Good evening. Living within our means will ensure that by June next year, the Government will have paid back $50 billion out of the $80 billion of Government debt that Labor ran up in its last five years in office. As a result, we are now saving $3 billion a year in debt interest payments. Funds that can now be spent on more important things like meeting the needs of families in regional communities.
Our recent Budget provided a package with a special focus on country families. We are providing $65 million to help families balance their work and family responsibilities, particularly when they live too far away from child care centres. Where both parents are running a farm for example, this will help make it possible to have a child care worker come to their home. The same principle will also apply to allow sick children to be cared for at home.
Incentives will also help to attract privately operated long day care centres to smaller rural communities and to establish more playgroups in regional areas. As children grow older, the Government recognises that there is a high cost for isolated families to send their children away to school. That is why we have increased the basic boarding allowance by over three hundred and fifty dollars to almost three thousand nine hundred dollars a year.
We’ve also decided to help keep more young people from the country in education by increasing the family assets limits for youth allowance. Over seven thousand young people will benefit from our decision to double the farm or business assets permitted for youth allowance from just over eight hundred thousand to just under one point seven million. All of these measures are practical ways in which the Government is helping to support growing families in the country.
Good night.