Child Care
Transcript
Ms WARE (Hughes) (11:02): It's a pleasure for me to stand here to second and support the motion brought by the honourable member for Moncrieff in relation to, particularly, the government's failure on the cost of child care. I also commend the honourable member for the work that she has done as our shadow minister in the portfolio of early child care, early childhood education and youth services.
After two years and nine months of this Albanese Labor government, the cost of child care has increased by a whopping 22.3 per cent. During the last election campaign, Anthony Albanese promised cheaper child care. What have we seen instead? Yet another broken Labor promise. The data is out, and it clearly shows that this is not the case. Australians do not have cheaper child care at all. I hear this when I'm going around my electorate, whether it's doorknocking, at mobile offices or going out to the kindergartens and childcare centres. Parents and the directors of these centres tell me that child care is not cheaper.
I was recently at Connect Preschool at Sutherland, for example, and parents are now pulling their children out of this preschool due to the cost. Where they were before averaging three to four days a week, they're now down to two days a week. I heard the member for Newcastle standing there spruiking cheaper child care over and over again, but the reality is completely different. Do we need cheaper child care? We need cheaper child care, but we also need better quality child care. Parents need to be assured, when they are going to work, that their children are being looked after and quality education is being provided.
The other thing that Labor has completely failed to do in the area of early child care is to look at the preschool and kindergarten model. Instead, this is a return to the Rudd era of trying to subsidise early child care without the benefits actually reaching the hip pockets of parents. I particularly remember those failed reforms of the Rudd era because my children were at that age at the time. They were at a community preschool, and there was absolutely no assistance for the many families in my electorate that used the community preschool model. This government policy also fails to deliver for those parents. Why would the Albanese Labor Government reinvent a failed policy from Rudd? I would have thought that this government would have run as far as they could from those policies of the Rudd era, but it seems that Labor will never learn its lesson. It's all about the big headlines but there is a total failure of policy delivery. We are seeing total failure yet again in early child care.
I've just heard the honourable member for Newcastle and various others from Labor talk about the three-day childcare guarantee. This will totally fail, because I am hearing evidence from those in my electorate that, even with these subsidies, they cannot afford to send their kids to day care three days a week. They are having to either pull out of work to look after their children or look at other options. Having options and choices is again at the heart of the way that Labor brings out policy. The coalition introduced the activity test which gave parents some choice as to how they looked after their children before they went to school, and this is what it is all about.
In this upcoming election, if the Liberals are returned to government, we will look after families. We will reduce the cost of living. We understand what this cost-of-living crisis has done to Middle Australia particularly and to those now in my electorate who say to me, 'I can no longer afford to send my children to child care.' If we are re-elected, we will listen to the Australian people. We have listened to the Australian people, and our policies will reflect that we will bring down inflation. That will enable the RBA to look at interest rates, and we will certainly work with families to bring about cheaper, better-quality child care.