Page 4080 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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federal colleagues to seek relief for these parents. Again, more needs to be done to provide the proper number of childcare places in the ACT. This is an ongoing challenge, and it is one that does need to be addressed if we are going to ensure that we are providing support for all families.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (3.57): I would like to thank Mrs Dunne for bringing this matter of public importance before the chamber today. There is no doubt that this is a significant issue for Canberra’s families. For those of us with young children and those who are planning to have children, affordable and accessible childcare is one of the biggest issues, aside from perhaps housing and employment, that families face.
Let me just turn to the issue of housing, firstly. That is one of the significant reasons why we need to have such good access to affordable childcare here in the ACT. Most families now need to have two incomes to pay either the rent or their mortgage. For many families out there, it is not a matter of choice whether they send their children to childcare or not; it is a matter of necessity if they actually want to be able to put a roof over the heads of their families.
Another reason is that we want to encourage women to participate in our workforce. We have a high proportion of women in the workforce here in Canberra. We want to encourage them. Obviously, from a personal point of view, we want to see as many women succeed in their careers as possible. We want to make sure that women can break the glass ceiling. We want to increase participation rates in our workforce at the more senior levels. The break that women often have while they are raising children in the earlier part of their careers is perhaps partly the reason why we have not seen as many women aspire to senior levels and executive levels either in the public service or in industry. We would like to see that change.
But also, from a policy point of view, we need to recognise that, with an ageing work force and ageing demographic, if we do not get maximum participation by women in our workplace, we are going to struggle. We see that in some areas of the public service. And a great area for that is GPs. A lot of doctors graduating now—a high proportion—are women rather than men. At medical school, about 60 per cent of graduating doctors are women. What happens is that they graduate, they go through so much training—as a GP, for example—and then they have young families. We have got to give people in careers like doctors and a multitude of others access for women to have affordable and accessible childcare.
I do speak with some experience in this regard. My son Will, who is now at school, went to what was then the Leap Frog centre in Jerrabomberra—I think it is now an ABC centre—and to the Fyshwick early childhood centre. My son Robbie has only recently left the Weston Creek children’s centre. Given the opportunity, it would be remiss of me not to say what an outstanding centre that is—a real shining light in our community, an example of what it is to have a good childcare centre in the suburbs. I would like to mention—I beg your indulgence—the people that run that and have been such good carers of young children there. It is run by Emma; she is a very efficient manager of the place. And I would like to pass on my regards to the excellent childcare provided by workers such as Kylie, Jo, Kelly, Lynne, Karen, Bec and Mary, all of whom provide the most outstanding care. I thank them and I think that there are countless others in our community doing equally good work.
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