Page 1092 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
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directly linked to the fact that the federal government refuses to fund centres and refuses to fund operational subsidies for centres, withdrawing them 10 years ago or so. That was the money that centres used to fund staff and keep childcare fees down. That money went and no centre gets any direct funding from the federal government any longer, so all of their staff costs, their program costs, their equipment costs and their food costs, everything in a centre, has to be paid for out of childcare fees. It is no wonder that childcare fees have escalated, because the costs have escalated and the federal government’s support for those centres has been withdrawn.
I have asked the federal government a number of times to reinstate the operational subsidy. If you talk to any childcare provider across the ACT, you will find that that is what they need. They need that operational grant to keep their centres going, and the federal government has refused to provide it. It has made it clear that the only responsibility it has is directly to parents through the childcare rebate, and, as for centres and how they meet their costs, that is for them to deal with.
Mr Speaker, the government will support the amendment to Dr Foskey’s motion. It calls on the Chief Minister to write to the federal minister communicating the Assembly’s view on this issue. Of course, we will all work together here, as we all have an interest in childcare to make sure that in areas for which we have responsibility we can meet the pressures in the ACT community.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.21): As usual, we have the government coming in here and duckshoving on this issue, as they do on almost every issue. Every time that a member of the opposition or the crossbench raises an important matter of public concern, we have the government coming in and using their numbers, as they will do here today, to change the whole tenor of motions moved in this place containing concerns expressed by the public. What we are doing here is reflecting the views of the public. What Dr Foskey has done, in her excellent motion, has been to raise those issues which people are coming to us to talk about.
The minister spent a lot of time justifying her unjustifiable position. What it really boils down to is that she does not think that there is a shortage of childcare places. She did say that it was a fine balancing act and all of those sorts of things, but the words that she used were “I do not believe that there is a shortage of childcare places”. She said that possibly they were not appropriately spread and there may be shortages of spaces for the nought to two age group, for the tots, but she said, “I do not believe.” That means that her bureaucrats have told her, “Don’t worry about it, minister; there isn’t really a problem.” We have all been there, we know that it happens, and ministers foolishly believe it. What we actually have today with this minister’s “I have a majority in this place so I can actually change the tenor of this debate” amendment is—
Ms Gallagher: That is not fair.
MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, if I could have the floor!
MR SPEAKER: Order, members, Mrs Dunne has the floor.
MRS DUNNE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. What we actually have here is an attempt to hose down the issue and to shift responsibility. Yes, we all know that there is a lot of
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