Page 5781 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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being at home and raising their children themselves in a homely environment with connections into the neighbourhood. Changes in our workforce have wrought great changes in the family, and these do not come without a cost.
We must think about what resourcing is required to achieve the best possible environment for children: what funding, what training, what infrastructure, what workforce stocks, what the workers are paid and so on. Importantly, we must think about how such an environment impacts on families. We must consider whether they can afford the cost, whether there is access to adequate childcare places, whether there is reasonable choice—and that choice includes the option of staying at home for those who choose to do so—and so on. We must also consider the broader economic and social issues: what will be the impact on employment, on workforce participation, on business development?
In developing the national quality framework, the commonwealth government and the state and territory governments, including this ACT government, did not look at all of these issues. They did not take the holistic approach that this issue most vehemently demands. It has become one of ideology rather than practicality; one of rhetoric over reality.
Ever since the national quality framework was mooted in 2009 the Canberra Liberals have cautioned against a blind jump into the abyss that the national quality framework creates. We have drawn attention to the many issues that emerge from the implementation of this framework. We have tried to draw the government into thinking about the whole. We have tried to draw the government away from ideology and into the practical; away from the rhetoric and into reality. Unfortunately it has been to no avail. This ACT Labor government has refused to listen. It has refused to listen not only to us but to the childcare sector and to the families who access childcare services across the territory.
We have heard Minister Burch, for example, try and wash her hands of any responsibility for the impact of government policies on the cost of childcare. She said memorably on one occasion that she had as much impact on the cost of childcare as she did on the cost of cornflakes. This is quite an unreasonable statement, because much of what she does has an impact on the fees charged by childcare centres to Canberra families. We have heard Minister Burch make many statements that the additional cost will be no more than a cup of coffee a week, but only yesterday she came to the admission that it would be at least five times that amount. We have heard Minister Burch pooh-pooh the Productivity Commission’s assessment that childcare costs would rise by 15 per cent which, for the ACT, translates to something like $60 per week, or 20 cups of coffee. And that is for every child in care.
Minister Burch will cry that the Labor government has increased the childcare rebate. Let me anticipate that and acknowledge that it did increase. But since then it has been decreased and now locked in at a lower level for the next three years. So its value is ever diminishing in an environment in which the cost of childcare, according to the Productivity Commission, is ever increasing and possibly increasing significantly.
The question is: who do you believe? Do you believe the government’s ideology and rhetoric? Do you believe the opposition’s cautionary view of the holistic outcome?
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