Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are more families in the electorate of Rankin that rely on the childcare benefit than in any other electorate in the entire nation. Seven thousand five hundred families in Rankin rely on the childcare benefit. They are earning as little as $42,000 per year. They are getting the assistance that they need and deserve for child care so that they do not have to make the choice between being good workers and being good parents. Unfortunately that means that 7,500 families in my electorate of Rankin are under the gun by this government and their unprecedented attacks on child care—not just the childcare benefit, but the billion dollars in cuts throughout the child care system more generally.

In July it was my honour to welcome the member for Adelaide to my electorate to talk with some of our child care providers about some of these issues, and they told us first-hand that a lot of families will be very adversely affected by these sorts of cruel and unfair cuts. These are the sorts of cuts that show the government does not understand what it is like to try and be a good worker, to try and be a good parent and to try just to make ends meet and raise a family in the modern economy. My message to the government is the same as that from the member for Scullin, and the same as that from the member for Adelaide before—they need to stop being part of the problem when it comes to child care, and they need to start being part of the solution. That means reversing these billion dollars in cuts, and it means not attacking the childcare benefit that 7,500 Rankin families rely on to make ends meet.