National MPs demand childcare funding be redirected towards stay-at-home parents - Women's Agenda

National MPs demand childcare funding be redirected towards stay-at-home parents

Federal National Party MPs are demanding changes to the government’s new childcare package ahead of next month’s budget.

The new policy, expected to be placed front and centre in the May budget, replaces the government’s original paid parental leave scheme. The prime minister officially scrapped the controversial policy earlier this year.

Abbott’s original signature package provided up to six months’ paid parental leave at full salary including super, capped at $100,000. But opponents said the package focused too heavily on short term economic needs and neglected the longer-term requirement of childcare subsidies for parents who need to return to work.  This opposition proved too strong, and Abbott officially announced he would rework the package to focus on childcare.

In February, the Productivity Commission on Childcare released its report recommending a single, means tested childcare subsidy and further subsidies for nannies and au pairs. The government said it was considering the recommendations of the report.

But a childcare-focused package may run into more trouble with renewed pushback from federal National backbenchers. MPs Matt Canavan, Bridget McKenzie, Berry O’Sullivan and John Williams say focusing on childcare is not the answer because it neglects stay-at-home parents.

The MPs argue that the revised package will discriminate against parents who choose to raise their children at home and who choose not to work, and therefore do not require childcare subsidies. They are asking either for the government to restore tax benefits to families where only one parent works, or include a policy in the new package allowing these families to split their incomes for tax purposes.

According to the Australian Financial Review, the former option would take up $500 million of the families package budget per year, and the latter $1.5 billion.

But Social Services Minister Scott Morrison has responded by pointing out that the families the Nationals are seeking to benefit – single income, two parent families – make up fewer than one in five Australian families in 2015.

He said the purpose of the families package was to support parents who do need to return to work and to ensure they areable to do so.

“Access to affordable and quality childcare is critical to achieving this goal. More than half of single parent families now have jobs, yet there are still more than 400,000 single parent families who are not in work and a further 212,000 two-parent families who do not have jobs,” Morrison said.

“The Productivity Commission estimated there were 165,000 families who wanted to work or work more. These are the families we are primarily seeking to support through this package.” 

Whether or not pressure from Nationals to shift the focus away from childcare will impact the final package remains to be seen, but given that lifting women’s workforce participation is widely heralded as the key to boosting our economy and improving our society, we hope the government stays true to its aim of supporting working parents through the provision of affordable, quality childcare.

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