Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is for one child, exactly. Family day care is an absolutely essential part of the overall child care puzzle Australia. About one in seven children who are in child care in Australia are in child care in a family day care centre. My family has been one of them. We had our little one in family day care in East Bentleigh, right in the heart of my electorate, earlier this year and we got these great benefits of a small group, an educator that we loved and the important thing—that flexibility.

What we hear on the other side of the House is so many different and confusing messages. I am not sure whether it is hypocrisy, as the member for Scullin has suggested, or whether it is just rank confusion, cluelessness—I am really not sure. But what we hear is that flexibility and affordability are the big things that we need in child care. As a working mum, I 100 per cent agree. So we have the government making all the right noises. They have even gone to the trouble of initiating a Productivity Commission inquiry that is meant to look into this exact issue of how to get more flexible and affordable child care. Yet at the very same time the government is cutting $1 billion from child care and especially focusing on the most affordable and the most flexible program that there is available for working families in Australia. For families that can afford nannies—and we know this is going to be very much the focus of what the government goes towards—they are just in a very different situation. They are going to have a much greater level of flexibility. But for most of the people that we represent in their electorates on this side of the House, they are not going to be able to afford an au pair or nanny no matter what type of government program is put together over there.

Family day care is a really important piece of the puzzle here and instead of talking about how expensive it is getting, could we just note that the demand for this family day care program has skyrocketed. I know that in the December quarter of 2013 demand for family day care rose 11 per cent in one quarter. What we read from this—not talking about budget blow-outs like these guys on the other side—is that Australian families want family day care. They are getting a lot out of the flexibility and affordability of the arrangements.

We talked a little bit about confusion and hypocrisy—these kinds of mixed messages that we are getting. I want to go to this issue about female workforce participation, because this is really right into the heart of the problem. Again we have got a very expensive Productivity Commission inquiry looking into the question of how we can help women in Australia who want to work more be able to do that. But we know that the biggest driver of women's decision to work is the child care costs. There are some very simple economics at work here. If there is nothing else you remember from what I say today, just let it be this. A woman in Australia who works full time on the minimum wage takes home after her child care costs $4.55 an hour. We know that there are women right around the country who are doing the simple maths and saying that, in the face of that, it is not worth it for them to work, especially if they have several children. I will just say to those on the other side of the House: what we know is that this has lifelong impacts for women. It is absolutely understandable and I respect the decision of women who want to stay at home, but for women who do want to work, if they spend three years at home with kids, we know that they going to earn about 40 per cent less through their lifetime as a consequence of their decision to do that. We on this side of the House want to give Australian women real choices, and that means affordable and flexible child care. That is exactly what family day care is providing. But what makes all of this so much more outrageous is this: we have this issue on the other side of the House being raised about $157 million—that is, how this program is just so expensive and we have to cut back on costs. Yet, at the very time, this government is introducing a gold-plated paid maternity leave scheme that will see the wealthiest women in Australia get paid $2,000 a week to have a child. One year of funding for that program would make up the funding shortfall for family day care for about 35 years. I would just say this: check your priorities, guys; women in Australia want flexible, affordable child care and that is exactly what family day care gives us.

See this speech in context