Page 155 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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government can reaffirm their commitment to affordable childcare when their own minister cannot understand what costs drive childcare fees. We have seen the Productivity Commission say for two children per day an increase of $30, we have seen the minister say an increase of between $1 and $3 and we have seen the minister say no cost increase as a result. When you are asked to believe which one is telling the truth, would you believe the Productivity Commission or would you believe Ms Burch?
Canberra already has the highest childcare costs in the country. Families currently pay $75 per week more than the weekly average. This is from a Productivity Commission report that also showed the cost in the ACT was rising faster than in the rest of Australia. The year prior, Canberra families were paying $60 more than the average per week. Now they are paying $75 per week more.
The ACT Labor government are out of touch with Canberra families on the issue of child care and Ms Berry’s motion today affirms that fact. I believe that what you have seen from Ms Berry’s motion is an attempt to pat the government on the back for work that they are not doing and a lack of comprehension with what is happening in the sector. In much of what we see from this government, and particularly this minister, there is a discrepancy between the rhetoric—often the rambling and confusing rhetoric that we get from Ms Burch—and the reality on the ground.
I have circulated an amendment to the motion which I will be circulating shortly. That amendment provides a more realistic, more accurate, snapshot of what is actually happening on the ground and the reality of what is occurring. I was out doorknocking in the lead-up to the election and I knocked on the door of a lady called Jo, whom I know, in Weston Creek, in the suburb of Weston—so close to the Holder childcare centre we are talking about. She works at the childcare centre where my youngest son went. She was at home and the reason was that, despite the fact that she worked in a childcare centre, she could not get a spot for her children in a childcare centre.
That is the experience of many parents across this town. This is not an issue that just affects women; it affects parents. It is very difficult to find a spot in a childcare centre. Often if you do find a spot it is a long way from where you live or where you work and often, if you have got more than one child—you might have two or three children or, in the case of Mrs Jones, four children—actually finding four spots in a childcare centre is near impossible. You might find there is a spot in Hawker, there is a spot somewhere else, in Weston, there is a spot maybe down in Tuggeranong, but it is just impractical. If we want parents to be engaged in the workforce—we want women to be in the workforce and we want men to be in the workforce—then they have got to have access to childcare. At the moment that is simply not happening effectively. If you do find child care then the cost here in the ACT is exorbitant. It is way beyond the national average and that cost is increasing exponentially.
So for Ms Berry to come in here with a motion that has no doubt been written by the minister to pat the minister on the back and a speech that was no doubt written by the minister or her staff again trying to pat the minister and the government on the back, when the opposite is the truth on the ground, I think is disingenuous. We will not be supporting this motion. What we will be doing, as I foreshadowed, is moving the
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