ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES:
Welcome all. It’s great to be here in Red Hill at the Playground Early Learning Centre. And thank you to Pina, who runs the centre so well and the owners George and Mary-Anne for welcoming us here today.
It's great to be here to be talking about the importance of child care. Child care, of course, is important to so many families, not just here in the ACT, but right around the nation.
So it's great to have the Prime Minister here and I welcome him.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much, Zed. It's great to be here, also with Birmo, the Education Minister. The child care reforms which we are seeking the Senate's support for, are so important for so many Australian families, particularly those on lower and lower-middle incomes.
Under our reforms child care will be more available and will be fairer.
A family on an income of $50,000 a year will be able to access high-quality child care and preschool, early learning for about $15 a day. That's a very, very significant increase in support.
We need the support of the Senate to get these reforms through. It is going to make child care fairer, it's going to make it more available, it's going to mean that more mums and dads will be able to work the hours they choose and get better balance - work and family.
So centres like Pina's will have support from the Government, support from families. It’s critically important to ensure productivity and for ensuring that we have strong healthy families and parents that are able to stay engaged with the workforce. It’s a very important social and economic reform and we are urging the Senate and all the parties in the Senate to get behind it. Birmo?
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION:
Thanks PM, Zed and thanks all for coming out this morning. Our child care reforms will make Australian child care more affordable, more accessible, more available to Australian families.
The benefits are real and tangible. Our reforms will increase the rate of subsidy for low and middle-income families. They will remove the $7,500 cap, the cliff that many families fall off midyear in terms of the support they receive.
They will put in place a new mechanism to keep a downward pressure on fee increases in future, helping families and taxpayers from ever-escalating child care costs under current settings.
They remove a whole lot of red tape for child care providers that will enable them to spend more time caring for children, educating children and less time worrying about the paperwork of running a child care system.
They are well thought out, they are well considered. They went through a comprehensive Productivity Commission inquiry. They have been through three different Senate inquiries. Now is the time to see these reforms passed through the Parliament.
Discussions are constructive and we are eager to make sure they are finalised and that we get these important reforms through to help hard-working, low-income Australian families.
PRIME MINISTER:
Very good.
JOURNALIST:
Minister Birmingham, can you please explain what changes you are making to ensure the child care package passes the Senate?
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION:
We are continuing discussions and as our Government has been so successful at doing since the last election with this Senate, we will continue those discussions in private with all the different parties in the Senate to make sure we get these reforms through. They are constructive discussions and we’re making good progress.
JOURNALIST:
Are you splitting up the Omnibus Bill?
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION:
We obviously want to make sure these reforms, a $1.6 billion additional investment into child care and early education, are paid for. We don't want to see children in today's services going into the workforce in future with a bigger level of debt than is necessary. It’s important, it’s critical, to make sure that extra investment, extra spending from Government in child care services, is funded and paid for. They’re they are the discussions we are having.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, just to be clear are you cutting up the Omnibus Bill Prime Minister? Just to be categorically clear, are you cutting up the Omnibus Bill?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as Senator Birmingham has said, we continue our discussions with the crossbench. We've had a lot of success in the past in circumstances where even members of the Press Gallery have predicted that we would have no success. So we will continue.
JOURNALIST:
But you haven’t given up on them?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we will continue our negotiations and discussions, but the important thing is that these very valuable reforms are supported. We seek the support of the Senate for them.
JOURNALIST:
Will you push ahead with cuts to Family Tax Benefits?
PRIME MINISTER:
As I said, all of the reforms that we have set out, both in the Budget and then in MYEFO, we are pursuing. But of course we continue to negotiate with the crossbench in the Senate and we are looking forward to resolving these issues. The important thing is, for the sake of these little kids and their parents and many others like them, that these reforms are passed.
As Senator Birmingham said, they have been widely applauded through the sector, through the community, they've come through the Productivity Commission's work. This has been a very well-designed reform of child care and it deserves the support of the Parliament, and in particular the Senate.
JOURNALIST:
You only linked the child care reforms with the welfare measures to pay for it about a month ago-
PRIME MINISTER:
Just to pay for it, yes. Well, paying for it is very important actually, for the that reasons that Birmo said.
JOURNALIST:
You only linked them in the Omnibus Bill a month ago, isn’t splitting the Bill up an admission of that political tactic fail?
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION:
That's not correct. We've been very clear. Ever since the child care reforms were released, they had to be fully funded. There have been measures in relation to Family Tax Benefit reform that have been there, clearly earmarked - to fund the child care reform. It remains our position that they must be fully funded so we don't increase the debt legacy on future generations.
JOURNALIST:
But the Omnibus Bill was a bad idea?
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION:
We are working through to make sure we get an outcome. In the end the important thing and the thing that this Government has demonstrated is our priority is getting outcomes. Getting outcomes that help Australians to deal with the challenges we face.
We face challenges in workforce productivity and participation, where child care costs are a barrier. We are fixing that through these child care reforms.
We face problems, though, in terms of the size of the debt and deficit scale we face. We’re addressing that through spending restraint and through the types of savings measures that I’ve identified. We are seeking to progress them both.
JOURNALIST:
On another Senate issue, Prime Minister, on 18C, it pretty clear that Nick Xenophon is not going to go through for the changes. So is this so much political hurt that your Government has to go through for a Bill that’s doomed to fail?
PRIME MINISTER:
I recall you predicting many elements of our legislative program are doomed to fail, and you've been disappointed in the past. So we’ll just focus on getting on our agenda through the Senate. We will continue to negotiate with all parties in the Senate in every field, as we have done, and we have delivered considerable achievements. As I said, many of which you and others in the gallery predicted would not find success.
JOURNALIST:
Just to clarify on the child care though, in order to ensure that the child care package passes, you will have to make changes to how the Omnibus Bill currently stands?
PRIME MINISTER:
Again, we will continue negotiating with the crossbench and we negotiate with the crossbench. All of us, all of my Ministers and myself, we’ve all been invited to speculate publically about the course of negotiations with the crossbench. And we decline to do so because as Birmo said, we are focused on results and outcomes. And we’ve found the best way to negotiate with the crossbench is to negotiate directly with them rather than through the pages and screens of the media.
JOURNALIST:
Is Peter Dutton secretly negotiating for gay marriage behind the scenes?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, again, our position on that matter is very clear. The barrier to - the obstacle to same-sex marriage being lawful in Australia is Bill Shorten. We went to the election with a policy for a plebiscite which would give every Australian a say. It’s a plebiscite, I might say, that Mr Shorten himself had supported only three years ago. But on so many things he has done a backflip, he is inconsistent, has no regard to what he said in the past and yet again - so he has done a switch and he is the one that is denying same-sex couples the right to marry.
JOURNALIST:
This is a matter you would like to see decided before the next election because deep down you probably fear that taking it to an election is going to hurt the Coalition, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Our position is very clear. We want to give all Australians a say on the matter. That's perfectly democratic and the obstacle to that is Mr Shorten. He is the one that went to the Australian Christian Lobby and said he supported a plebiscite, in 2013. So a little over three years ago. He gave that commitment. And now, of course, for the sake of politics, he would rather have seek a political advantage, if that's how he perceives it, rather than allow the matter to be decided. It would have been decided by now. The vote would have been had, would have been carried -
JOURNALIST:
But on backflips, you back flipped on 18C, you changed your mind on 18C. Don't you agree this is what politicians do, they change their position?
PRIME MINISTER:
Again, I don't accept that proposition at all.
JOURNALIST:
You said five times before the election that you wouldn't change 18C and now you're pushing through changes?
PRIME MINISTER:
What we said before the election was that we did not have any plans to change 18C and that was absolutely true. So again, as a guardian of the truth, you should be more careful with the language you attribute to me. Any other questions?
JOURNALIST:
On the US refugee deal, do you agree with the officials in the US who say the deal is loosely contingent on Australia doing more?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I haven't seen those remarks, but as we've said, we have a very close relationship between Australia and the United States. They are our most important ally. It is a very close and engaged relationship and we support each other and help each other out in virtually every field, and so we will always be supporting each other in areas of this kind.
Thank you very much.
[ENDS]