I really welcome the opportunity to speak on this MPI and to join my other colleagues on what is a very important issue. Child care is a very, very important issue in my electorate of Calwell. Whilst I would like to note that I understand that taxpayers, in the last financial year, have spent some $5.7 billion in supporting some one million families with the cost of child care, I also want to make the point that thousands of those families are my constituents. I cannot emphasise enough the significance and the importance of child care in Calwell, and in particular quality and affordable child care.
I am very privileged to have many wonderful childcare centres operating in my electorate, and I have enjoyed over the years, and continue to enjoy, visiting them. In particular, I like to listen to their concerns. I talk to the parents, and I get a lot of feedback from them. One of the things that I hear a lot from my constituents is that they want their members of parliament—me in their case, and my other colleagues in this case—and, indeed, governments to respond adequately and appropriately to the childcare needs of their local families.
I stress the point that affordability, accessibility and, above all, quality of childcare provision is a priority. It is a priority for my constituents, and I believe it is a priority for a large number of Australian families. In my case, in the case of the people who live in my electorate, a large number of them are from non-English-speaking backgrounds and also on the lower socioeconomic end of the spectrum; therefore, affordability becomes a major issue. My local mums and dads obviously rely on a childcare system that they can afford and that they can have confidence in. They want to be able to leave their children in an environment which is safe, where they feel their children are being cared for and where it is a childcare system that is not just a holding pattern until pick-up time for the kids.
The working families in my electorate need child care because they have to work. They have to work because they have to balance their budgets. Many of them, of course, choose to work as well. Many of my constituents are shift workers or rostered workers. Many of them need to improve their skills and further their education in order to be able to broaden their job opportunities. So the whole issue of balancing work, family and childcare is critical. It is an ongoing and ever-present concern in the federal seat of Calwell.
So my local families and my childcare providers I am certain would look forward to this very constructive debate, especially in light of the release of the Productivity Commission's report, and I join with my colleagues and in particular the shadow minister in participating in this conversation with the government, in looking at ways we can assist the government in putting together a package that should respond to the needs of ordinary Australian families. I join with my colleagues to make the point that there have been measures in the budget—I make reference to the $1 billion cut to child care—that obviously are of concern and are certainly of concern to the families in my electorate. I make the point that the $450 million cut to the Outside School Hours Care program is a considerable concern to the people in my electorate. The $157 million cut to the family daycare services, which will see an increase in fees of about $35 per week is a problem to an electorate that is, as I said, on the lower socioeconomic spectrum. We are obviously very concerned about legislation that is still in the parliament and looks to the $235 million cut to targeted childcare benefits that were aimed to help lower- and middle-income families. It will be families in my electorate who will be directly affected in the event that that legislation is passed.
Child care is an issue that rightfully all of us should be concerned about. We should be concerned about giving our constituents—in particular the women in our electorates—opportunities to return to work. We also should be mindful that child care is a precursor to successful education.
