Page 3179 - Week 10 - Thursday, 17 September 2015
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MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Resume your seat, Ms Burch. Stop the clock please.
Ms Lawder: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, it seems that Ms Burch was questioning your ruling.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: I actually did not make a ruling. I just asked her to continue to talk to the amendment. Thanks, Ms Lawder. Continue, Ms Burch.
MS BURCH: Thank you. I go to some notion in the amendment and read some comments that have been made by Family Day Care Australia concerning the nanny pilot program which I mentioned in my opening statement. They have said that the federal government announced $246 million for a two-year nanny pilot program outside the national quality framework. Here we have Ms Lawder, through her amendment, saying that the federal nanny program is good and she is happy. The Canberra Liberals are happy with a service that sits outside the national quality framework.
Family Day Care Australia have also gone on the public record to say:
Recent cuts to the community support programme—
that is in Ms Lawder’s point (b)—
for family day care, a flexible, affordable form of home-based care with a 40-year track record of providing services amount to $150 million over three years. The community service programme funding cuts may result in a significant loss of childcare places for families due to service closures—
I do not think you did your homework perhaps, Canberra Liberals—
which could outnumber estimated places under the nanny pilot.
The Canberra Liberals, through Ms Lawder’s amendment, are promoting a program that will take $157 million out of family day care and, indeed, result in a loss nationally of places for families. I do not think that is a very good outcome for families here in the ACT or elsewhere. Family Day Care Australia also said:
The Australian Government is entering new regulatory territory by taking on responsibility for this pilot programme—
the nanny program, that sits outside the national quality framework—
and FDCA reiterates that the health, safety and wellbeing of children should always be paramount.
But not, it would seem, according to the federal government or, indeed, the Canberra Liberals here.
I have some examples of two local services. It is my understanding that no local service—this is under point (c) of Ms Lawder’s amendment which is about the
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