Page 154 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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The motion also asks us to consider the number of childcare places available prior to 2001. I very much doubt that the Canberra families struggling to get their children in child care in 2012 really have much concern about what was happening in 2001. In fact, the inclusion of such redundant information just further shows how out of touch the current minister, who no doubt had a role in drafting this motion, is with the current needs of Canberra families.
The constituents that call my office and the constituents that I met out on the campaign trail do not talk about child care prior to 2001. They talk about the problems with child care in 2012. They talk about the difficulty of getting their child into a place, the long waiting lists, the fact they can only get their child into a centre a long way from their home or workplace, the fact that they are forced to have their children at different centres and how the rising cost of child care is impacting on their family. They do not talk about the impact of these issues prior to 2001. It is important to note that the demographics, population growth and the practice of working parents have changed so significantly in the last 10 years that comparison to 2001 in this sector is largely irrelevant.
The motion today calls on the government to reaffirm its commitment to affordable child care. Unfortunately, Ms Berry is at odds with her ministerial colleague Ms Burch on this matter. Ms Burch has long argued that the ACT government plays no role in the cost of child care. In fact, she has said this on many occasions on the floor of this chamber. She stated on 27 October:
I go back and say that the fees set by childcare centres are for those centres to determine. It is not for my office or my department to determine the cost of childcare.
On 16 February this year she said:
As I have said here a number of times, it is the business models, it is the decisions of the childcare centres themselves about the fees they set.
However, Ms Burch in fact does not even understand the cost structure of childcare centres. The changes to childcare costs due to the implementation of the national quality framework for child care, Ms Burch stated, were zero. In fact, she was still stating this in February this year, when she said in the Assembly:
On that basis, I would say that the call on the services to mete out quality services, which is what parents want, is within the ambit of the services, and it makes no difference, from what I can see, to the costings of services.
It is the sort of riddle in which Ms Burch normally speaks in this place and sometimes her statements are somewhat difficult to understand. Reading that, I think the balance of what she says is pretty clear. She is saying that there is no impact on the cost structure. I think that is what she meant. Maybe she can confirm that. But this was despite stating in late 2011 that the cost would only be $1 to $3 a day per child. More importantly, this is despite a Productivity Commission report stating that the average increase for two children per day would be $30. It is difficult to comprehend how a
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