation, the government can only consider the exact operator and their history in the industry. This will widen the scrutiny to ensure that people cannot come in and out and set up different companies and then take on the extraordinarily important role of providing childcare services. It follows that we need to have that trace so that people can be clearly identified and action can be taken to ensure that the knowledge is there and that follow-up action can be taken by the department. This will facilitate a broader consideration of childcare operators, associated organisations and individuals in both the approvals and ongoing approvals processes.

The need for this was identified by the ABC process. There was major media coverage—newspaper, radio and television coverage—of what happened with ABC. It reflected the pain, the shock and the fear of families across our country because the operational processes had fallen over in their childcare centres. As a result of the action that the government took in working with other providers and working with the community, there has been a remarkable rebirth of childcare centres in regions that now have that link to local centres and the acceptance that there must be openness between families, providers and the government, which actually provides the funding.

I take most seriously Senator Nash's point about the issues of privacy. This comes up in so many areas of interaction between people and their government. I know that the department has taken immense time to consider the issues of privacy in this whole area. When families are entering the childcare system, we know that through the interactions they have to have when filling in forms and giving their financial circumstances and the interactions with the various officers that provide information about their payment eligibility and their childcare operators, the issue of privacy is supreme—it must be—through the whole process. The department has worked very hard and has been involved in many discussions—as it always is—to ensure open and effective consultation on the decisions to be made not just in the childcare area but across the board in government service delivery. But today, as Senator Nash knows, we are talking about the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill. We need to have absolute knowledge that you are protected and that your personal circum­stances that you need to provide to government to ensure that you get your appropriate payment are protected by the full force of the privacy law. That has been completely reinforced and will continue to be a key principle in the ongoing operations.

The whole process of what happened with ABC has been a valuable lesson. Since 2008 the government has introduced a range of new measures to ensure the financial viability of childcare providers, including strengthening the approvals process and requiring additional notification of closures of centres. There should be no shock. If you have your children enrolled in a childcare centre, you have a just expectation that that service will be available while you have that need, so there should not be any shock closure. That should be arranged and notified.

The process has been clearly supported through a new penalty regime to reinforce the accountability aspects. The new approvals process includes financial checks for new childcare centre operators to make sure that they are viable from the outset and well placed to meet the quality standards. It is a business process: if you are going to be setting up a childcare centre, you need to be an effective business. Those processes should be transparent and available to the government department to ensure the future actions will go through.

The government is also developing an enhanced financial viability framework for large childcare providers. As we know, in the Australian system there are many providers that operate more than one centre. They are reputable, understood and known by their community, but we are going to ensure through the legislation that there will be an enhanced financial viability framework. The amendments in the bill represent part of our government's commitment to improving accountability within the childcare market and protecting the market from unscrupulous operators. That is what our families deserve. They need to trust that they will not be subjected to unscrupulous operators moving into this business situation.

The bill will also support the government's $273.7 million investment in the national quality framework. The framework, very importantly, is endorsed by COAG, bringing the full force of the COAG arrangements together to ensure that the national quality framework has engagement from all states and all players in the market. The COAG arrangement will improve educator-to-child ratios so that each child gets more individual time and attention—a pure expectation of the families that are choosing to have their children in child care. They need to know that each child will have individual time and attention from skilled, trained operators within the childcare market.

It will introduce educator qualification requirements so that educators are better able to lead activities that inspire youngsters and help them learn and develop—again an expectation from every family in our community that care be much more than just making sure the child is safe for a period of time. The terms used in the COAG agree­ment—to 'inspire' and help with 'learning and development'—sum up part of the exper­ience. As we know, the childcare experience leads on to the opportunities children have for effective education across their whole lives, not only during their childhoods. The education experiences someone has in child care may well determine the options they will have in the future, so the expectation is that there will be trained, skilled and—I like this word very much—'inspirational' edu­cators in the childcare arrangement.

It will include a new rating system so parents know the quality of care on offer and can make informed choices. One of the core principles of this government has been to ensure that our people have informed choices. When you are seeking child care, you need to have information about the providers and their backgrounds and the kinds of staff members they have, and this is part of the expectation that there will be an effective rating system so the link of trust and accountability will be reinforced in the system.

Important for the service providers is that regulation burdens are reduced so that services only have to deal with one regulator. When talking with the providers, one of the aspects they raise regularly is the work they have to do to be part of the system. We have raised the commitment that we will reduce regulation burdens. That is across many aspects of service delivery put forward by this government, but in child care it is one we have made to the providers so that they know that we understand the work they have to do and that we understand that they will be under scrutiny and will have to be good operators. But they understand that we are not going to burden them with a high regulatory workload that will take time away from what they are there to do, which is to provide care for children.

I know Senator Bilyk, with her experience in child care, talked about the international research. As I have said, as a community we understand the value of child care. We respect the work that is done, and that creates the first step in a learning environment that will last a lifetime. Over many years there have been various surveys done about the community response to child care, and increasingly there has been an acknowledge­ment that child care is something that people take as a matter of course in their lives. It is no longer just a luxury or an option just for a few people. The expectation is that when you are doing different things in the community you can have the option of safe, accountable child care for your children into the future. With regard to the changes to protected information—this is the point that Senator Nash was raising about privacy—we will know that we will have those protections and shared information, which is the living spring of the COAG arrangement. There must be shared information, but there must be confidence.

I know Senator Bilyk went through in detail the expenditure that the government has made on child care, and that reinforces the importance and value we place on it. It is always interesting to listen to arguments about who spends more and whose budget is bigger. The one true, inescapable budgetary fact about expenditure on child care is that the Australian government—our government—has been investing $20 billion in funding for early childhood education and child care over the next four years. That is almost $13 billion more than provided in the last four years of the former coalition government. You can talk about the value of services, the way money is expended or the locations of childcare services.

All those things are valuable and need to be considered, and we can stand on our record. When you look at the network of childcare providers across the country now, you can see that child care is an option right across this country. Certainly one of the things this government has done of which I am most proud is the extended expenditure in the area of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child care, which was not effectively funded under the previous government. It was a commit­ment of our government that we would look at providing an equal option for Aboriginal and Islander families, wherever they live, to effective child care. Again, this is an important aspect of our Closing the Gap commitment; it is one we talk about and on which we are assessed in the Closing the Gap process.

The funding of child care by this government cannot be questioned in terms of the quantum and of the commitment. These figures are so confounding: 627,980 Aust­ralian families with 869,770 children in approved child care are benefiting from assistance across 13,899 services. Only 10 years ago those figures could not have been considered. When we see the numbers of families who have made the choice to access childcare services across 13,899 services in the country, we know that child care is important to the community. We know that there is a clear understanding of the value of—and I use this word again—inspirational childcare services and that people can trust that they will have access to worthy, trustworthy, trained child care and receive an effective childcare rebate.

The government are committed to child care and we have said that since we were elected. It was a core part of our promises when we were first elected in 2007 and it was reinforced in the last election that it would be a core element of action for the government. The bill we have before us looks at the tightening up of administration to ensure that the business element of child care is particularly well regulated; that there is an understanding of accountability; and that there is a reinforcement to childcare providers that they are a valued part of the government service delivery model and there will be an expectation of strong performance, but they will be supported in providing that service by their government. We will continue to have extensive consultation with the industry—with the core groups within the industry and also with individual providers—so that they understand the relationship they have with their government and know they are a trusted element of community service. We will continue to make a strong commitment to the families of Australia that, when they choose to have child care, they can trust that their children will be effectively cared for under this government.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to contribute to this debate on the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011. I thank Senator Moore for taking us through the implications of the changes in the bill as they relate to Australia's extraordinary childcare services. I was quite blown away by some of the figures when I heard Senator Moore articulate that there are 627,980 Australian families with 869,770 children in approved child care and that we have across Australia 13,899 childcare services. It reminded me of how important it is that we have a well-regulated system for many reasons, not just because of the issues, which the measures in this bill address, of recouping payments and managing the childcare system. It is a truism, of course, that children are our future. But every one of us aspires, as parents and grandparents, to ensure that the children in our lives have access to stimulating child care and the early learning programs that are such a critical part of our whole education system. So we need to make sure we understand the quantum of the childcare sector in Australia because it is now so huge and so many children and families are dependent upon it, and that does make quite a difference.

Senator Moore's comments focused very clearly on the purpose, the direction and the strategic approach of the government in the childcare changes, so in my contribution today I will go to some of the other measures in the bill which I think are equally important. The first of these measures that we need to talk about, other than the changes to the childcare system more broadly, is the change that lowers the maximum child age of eligibility for family tax benefit A from 24 to 21 from 1 July 2012. This is an important issue. I do not think we ever get rid of dependent children, whether they are 25 or 35—and I can attest to that—but I do think some signal needs to be sent to our children that we expect them to start to be a little bit more independent once they get to 21. That is not the purpose of this legislative change; it is actually about some policy coherence by bringing into line the reduction in the youth allowance age of independence from 1 July 2012. Policy consistency and coherence is an important part of good governance, so we line these things up and make sure there are no misunderstandings or misapprehensions about what is happening. What it will do is ensure that the family system payment continues to support families with dependent children who are studying or training, at the same time recognising that young people aged 22 and over are considered independent.

The second measure in the bill, another very important measure, builds on the reforms announced in the 2009-10 budget that better target the family payment system to focus on low- and middle-income families. In the 2009-10 budget indexation on the upper limits for family tax benefit parts A and B and the baby bonus were paused, and this bill will extend the indexation pauses on higher income limits for some family assistance payments for a further two years. In addition, the indexation of the Paid Parental Leave scheme income limit will not commence until 1 July 2014.

The third measure in the bill goes to the indexation of family tax benefit end-of-year supplements, which will also be paused for three years from 1 July. This will keep the end-of-year supplements at their current level for the next three entitlement years. The current supplement amounts are $726.35 per child for family tax benefit part A and $354.05 per family for family tax benefit part B.

The bill also introduces a very important measure from the 2010-11 budget which reforms assessments for disability support pensions. This has been brought forward, as part of the 2011-12 budget, to start on 3 September 2011 rather than on 1 January 2012. It is a new assessment procedure for disability support pensions that will help people with disabilities return to the workforce wherever possible by focusing on their ability rather than their disability. If you have had contact with anyone in the disability sector, you will know the big thing that those people who live with a disability, their families and their carers really want in their lives is for the rest of us who are able-bodied to look beyond their disability and really see their potential. This is an important part of our social inclusion agenda and we will really focus our employment services to support people who have a disability or who incur a disability to get back into the workforce. It is a new assessment procedure that will require most people to have their future work capacity tested by participating in training or work related activities in order to qualify for the disability support pension.

We know that one of the critical issues is that the disability support pension is a poverty trap. We are well aware of the temptation—particularly, as Senator Nash would know, in a rural community where there are not great employment oppor­tunities—to park someone on a disability support pension and, by doing so, actually lock them into a poverty trap that is very difficult for them to get out of. So the notion that employment services, programs and commitments of this government in this budget are going to be targeted at improving employment and workability of people living with disability is a very important part of our agenda. The requirement does not, of course, apply to people with severe impairment. People with a severe disability or illness who are clearly unable to work will be fast-tracked so that they can receive financial support more quickly and will not have to continue to participate in a program of support.

The next part of the bill, which is something that I have been very interested in and have followed very closely since its inception, is an amendment that enables the extension of the income management elements of the Cape York welfare reform trial. The trial is a partnership between the communities of Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge with the Australian government, the Queensland government and the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. This trial has had a transformational impact on many of the communities of the cape. Where we saw appalling levels of literacy and numeracy in the NAPLAN results a few years ago, we are now seeing the amazing transformation of children's learning and performance. It is to do with the way in which these communities have embraced this idea of managing their own welfare payments, have taken the responsibility within their communities of ensuring that their children are well fed and are attending school, and have ensured that the income management system there is owned and operated by the communities. It is a very directed and specific project which, I think, leads the way in reform for breaking the cycle of disadvantage that is part of Indigenous circumstances in Australia.

The Queensland government is now in the process of leading a consultation with the Cape York communities in relation to a proposed extension of the trial for another year to 1 January 2013. In the 2011-12 budget the Australian government is pro­viding $16.1 million for this extension. Recently, there was a heartfelt and very moving program on national television about the impact of this measure in the Cape York communities. It challenges families in a way that perhaps has not happened before, but it is leading to striking improvements in family life, in the care and responsibility of child­ren, in reducing alcohol consumption, in reducing domestic violence and, of course, in improving attendance at schools.

They are the significant measures of this bill. While the consultations are taking place under the auspices of the Queensland government, our government is moving to put in place the amendments required to Commonwealth legislation to enable the extensions of that trial. It is very important to proceed with those amendments so that any extension of the trial is not delayed and so that those four Cape York communities are not adversely affected. Every time I go to the Cape and go to these communities I am amazed by the changes that are happening there, by the great sense of ownership and by the positive spirit that is part of being involved in such a powerful social change program. Changes to the Queensland government legislation are also going to be required to allow the trial to be extended, so these measures are all part of the enabling legislation required.

There is also a minor non-budgetary measure here that clarifies that the Public Works Committee Act 1969 does not apply to Aboriginal land trusts established in the Northern Territory under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, because land trusts were never intended to be Commonwealth authorities to which the Public Works Committee Act applies, and this amendment puts that position beyond doubt.

The legislation that is before us today really goes to some fundamental issues about good governance. The first one is around transparency. As Senator Moore so clearly and coherently argued, the issue that really triggered and focused the national mind was the collapse of ABC Learning in 2008, and the implications of that could have been catastrophic for Australian communities. One hundred thousand families could have been in the position of waking up on the Monday morning and not being able to have child care. Those 100,000 families translated into many, many thousands of small bus­inesses who would have been in a desperate situation. Because of the very competitive nature of ABC Learning at that time, the ABC Learning Centres collapse meant that many, many families and communities would have been desperately affected—and I know that Senator Nash is aware of the circumstances of some of the small community childcare centres not far from here who were really caught in the dilemma.

ABC came into their communities, really took over the community-based childcare centres and 'put them out of business', for want of a better term. Then they collapsed themselves, leaving the community with no child care. So the notion that we have improved transparency, improved gover­nance and improved the regulatory environ­ment is a big part of the government's commitment to the not-for-profit sector. We are about reducing regulation, simplifying the regulatory burdens and improving the red tape circumstances that come into play so that, at the same time that we have the national quality standards for child care, we need to ensure that we are not imposing a massive regulatory burden on those childcare centres, many of which are not-for-profit organisations.

The COAG agenda is about simplifying the regulatory framework. It is about improving the quality standards for children's services. It is about improving the ratios. It is about actually skilling up the childcare workforce so that the workforce develop­ment, which is part of the government's broader strategy here for improving childcare services, gets the focus on the finding that it deserves.

But the changes in this bill are far more fundamental for families. We have a mechanism that recognises the cost-of-living pressures. It allows the changes to our childcare system and to the fortnightly payments of the childcare rebates as part and parcel of recognising, first of all, cost-of-living pressures for families. It improves the reconciliation process for the family tax benefits A and B, which I know has been quite confusing for many families, to ensure predictability for our childcare centres so that there are no overpayments and then repayments needing to be made and claimed back, but at the same time it simplifies the system and ensures that the government has a viable mechanism for getting over­payments returned. These are all important in terms of improving the flexibility, the responsiveness and the management of a childcare system which, as I say, affects so many families—hundreds and hundreds of thousands of families and children—across Australia.

Senator Moore touched on the issue that we have in terms of the COAG agenda, which I think is so fundamentally important, and that is around the early intervention and assessment of children with early learning needs. The whole investment that we have in supporting children with autism and being able to diagnose autism and disabilities early means that children can participate in supportive services in the early years that they have never, ever had before. We are able to target our childcare funding, a massive investment in funding that stimu­lates children, improves their capacity, their vocabulary and their learning at a very early age and sets the foundation for their learning right through their school years. The fact that we can actually ensure that we support children with disabilities into child care is critically important for ensuring their future learning as well, and I am really proud to be part of a government that is recognising and doing that.

When I think about it—when I think about the consumer protections that are in this bill and the protections to government and the issues of transparency that are all part and parcel of these amendments—I know that what we are doing is strengthening the services in our communities for families. The MyChild website provides great trans­parency and great consumer advocacy, it gives parents choice and helps them understand and really demand the best quality services, and it is part of the COAG agenda. It is critically important. We think that parents deserve choice. They should not have to be limited in their childcare services to the lowest common denominator. They deserve better and our children deserve better, and the measures that are contained in this bill will ensure that our children have the best childcare system that we can afford.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senators for their contribution to this debate. The Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amend­ment (Child Care and Other Measures) Bill 2011 contains important amendments to the Family Assistance (Administration) Act and other legislation to improve accountability in the childcare sector.

The government, and indeed families across Australia, know how important this is. The overnight collapse of ABC Learning in 2008 was quite simply unprecedented and the government's quick and decisive action meant that 90 per cent of the centres continue to operate for Australian families today. Had government support not been provided, almost 100,000 families may have been faced with the prospect of having to find alternative care arrangements with little or no notice. Since 2008, the government has introduced a range of new measures to better ensure the financial viability of childcare providers, including strengthening approvals processes and requiring additional notification of closures of centres.

The amendments in this bill represent a part of our commitment to improving accountability within the childcare market and protecting the market from unscrupulous operators. This bill broadens the powers of the secretary to refuse the approval of a childcare service for the purposes of family assistance law. Combined with other measures, this will give the Australian government greater scrutiny over operators and their past practices, including the power to look at whether service operators are fit and proper persons. The bill also enables the Australian government to offset and recover payments owed by one childcare service from another childcare service operated by the same operator.

These measures will also enhance the government's ability to deal with phoenixing, where an operator who accumulates debts exits and then re-enters the market under a restructured company. Under the current arrangements, the government can only consider the exact operator and their history in the industry. Importantly, the bill will support the government's $273.7 million investment in a national quality framework. The changes to protected information will support the national quality framework by enabling the Commonwealth to share information on childcare services within the state and territory regulator bodies. This will benefit services by not having to provide the same information to more than one body.

In summary, this bill makes a number of amendments that will improve transparency of the childcare sector and protect families from unscrupulous operators, and I commend it to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.