Ash Gillon: Back home now and more on the budget fallout. Estimates from last week’s budget showing a potential cost blowout for the childcare sector’s subsidies as the industry balloons. Joining us live with more is the Shadow Childcare Minister, the Liberal Senator, Matt O’Sullivan. Senator, good to see you. Thanks for your time.
For once, childcare wasn’t really front and centre of this budget. We did see costings laid out around subsidies though suggesting more parents are taking up the government offer of cheaper childcare. Is that a good thing?
Senator O’Sullivan: Well, the budget actually omits any extra funding for childcare. We know that the government will spend $21 billion by ’29, but there’s no new money. And in fact, what’s missing is the worker retention payment. So childcare workers have been able to receive extra income as a result of the Fair Work decision, and the government have until November this year put in place in the budget funding to enable childcare workers or childcare providers to be able to provide that through to their workers, but that payment stops in November and there’s nothing in the budget to say that it’s going to continue. So childcare is not actually getting cheaper under the Albanese government, as they promised at the last election. It’s actually going to go up if they don’t fix this mess.
Ash Gillon: We saw just prior to the budget, the Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher, expressed her view that daycare is good for kids. We know that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that he wants universal childcare to be a big part of his legacy. When you look at that vision for universal childcare, is that something the Coalition shares down the track?
Senator O’Sullivan: Well, Katy Gallagher went a bit further than that. She said that it’s actually better for children to be in childcare. Now, I don’t think that that’s right. In fact, none of the evidence actually suggests that that’s right. Now, if we know for many children, particularly those from 3 years old and up before school, yes, childcare, the data does show that childcare can be beneficial, but there’s no evidence at all. In fact, the government’s own data that they commissioned, the First Five Years project, actually shows that too much childcare is actually detrimental to children, that is to say over 30 hours a week. It can actually be quite harmful, particularly when it comes to those non-cognitive domains, such as your emotional and social well-being. So the government is trying to force people into a one-size-fits-all system. And I think it’s actually quite dangerous that they’ve got this ideological obsession, whereas what the government is saying is that that they know best and institutions know what is best for children, whereas we philosophically believe as a Coalition, and Angus Taylor believes, that it’s parents that actually know best and we want to empower parents to be able to make that choice.
Now, if it is centre-based care, fantastic. We know that for a great number of families that is going to be the choice that will work for them, but it doesn’t work for everybody, and it certainly doesn’t work for every child. And if we’re forcing kids into a childcare system that isn’t actually suitable for them, then we’re actually setting them up for failure later in life.
Ash Gillon: We just showed our viewers a graph showing the billions of dollars that have been poured into childcare in recent years. More recently, we know the government’s been focusing on child safety and directing funding towards that area after those shocking and horrific allegations of abuse in some childcare centres. Where’s that up to? Are you satisfied with the changes that have been made?
Senator O’Sullivan: Oh, look, any efforts we can do to make our childcare system safer, obviously, we fully support. In fact, the Senate Committee on Education recently provided a report on this calling on the government to do a little more. There’s some changes that they should be making to the Fair Work Act to enable childcare employers to be able to stand down or set aside employees that they may suspect as having issues that would breach the safety of children. Currently under the legislation, of course, there’s unfair dismissal laws that that would prevent an employer from being able to do that. And sadly, and this is anecdotal evidence, but nonetheless it’s what we heard through the inquiry, that some of these situations actually are being swept under the carpet because it’s too onerous for the employer to actually deal with it.
So we think they should really step up. There’s some big issues around the number of inspections that are done. We think there should be greater spot audits provided, unannounced visits by the regulators to be able to get in there and see. It should be more than just once a year, it should be more often, because parents, when they’re dropping their children off to childcare, they absolutely need to be assured that they’re putting their child in the best possible and safest environment.
Ash Gillon: Liberal Senator, Matt O’Sullivan, appreciate you making the time. Thank you.
Senator O’Sullivan: Thanks Ash.