Jason Clare
Blaxland · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“I thank the member for Kooyong for her question and for her passion in this area of higher education. Like me—like all members of parliament, I think—she understands the power of education to change lives.”
“I've said work on fixing it is unfinished business, and I have said—and you all know—that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission has also pointed out the work they're doing on the cost of teaching and learning that they will finalise next year. They are the facts.”
“I thank my friend the big-hearted member for Blair for his question. As he knows, tomorrow, every Australian worker will get a tax cut and three million Australians will get a pay rise, and that includes hundreds of thousands of childcare workers right across the country.”
“It's good for the workers because they get paid more, but it's also good for parents because the centres have got to cap their fees to get the money. For the average family with a child in child care, it'll save them about $1,500 over the next two years.”
“The reforms also include the legislation that we passed through this parliament last year, which means that if you don't meet the standards, you can have your funding cut. That wasn't an idle threat. I can tell the House that we've now issued notices against 115 centres.”
“These are the schools that do a lot of the heavy lifting, that play an outsized role in educating the most disadvantaged children in this country, the children who are the most likely to start behind or fall behind. The children who need our help the most.”
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“I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This is the re-introduction of a bill that I was privileged to introduce towards the end of the last parliament, and I'm proud to present it here to the House today on behalf of the re-elected Albanese Labor government. It's an important bill. It is a reminder of the work that the government did in the last term to help keep students and staff safe on campus. Last term, we established the National Student Ombudsman—a national first. With powers similar to a royal commission, its job is to investigate complaints made against a university.”
“We need them, and we need to support them. Education ministers will focus on this and much more when we meet in the next few weeks.”
“We also need to be able to track workers who move from centre to centre and, in some cases, from state to state, and that's what a national educator register is all about. That's something that education ministers have already agreed that we need and that our departments are working on right now. We also need mandatory child safety training to make sure that childcare workers have the skills they need to help to identify somebody in a centre who might be up to no good. There are hundreds of thousands of incredible people who care for our children and educate our children, and they're just as angry and distressed as everybody here at the moment. They feel tarnished; they feel tarred. Some have even been spat on in the street. The truth is they're the best asset that we've got here in this fight to keep our children safe.”
“To be brutally honest, this work will never end, and the sickening news that we've heard from the Australian Federal Police in the last few hours is a reminder of why this is so important. There is a lot of work that we need to do together to rebuild trust and confidence in a system that parents need to have confidence in—work we have to do, work the states and territories have to do and work that we all have to do together. The Attorney-General spoke in this place on Monday about the hodgepodge of different working-with-children check systems in different states and territories, and fixing that is on the top of the agenda when attorneys-general meet in a few weeks time.”
“This legislation gives us the power to cut that funding off to centres that aren't meeting those quality and safety standards that we set for them. To be clear, the purpose of this legislation isn't to shut centres down; it's to raise their standards up. But it's also not an idle threat, and I've directed my department to be ready to act swiftly when the legislation receives royal assent. I want to thank the opposition leader, and I want to thank the shadow minister Jonno Duniam and the shadow assistant minister Zoe McKenzie for the work that we have done together here. I mean it. It's the way it should work. But this isn't the only thing that we need to do. To be honest, this is the start, not the end.”
“I thank the member for Deakin for his question. Today, the parliament has passed another important piece of legislation. Today, we've passed laws to cut funding to childcare centres that aren't up to scratch and that aren't meeting the quality and the safety standards that our parents expect and that our children deserve. As I said last week when I introduced this bill to the parliament, this is, perhaps, the biggest weapon that we have to wield here, because taxpayers are the biggest funders of childcare centres. We do that through the childcare subsidy—something like $16 billion every year. Childcare centres can't operate without it. It covers about 70 per cent of the cost of running a childcare centre and out-of-school-hours care centres as well.”
“We are doing that for a reason—to make sure that we honour in full the promise that we made to the Australian people that we would cut their debt by 20 per cent. You will get a text message when it's done. After today, that 20 per cent cut is guaranteed. That's a great thing for millions of Australians.”
“The average HECS debt today is about 27,000 grand. This will cut that debt by about $5,500. A lot of those debts belong to young Australians. Young people don't always see something for them on the ballot paper when there's an election, but they did this year and they voted for it in their millions. For young people just out of TAFE, just out of uni, just out of home and just getting started, this will take a weight off their backs. Now that the legislation has passed, the tax office can get to work. They've now got the certainty that they need to make this a reality. This is a big piece of work. There are about 50,000 lines of code that they've got to write. This will take a bit of time. But now the bill has passed this 20 per cent cut is locked in and will be backdated to 1 June before indexation happened.”
“I thank my good friend the member for Hughes for his question. On 3 May, Australians voted for tax cuts, they voted for free TAFE, they voted for urgent care clinics, they voted for the biggest investment in Medicare ever and they voted for this—to cut student debt by 20 per cent. And, today, we delivered. This will help 17,000 people in the electorate of Hughes, 22,000 people in the electorate of Barton, 18,000 people in the electorate of Lindsay, 23,000 people in the electorate of Cunningham, 19,000 people in Wright, 20,000 people in Greenway, 15,000 people in New England, 21,000 people in Tangney, 17,000 people in Page, 21,000 people in Fisher and, in the great electorate of Oxley, 24,000 people. All up, that's more than three million Australians. This will save millions of Australians thousands of dollars.”
“We're already seeing a real-life example of the sort of difference that it's making. Teachers tell us that children are more focused in the classroom. They also tell us that our playgrounds at lunchtime are noisier. Kids are playing and talking to each other, rather than doomscrolling. But, when school finishes, you know what happens. You see it if you drive past a bus stop at three o'clock. You can see kids with their heads down, looking at their phones, back into the cesspit of social media. We know the impact this is having on our children, on their health and their mental health, and how it is used to bully and belittle other children. This is doing something about it. This is a really important step not just to help our parents but, even more importantly, to help our kids.”
“That funding is not a blank cheque; it's tied to real and practical reforms: things like phonics checks and numeracy checks in year 1 to help identify children who need additional support—that is rolling out in states and territories this year and next year; things like evidence based teaching, explicit teaching, to help children learn; and things like catch-up tutoring or small-group tutoring to help children who fall behind to catch up and to keep up. And from January of next year the reforms that all states and territories have now agreed to, to teacher training at universities, will also roll out. All of this is critical to help build a better and a fairer education system. The Minister for Communications has just given us an update on social media reforms. We've already banned mobile phones in schools.”
“What the NAPLAN data shows us each and every year is that about one in 10 students are below the minimum standards that we set for them, but it is one in three children from poor families and from regional Australia. These are the same kids who often end up not finishing high school. That's why the agreements that we've now signed with all states and territories are so important. They're about fixing the funding of our public schools and targeting that funding to where it's needed.”
“I thank my friend the member for Calwell for his question and congratulate him on his extraordinary first speech—one of the best I have ever heard, and there have been some brilliant first speeches in the last few weeks in this chamber. Some encouraging news is that NAPLAN results are out today, and they show improvements in literacy and in numeracy. In reading, we've seen improvements in years 5, 7 and 9, and, in numeracy, we've seen some real improvements right across the board. This is the first time that this has happened in almost 10 years. All of this is encouraging, but the cold, hard truth is that there is a lot more work to do.”
“It lifts the minimum amount that you have to earn before you start repaying your student debt from $54,000 to $67,000, so you start paying off your uni degree when uni starts to pay off for you. It also reduces the minimum amount that you have to repay every year. If you earn 70 grand a year, it will reduce the amount that you repay every year by $1,300. That's real cost-of-living help. It means more money in your pocket, not the government's, when you need it. It's something that Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, has described as the most important thing that's happened to the system in 35 years. This is all happening because of this prime minister, because in November last year he promised to cut student debt by 20 per cent and because, on 3 May, Australians voted for this in their millions.”
“A lot of those are young Australians just out of TAFE, just out of university, maybe just out of home—certainly just getting started. They're teachers, nurses, tradies, doctors, paramedics, midwives, vets, social workers, engineers, architects, IT workers and lots more. The average HECS debt today is about 27 grand. What that means is that, when this legislation passes, it will cut their debt by about 5½ grand. If you've got a debt today of 50 grand—and there are lots of people in that boat—it will cut your debt by $10,000. That's a big deal. And it's not the only thing that this legislation does. It also makes structural changes to the way the repayment system works to make it fairer and to help Australians with the cost of living.”
“I thank the magnificent member for Melbourne for her question. There are 35,000 people in the electorate of Melbourne who are particular happy this afternoon, because we have just voted to cut their student debt by 20 per cent. As I said yesterday, young people don't always see something for them on the ballot paper, but they did this year and they voted for it in their millions. On 3 May, Australia voted to cut student debt by 20 per cent, and, today, so did we. We promised that this would be the first bill that we introduced into this new parliament, and, last week, we did that. About an hour and a half ago, we passed that legislation through this House, and now it heads to the Senate. As the Prime Minister just said, this will help three million Australians.”
“As she pointed out in her concluding remarks, the truth is this work will never end. The horrible truth is bad people will always seek to try and do bad things, and we've got to be up to the task to make sure that we do everything that we possibly can to help to keep our children safe. This bill's one part of it, but it's an important part of it. I thank the House for its support of it. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time.”
“But, if you talk to operators and talk to parents, they'll tell you that we've got to make sure we get the way it works right so that where the information is stored cannot be used by people who might want to use it for the wrong purposes. But, if used properly, it can be something very helpful in deterring bad people from doing bad things and helping police to investigate them when they do it. All of these things and more are being worked on by the states right now. Yes, there is a meeting of education ministers that's going to come next month, but we're not standing still until then. All of the states and territories are working together right now, at a ministerial level and a departmental level, on what comes to us and on what to decide and to do when we meet next month. I know the shadow minister understands that.”
“She feels broken at the moment too about what it has all been for. As I said on the telly last week, there've been people spat on in the streets wearing their uniform and told by employers not to wear their uniform. We need these people, not just to educate our kids but to keep them safe, and we want more people to become early educators as well. As we focus on this and on making sure that we keep our children safe, we've also got to be champions for those good people because the truth is they represent 99.9 per cent of the people who work in our early education and care service. Let's never forget them. We need them. We also need to look at CCTV and how it works. It's already in some centres; other centres are intending to roll it out.”
“The Queensland government is doing some good work on behalf of other states at the moment in the design of what mandatory child-safe training can and should look like for that workforce that are in our centres now. It rests heavily with me that over the course of the last few weeks, as we've focused on this legislation and what comes next, we also can't forget the hundreds of thousands of people who work in our early education and care system, who we entrust our children with and who are just as broken, just as hurt and just as angry with what they see and hear in the media as everybody else. My older cousin has worked in the system for 35 years and dedicated her whole life to it. She's proud of what she's done to help raise the quality of the services that she's operated in.”
“But we also need to address issues like a national register of early educators so we can properly track workers moving from centres to centres and from state to state. The alleged offender in Victoria and the way in which information was released to the media are a demonstration, if we need it, about how the system is not working properly at the moment. We also need to make sure that we arm the people who work in our centres, our early educators, with the sort of mandatory child safety training that they need to help to spot somebody who might be in their midst who's seeking to either groom children or groom them. That happens. These early educators, in a sense, are our best asset.”
“We need to do everything here to make sure that our children who walk through or are carried through the doors of our early education and care services are safe. This legislation is just one part of that, as the member for Flinders pointed out. She's absolutely right: this is just one part of that. There is a lot more work that we need to do to rebuild confidence in a system that parents need to have confidence in. The member for Flinders mentioned the work around working-with-children checks and the Attorney-General mentioned yesterday in question time the hodgepodge nature of working-with-children checks as they apply and operate in different states. Fixing that is at the top of the agenda when attorneys-general meet next month.”
“I thank the member for Flinders for her contribution to this debate. I also thank the opposition leader and the shadow minister for education and their teams for, as I said last week in question time, the professional, constructive and bipartisan way in which we have worked together to get this legislation to this point. We're about to pass it and send it to the Senate. The faster we pass this legislation, the faster we can use it and the faster we can use this legislation to do what it's intended to do, which is to make sure that our early education and care centres—and not just them but also in-home care and out-of-school-hours care—meet the sort of quality and safety standards that mums and dads expect and that our children deserve.”
“I thank the member for Kooyong, not just for her contribution to this debate but for her ongoing commitment to reform of higher education. The changes the member refers to were considered by the Universities Accord. I've often said, as I did in answer to a question in question time yesterday, that the accord is bigger than one budget and that it's a blueprint for the future. We will keep working through the accord's recommendations, and we will take advice from the Australian Tertiary Education Commission as well. Although we're not in a position to support these amendments at this time, my door is always open to all members of parliament to talk about how we build a better and a fairer education system. With that, I commend this bill to the House.”
“As promised, this was the very first bill to be introduced into the parliament after the election and, very shortly it will be the very first bill that we vote upon. This bill cuts student debt by 20 per cent. It also makes important structural changes to the way our student debt repayment system works. The Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 will take a weight off the shoulders of three million Australians, and it's happening because of a promise that the Prime Minister made to the Australian people in November last year. It's happening because Australians voted for this in their millions in May this year. And it's happening because we are about to vote for it in a few moments time.”
“They attacked it from day one. In fact, they didn't just attack it. They didn't just oppose it. They actually promised in the election campaign to increase HECS debt. In the costings they released on the Thursday before the election, they said that they would make people pay back paid prac. That's the funding that we're now providing to teaching students and nursing students, to midwifery students and social work students, to help them with the practical part of their university degree. Instead of providing that financial support for them in their pocket, the Liberal Party wanted to add that to their HECS debt. That was their policy, and they're still attacking the policy that cuts student debt by 20 per cent today. A new MP in the chamber this morning called it grossly unfair—”
“I thank my friend the brilliant member for Blair for his question. Young Australians don't always see something for them on the ballot paper when there's an election, but they did this year, and they voted for it in their millions. The front page of the Courier Mail on the Monday after the election said it all: 'Albo's HECS appeal'. The truth is the legislation that we've now introduced into the parliament to cut student debt by 20 per cent is going to help millions of young Australians—teachers, nurses, tradies and lots more just out of TAFE, just out of university, just out of home and just getting started. It will take a weight off their shoulders. Cutting student debt by 20 per cent was one of the biggest promises that we made in the election campaign, but it was also one of the biggest differences between us and the Liberal Party.”
“We'll keep working through the recommendations in the Universities Accord report and take advice from the Tertiary Education Commission.”
“It's a blueprint for reforming our higher education system over the next decade and beyond. The job-ready graduates scheme, which you referred to in your question, is the subject of recommendations in that report. We've already begun the task of implementing that report. I think we've bitten off a big chunk of it already, about 31 of the 47 recommendations in part or in full. That includes paid prac and the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, which began this month. It also includes measures, in the bill that we're debating this week in the parliament, to fix the repayment system for HECS, something that Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, described as 'the most important change to the system in 35 years'. There's more work to do.”
“I thank the member for Kooyong for her question. She's probably the best member for Kooyong the parliament has ever had; there's a bit of support up there in the public gallery. Thank you for your focus on education, for your focus on fairness and for your support for the legislation to cut student debt by 20 per cent. Twenty per cent is a big cut. It's not as big as 33 per cent—that's how much the Australian people cut the number of Liberal MPs in the chamber at the election—but 20 per cent is still a big cut. And it's going to help a lot of Australians. Three million Australian will get their student debt cut when this legislation passes the parliament. The truth is we've got a good education system, but it could be a lot better and a lot fairer. That's what the Universities Accord report is all about.”
“But this is also not an idle threat. I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition and I want to thank the shadow minister for education and the shadow assistant minister for education and your teams for the serious and professional and bipartisan way in which you've engaged with us on this legislation. I mean that. This is what mums and dads watching across the country want of us and expected of us and deserve of us. No party, no government, state or federal, has done everything that we need to do here. That's obvious. But I think everyone here is determined to do what needs to be done to rebuild confidence in a system that parents need to have confidence in, and the legislation that I introduced today is part of that. It's not everything. There's a lot more that needs to be done, and the terrible truth is that this work will never end.”
“We have to do everything that we can to ensure the safety of our children when they walk or when they're carried through the doors of a childcare centre. That's why we introduced legislation today to give us the power to cut funding to centres that aren't up to scratch. This is the biggest weapon that the Australian government has to wield here. The Australian taxpayers are the biggest funders of childcare centres. We do that through the childcare subsidy, $16 billion a year. Centres cannot operate without it. It covers about 70 per cent of the cost of running a childcare centre. This legislation will give us the power to cut that funding off to centres that aren't meeting quality and safety standards. Let me be clear: the purpose of this legislation isn't to shut centres down; it's to raise standards up.”
“I thank the brilliant member for Bass, a former schoolteacher, for her question. The member for Bass's concern for children in Tasmania and her dedication to their future is a big part of why the people of Bass have sent her here. Australians right across the country have been shocked, sickened and appalled by the news in Victoria in the last few weeks. A person has been arrested and charged with multiple heinous offences against children—offences allegedly committed in childcare centres. I've been pretty blunt in the last few weeks, and I will be again now. People have been arrested and convicted before for offences like those alleged, and governments, Labor and Liberal, state and federal, have taken action, but not enough, and not fast enough. That's the truth.”
“For someone on an income of 70 grand, it will reduce the minimum repayments that they have to make each year by $1,300. That's real help with the cost of living. That's more money in their pocket—an extra 1,300 bucks—rather than the government's. As I said, on 3 May Australians made their voices heard. They voted for tax cuts. They voted for free TAFE. They voted for more urgent care clinics. They voted for the biggest investment in Medicare ever to make it easier to see a doctor for free. And they voted for this—a 20 per cent cut in the student debt of three million Australians. Today we introduced the legislation to make that happen.”
“It will cut the student debt of 20,000 people in the electorate of Dickson; 34,000 people in the electorate of Brisbane; 21,000 people in the electorate of my good mate the member for Banks; 28,000 people in the electorate of Grayndler; 26,000 people in my electorate of Blaxland; and, right across the country, all up, more than three million Australians nationwide. The average HECS debt today is about 27 grand, so that means, as the PM just said, an average debt cut of about 5½ grand. That's a lot of help for a lot of people just out of uni, just getting started—help to buy a home if they are thinking about starting a family. It will just make life for them a little bit easier. This bill also does something else. It cuts the minimum annual repayments that Australians with a student debt have to make every year.”
“I thank the magnificent member for Melbourne for her question and congratulate her on her fantastic first speech last night and her incredible victory in the electorate of Melbourne. There are more people in the electorate of Melbourne with a student debt today than anywhere else in the country—35,000 people, almost one in three voters—and on 3 May they made their voices heard. This morning I had the privilege of introducing the first bill into this new parliament—the bill that will cut their student debt by 20 per cent, and not just theirs.”
“But I think everyone here is determined to do what needs to be done to rebuild confidence in a system that parents need to have confidence in—a system that more than one million mums and dads rely on to care for and to educate the most important people in their world: their children. This legislation is an important part of that. It's not everything. The truth is this work will never end, but this is an important step, and I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned.”
“And I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley, the shadow minister for education, Jonathon Duniam, and the shadow assistant minister for education, Zoe McKenzie, and all of their teams for all of the work that they are doing together with us on this and for the serious and professional and bipartisan approach that they have taken to make sure that we get this right. It's what the mums and dads watching this right now across the country want of us and expect of us. They're not interested in excuses; they expect action. They expect all levels of government to work together and they expect the people that run childcare centres to join us in this work as well. We all know that no party and no government, state or federal, has done everything we need to do here. That's obvious.”
“In others it is ministers with responsibility for child protection, human services, or families and communities. Next month the Commonwealth Attorney-General will also bring her state and territory counterparts together to address these serious issues. There is no more serious work than this. I want to thank my friend and colleague Senator Jess Walsh, the Minister for Early Childhood Education and the Minister for Youth, for her leadership on quality and safety in early learning and her work in bringing this bill to the parliament.”
“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended the Commonwealth government facilitate a national model for working-with-children checks. At the moment systems in different states work differently. In some states the working-with-children check is valid for five years. In others it's two or three years. In some states only people over 18 working with children require a check. In others this is required from the age of 14 or 15. Jurisdictions also differ in how they assess both criminal and non-conviction information, as well as patterns of behaviour. There are also issues with getting real-time updates to working-with-children checks and information sharing between jurisdictions. This system isn't run by education ministers. In some states it is run by the attorney-general.”
“It also recommends services be required to display their compliance history alongside their quality ratings to help families make informed choices about child care. The Wheeler review also recommends allowing the regulator to require that a provider install CCTV when they identify a potential risk to the health and safety of children at a service, or when the service has failed to meet quality standards for an unreasonable period of time. These recommendations and more will be considered by education ministers when we meet next month. The other area where serious work is needed is to improve the operation of working-with-children checks. Problems here were identified a long time ago.”
“That includes establishing a national educator register to help track workers from centre to centre and from state to state. It also means mandatory child-safety training to support the 99.9 per cent of educators who care for our children every single day and do a fantastic job to help them to recognise people in their centre that might be up to no good. After Four Corners exposed appalling examples of abuse and neglect on 17 March this year, the New South Wales government commissioned Chris Wheeler, a former deputy New South Wales ombudsman, to undertake an independent review of the New South Wales Early Childhood Education and Care Regulatory Authority. The Wheeler review recommends increasing penalties on services for offences that are largely factual or procedural, and for which prosecution is currently the only avenue available.”
“Providers that can improve their services to meet the standard will get the chance to do that. Services that don't, can't or won't will lose their access to funding. I think that's fair. And I think most Australian parents will too. This bill isn't the only thing we have to do to improve safety in childcare centres. There is a lot more. After Ashley Paul Griffith was arrested and charged in Queensland with multiple child sex offences, education ministers across the country commissioned the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority—ACECQA—to conduct a child safety review. Education ministers have agreed in principle to the key recommendations of that review. Some have been implemented. But there is more work that needs to be done.”
“The bill makes an amendment to require all family day care and in-home care providers to collect childcare subsidy gap fees directly from families. This will reduce the administrative burden on individual educators so they can focus on providing education and care to children. It will also improve transparency and integrity of childcare subsidy funding. The purpose of this bill is not to shut childcare centres down. It's to raise standards up. This is not about leaving parents stranded without care for their children because of fixable or minor shortcomings at their service. But this legislation is also not an idle threat. Services, whether they be centre based day care, or family day care, or in-home care, or outside-school-hours care, know what they have to do to consistently meet national quality standards.”
“Monitoring warrants are an effective tool in conducting childcare subsidy fraud and compliance investigations. These changes will streamline processes, allowing warrants to be requested and issued more quickly. The bill also makes amendments to allow the secretary of my department to delegate their existing power to appoint an appropriately qualified and experienced expert to conduct audits of large childcare providers. This power is expanded to allow delegation to a Senior Executive Service employee. This will further streamline the process for appointing auditors, an important tool in ensuring integrity and compliance in the sector. The bill also makes important changes to how gap fees are collected from families who use family day care and in-home care.”
“Over the last three years, this government has allocated $221 million to detect and prevent childcare subsidy fraud, and this has helped claw back around $318 million for the taxpayer. These new powers add to this. If, while the compliance officers are there, they identify safety and quality concerns, they will also be able to share that information with state government regulators to take action. A person who does not cooperate with an authorised person seeking access commits a criminal offence—and is liable to a civil penalty. The bill also includes a number of other integrity measures. It will allow the secretary of my department to delegate the power to apply for a monitoring warrant to an appropriately qualified executive level officer.”
“The bill also gives the Commonwealth's authorised officers more powers to do their job. It allows them to perform spot checks and enter premises without consent during operating hours to detect noncompliance across the sector. It means that the Commonwealth's officers don't need to get a warrant or other preauthorisation to inspect a centre, an outside-schools-hours care service, or family day-care service. These Commonwealth powers largely mirror arrangements that are already in place for state and territory regulators. The primary purpose of these compliance officers is to monitor compliance with the family assistance law. This is a serious issue in early education and care.”
“I have asked the secretary of my department to ensure the enforcement action register provides parents and other organisations with as much information as possible, given the circumstances of each matter. Providing more detailed information on compliance actions and refusals of new services is important to ensure parents have the information they need to make one of the most important decisions in their child's early years, about who they want to put their trust in to care for their child. It will also ensure transparency for company directors and board members, who may not be directly responsible for the daily management of the provider, but who play an important role in ensuring their organisations are taking the steps needed to keep children safe in early education and care.”
“The bill also gives the secretary of my department the power to publish other compliance action taken against providers, such as when conditions are applied—including the details of those conditions—or where an infringement notice has been issued, including the details of the notice, such as the alleged contravention and the fine amount. Conditions and infringements are very important, because they point to specific things a provider must do or fix to stay eligible for the childcare subsidy. Parents should know when a centre their child attends, or one they are thinking of using, is subject to a condition or has received an infringement. When this legislation is passed, the secretary of my department will expand the breadth of the enforcement action register to include those things I have just outlined.”
“This bill also expands the Commonwealth's powers to publish information about providers that are sanctioned for noncompliance. The secretary of my department already has the power to publicise actions such as suspending or cancelling a provider's approval for the childcare subsidy. The information is available in the enforcement action register on the department's website, along with other information such as how the department issues infringement notices and imposes conditions on approvals. This bill expands that power to include the power to publicise when a provider is refused approval for a new service.”