Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham. Will the minister update the Senate on the government's plans to reform child care in Australia?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McKenzie for her question and her continued, passionate advocacy and representation in relation to more effective and affordable child care. I am very pleased that earlier today the House of Representatives passed the Turnbull government's legislation to bring in place more affordable, more accessible and fairer child-care support for Australian families. These are reforms that I am pleased will come to the Senate once the Senate has concluded debating the savings measures required to fund our $1.6 billion increased investment into support for Australian child-care services.

Our reforms will benefit around one million Australian families. They will deliver assistance that will ensure that low-income families are able to access higher levels of child-care subsidy to help them to work, study and volunteer. They will ensure that the lowest income families are able to access child-care services at around $15 a day. Families currently face the $7,500 cliff in child-care rebate support. Our reforms will abolish it for all low- and middle-income families. These are tangible, practical reforms that will help them to choose to work more hours. Evidence demonstrates that more than 200,000 families may well choose to work more hours or work more days, to participate more in the Australian workforce, because they will no longer have child-care fees as an impediment or barrier to their participation.

These are critical reforms. They also contain an hourly rate cap. We will put in place a mechanism to keep a lid on fee growth in the child-care sector. This is an important mechanism that ensures that neither families nor taxpayers continue to bear the brunt of excessive fee increases but instead enjoy a more affordable, more available, more productive child-care regime in the future.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, a supplementary question.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the minister explain how these reforms will deliver greater child-care support for working families?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These reforms will have real, practical, tangible benefits for the hardest-working, lowest-income Australian families. Take a single parent working for about $50,000 per annum. That single parent with two children under six in long day care for three days a week will be around $3,300 a year better off. That is $3,300 that will help that parent to work the hours that suit them and to be able to meet the costs of child care to participate in the workforce. Equally, a family in which both parents work and earn around $80,000 with two children in long day care will be around $3,400 better off as a result of the reforms the Turnbull government is implementing. These are real benefits that will make a real difference to making it easier for hardworking Australian households.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie, final supplementary question.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not aware of alternative policies, although there was a glimmer on the weekend that Mr Shorten had perhaps adopted our policy. On the weekend Mr Shorten said:

I make this invitation very clearly to Mr Turnbull. We will vote to improve the deal for child care, absolutely …

I hope that we see at long last support from the Labor Party for our reforms and support to ensure that we can get this legislation through the parliament—not with new conditions or new arrangements—so we can deliver that assistance to around one million Australian families. Around one million Australian families deserve it and need it. They are suffering under a broken child-care model. When Labor were in government they only ever tinkered with that child-care model. At the last election Labor promised to continue with it, but the Turnbull government is determined to completely reform and overhaul it.