Moroney Sue: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8924. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill is all about consequential amendments to deal with the main harm I guess which has just been voted on in the Chamber this afternoon. I want to talk about those consequential amendments because they are based on the very basic but false premise that people who are on benefits today are there because they do not want to work and they are people who do not want the best for their children. All of these amendments are based on that very false premise. 
We know that it is a false premise—well actually on this side of the Chamber we know that it is a false premise—because when Labour was in Government we had very low unemployment in this country. In fact we had the lowest unemployment in the OECD for many of those quarters and when we were not the country with the lowest unemployment in the OECD countries we were the country with the second-lowest unemployment in the OECD. So what Labour has proven is that if given the chance if given a vibrant economy where there are jobs to be applied for then of course people will apply for those jobs and of course people will ensure that they have the skills to go and make sure that they are at the front of the queue for those jobs. 
What this Government has delivered those people is actually no hope—not a brighter future like it promised but no hope because they are standing in those job queues now. I should say “those jobless queues” because there is a small number of jobs and hundreds of people lining up for them. That is the brighter future that the Government has delivered. 
But with these consequential amendments one amendment that appears to me to be so vitally missing is the one that would make some sense if the Government really was using this legislation to improve participation in early childhood education. I do believe there is evidence that shows us that in the right circumstances for children who are aged 3 and 4 years old getting quality early childhood education for around about 20 hours a week does make a good and positive difference to their life outcomes and it makes a particularly good impact for children from low-income households. So that is perfect for many of these families whom we are addressing. 
But those families do not withhold their children from that quality early childhood education experience because they do not want the best for their children. There is a range of reasons why sometimes their children do not make it into that situation. Here is just one which was in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Actually the very good 20 hours’ free early education policy which Labour brought in was designed in fact exactly to improve access for these very families—but not in a punitive way; in an encouraging supportive and “let’s take the barriers away” kind of way. What is happening these days with the 20 hours’ free early childhood education policy is that a lot of the providers—in fact this newspaper found that 45 percent of those early childhood education providers—are saying to parents: “Well you can have the 20 hours only if you enrol your child for another 10 hours at a much higher fee”—at a much higher fee. 
So I want to see the consequential amendment in this legislation that stops that practice from actually happening. While that practice continues to happen what we are going to see is benefits being halved as a punishment for beneficiaries who do not have their children in early childhood education while they are being told by the early childhood education providers that they are going to have to pay a lot of money to even enrol their child. These are the very practical issues that this Government is turning a blind eye to. When the Minister of Education was asked about that situation she said: “Ah nothing to do with me—nothing to do with me. They’re going to shop around.” So here is the Government with this legislation forcing beneficiaries to put their children into early childhood education and punishing them if they cannot do that but then its own Minister is saying “Shop around.” That is her answer to those beneficiary families: “Shop around and see if you can get the worst quality.”