Page 3526 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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people in this community. The Guild Accountants on behalf of 170 childcares centres in New South Wales have recently conducted a survey. They looked at the cost impacts of Labor’s reforms in New South Wales. They are not exactly comparable—it will probably cost more in the ACT—but what they have found is that there will be a 30 per cent rise or a rise of $20.56 a day in New South Wales childcare. That is an additional $102 a week for each child in childcare. If the child is a two or three-year-old, that increase will be 38 per cent—$23 a day or $116 a week.
That is what Labor’s proposed changes will cost. On top of that, the Australian Greens want to change those staff ratios even more. What we are seeing is that a poor policy, which has not been thought through in relation to the impacts on families, will be made worse if the Australian Greens gain the balance of power in the Senate after Saturday’s election. The people of Australia and the people of the ACT cannot afford the policies of the Australian Greens when it comes to families.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (3.35): Quite clearly, there are some philosophical differences in this place. The Canberra Liberals have policies and the federal Liberals have policies aimed at keeping the cost of living down for families, for the working families that Labor pretends to support. What we have seen from Labor and, worse, from the Greens are policies that are going to put upward pressure on almost every aspect of the family budget, from healthcare costs to education costs, childcare costs, everyday living expenses and your power bill. Let us not pretend any different.
Although the Greens’ policies sound warm and fuzzy and they sound aspirational and they look good on a piece of paper and people can go out and feel in their heart that they are doing the right thing, you just need to peel away the facade and what you find underneath is essentially a big bill—a big bill for Canberra families. That is going to drive Canberra backwards. Remember it was Ms Le Couteur who said famously, “We do not want to move back to the caves yet.” So “we do want to move back, but just not yet, but we are heading in that direction”.
What is it that the Greens want to do? As shadow health minister, I am particularly interested in the Greens’ plan to abolish the private health insurance rebate. That is a cost to Canberra families of $37 million. So that is $37 million, before you even start on the others, that is going to be ripped out of Canberra households—$37 million that people are going to have to find to pay for their private health insurance. And, as Mr Smyth explained, these are not rich Australians—this is every other Australian that we are talking about. In actual fact, 11 million Australians have private health insurance. So it is not taxing the rich or attacking the rich who can pay for this anyway. This is about ordinary Canberra families from Tuggeranong, Belconnen, Weston Creek, Woden, throughout our city; and from Gungahlin—do not forget the great people of Gungahlin.
We need a strong private health system, and private health is absolutely essential here in the ACT. In fact, we have the highest rates of take-up of private health insurance in the country—55 per cent compared to an average of about 44 per cent across the nation. We need that. Can you imagine, Madam Assistant Speaker, the impact on our health system if people said, “Okay, private health insurance is now too much because the Greens have got rid of our rebate and so I’m going to opt out of private health”?
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