Page 3483 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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(f) that the ACT has the highest proportion of any jurisdiction of students who attend non-government schools;
(g) that removal of funding for non-government schools, as proposed by the Australian Greens, would put immediate and significant pressure on parents and the public school system in the ACT;
(h) the policy of the Australian Greens Party to lower childcare carer to child ratios to one to three, from the one to four ratio that will come into affect from 2012;
(i) the immediate and significant impact this would have on childcare fees;
(j) that around 80 per cent of childcare in the ACT is provided by the community sector;
(k) the difficulties:
(i) faced by childcare operators, particularly those who are community based, to attract and retain suitably qualified staff; and
(ii) already faced by parents to find suitable care for their children at an affordable price; and
(2) condemns the Australian Greens Party for their irresponsible policies which would have a significant financial impact on Canberra families.
Mr Rattenbury interjecting—
MR SESELJA: I have already had an interjection from Mr Rattenbury before I have started. He does not think the Greens will get a mention in this speech. Well, I will try not to disappoint him. I will mention the Greens. But this is about cost of living pressures. That is the fundamental point that we want to talk about today. We want to talk about cost of living pressures on Canberra families and the kind of extra cost of living pressures that would come from the Greens having the balance of power in the federal Senate.
There is no doubt about that, and we will simply talk about the Greens’ policies that are on their website and continue to be on their website—their actual policies. This is not our interpretation of their policies. It is not us manufacturing a report that someone may have written five or 10 years ago and trying to apply it to their policies. No, this is what their policies actually say. We will actually go to the cost of living pressures.
There is no doubt that there are serious cost of living pressures for many Canberrans. We often hear how Canberrans earn higher than average incomes, and that is true, but we also have a lot of expenses that are higher than average. We have higher than average childcare costs, higher than average costs of housing and higher than average rents. So on the one hand we get better incomes than the rest of the country but there is no doubt that, on the other hand, Canberra is an expensive place to live for many
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