Angie Bell
Moncrieff · Liberal National Party · Australia
“Twice the Prime Minister was directly asked whether he could guarantee that house prices wouldn't tank as a result of his government's housing policies; twice he refused to answer.”
“At the same time, the government's own budget papers show rents are set to rise. Do those opposite realise that cheaper house prices mean nothing when the cost of living makes it impossible to save for a deposit? We already see young Australians locked out of independence, forced to live at home longer as rental stress worsens.”
“Over 2½ thousand people experience homelessness on the Gold Coast on any given night, and the money raised from this event will go directly to supporting those locals getting back on their feet. I want to thank everyone who donated so generously to the CEO Sleepout.”
“Back to the bill in front of us, this is a bill that changes a process, to give more power to a minister—the same minister who had to pay back the debt—and a bill that nobody has asked for. The government has not justified the need for a change in process.”
“Labor is more interested in their bottom line than supporting grassroots sport and the communities—like the communities of everybody in this place—who rely on it. At a time when families are tightening their belts, affordable community sport has never been more important.”
“I want to start by talking about sport, the inspiration that is sport and what it can do for young lives. I was inspired, as the federal member for Moncrieff, just a few weeks ago when I attended the Benowa State School, where there was a boccia tournament for three primary schools across my electorate.”
The complete record
Every one of 431 lines we hold for Angie Bell, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 9.
“It's the third one that I've delivered as the shadow minister for youth but also for my local community, of course. I want to thank the sporting clubs, like the Titans NRL club, the SUNS AFL club and the Surfers Paradise Baseball Club. Baseball, AFL, NRL, netball, pickle ball, croquet, tennis, bowls, golf, swimming, skateboarding, BMX—we've got gold medals in every single one of those sports probably on the Gold Coast. We raise champions on the Gold Coast. There's no doubt about that. I've got three RSL sub-branches. I've got about 3½ thousand veterans in Moncrieff. I want to thank you for your service and your dedication to our community as well. To our Men's Sheds, Rotary clubs, Lions, Apex and Probus, thank you for what you do. I've got 33 schools that I try and get to every year and visit.”
“I want to thank my community cabinet, which is a plethora, if you like, of faith leaders, community organisations and not-for-profits in my electorate that come together regularly in my office and also off site in their churches and their community halls to meet and to share what's going on in the community. I've had that community cabinet now for nearly six years, and we've managed to do a lot of work together, which is great. I want to thank the Sea World Foundation and Karen Phillips for their support for the IMPACT Gold Coast Youth Summit. I have an announcement tonight to all of those young people on the Gold Coast. If you live on the Gold Coast and you're 15 to 24 years old, you can come to the IMPACT Gold Coast Youth Summit this year, which is on 6 and 7 June.”
“I want to thank the many entrepreneurs who give to those in our city. I want to thank the many charities and foundations—and the chambers of commerce also for the work that they do—who help with food security and with families who now have mortgages and their childcare fees have gone up and everything else that they're paying for has gone up under this government. There are many charities who are helping out on the ground. I also want to thank our volunteer Surf Life Saving clubs. I've got nine of those, and you are the glue that holds our community together at the beach. Thank you for the lives that you save every year.”
“It's a tourism mecca—the nightlife of surfers paradise and our city's villages, shining lights and fast cars, construction and cranes on the skylines, sports and entertainment events, education and international students, the health and knowledge precinct, manufacturing and the arts, and great coffee and hospitality offerings. It really is a great place for a family holiday. My experience as a Gold Coaster for 24 years now is community, and that means belonging to something special, looking after our own and giving back a sum greater than any one person. And how does my community achieve that? Well, we are the home of the entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs have a generosity of spirit. And, of course, we're the small-business capital of Australia, so we give back to those who need help.”
“It's quite hard to believe that we're nearing the end of the 47th parliament. It seems like yesterday that I came to this place in 2019 and again in 2022, and I'm very proud to be the member for Moncrieff and advocate for you, my community, and, of course, for the Liberal National Party values of equality of opportunity, reward for effort and freedom of association and conscience. We're the party of free markets and trade, lower taxes and smaller government and the party for families and small business and for fairness and personal responsibility of the individual. The Gold Coast is many things to many people. It's the home of sand, surf, sunshine, boating and theme parks.”
“Interest rates have increased 12 times, and 27,000 businesses have gone insolvent. Childcare costs are up by 22.3 per cent. If that's not doom, I don't know what is. It's impacting the lives of Australians and putting pressure on families, especially young people. The Prime Minister is so out of touch with what's happening in the lives of Australians. He should apologise for Labor's economic damage. We need a stronger economy with low inflation and rising living standards, and that's what we're determined to deliver on this side of the chamber. We need a strong and decisive prime minister, not a weak and divisive one—”
“Australian families do not believe the Prime Minister when he says that they'll be better off under Labor again. Aussies are not mugs. They know they've been fooled once, but it won't be twice. His promises that life will be easy have simply not come true. Ask yourself: are you better off now than you were under a coalition government, just three short years ago? No! Under Labor's economic mismanagement, Australians are experiencing the longest sustained period of inflation since the 1980s when Indiana Jones was in the Temple of Doom. We're all feeling doom at the checkout. We're feeling doom when we get our power bills that have risen by $1,000. We're feeling doom that our living standards have collapsed by nine per cent. It's the biggest fall in household disposable income in the developed world.”
“We locked in ongoing funding for preschool, with increased access to early childhood education for more than 280,000 children. We brought down costs, and we increased women's workforce participation. They are all the measures we should be looking at to make sure we also maintain quality in the sector. They deserve better than a government that only cares about the headlines it can generate, not the impact that its policies will have on hardworking Australian families who need to access early-childhood education and care. That is why the coalition will vote against this legislation.”
“It's just another proof point that Labor doesn't actually care about early childhood education and is using it all as spin. Labor is failing educators and failing families. Labor's three-day guarantee is typical of the Albanese Labor government. It has been accompanied by big headlines and big promises by this government. Let's think about the first promise that they still haven't delivered: that $275 electricity bill! They still haven't delivered that. In fact, prices have gone up by a thousand dollars when it comes to electricity. So this is just another broken promise in the litany of broken promises with no detail. Australian families and Australian educators deserve better than another three years of Labor. The coalition's track record in early childhood education speaks for itself. We undertook the biggest reforms in over 40 years.”
“Plus, there's been an increase in services charging above the hourly rate cap as they also struggle to keep up with soaring costs. This is more proof of Labor's utter incompetence and their policy failures in this sector. They're so obsessed with the spin. Australian families and educators deserve so much better. Let's think about Labor's bungled worker-retention payment. Labor promised that up to 200,000 educators would have a pay rise by the end of last year. It was an early Christmas present, they said. The education minister stood up on 5 December and declared it was 'pay day for hundreds of thousands of educators'. But it wasn't, because we know that only around 15 per cent of educators are employed by services that have been approved for this payment.”
“The cost of early childhood education has risen by 22.3 per cent, which isn't surprising when you remember that, the last time Labor was in government, childcare costs soared by 53 per cent in just six years. It appears this Labor government is no better, because, at their current rate of increase, families can expect prices to skyrocket under them, if they keep going at this rate, by 124 per cent by March 2032. While Labor's been patting itself on the back, saying parents have saved over $2,000 thanks to its changes to the childcare subsidy, the reality is that out-of-pocket costs have soared by 12.7 per cent since those changes came into effect. So affordability is a big fail for the Labor government. The very policy that was supposed to bring costs down for families has forced families to pay more.”
“Importantly—and this is so very important—exemptions already exist under the current system to assist children and families who are most in need. Labor wants you to think that this policy is revolutionary—that it's going to change millions of lives. But it's simply not going to. We can't trust the future of our children in the hands of an Albanese Labor government—that's for certain. Over the last three years, they've failed to deliver for the early childhood sector. The Prime Minister promised cheaper child care for families, and to say the government has failed to deliver on that promise is an absolute understatement. Under Labor, these are the facts.”
“The bill says it'll cost $426.7 million over five years from the 2024-25 financial year—even though it's not being rolled out until January 2026. No doubt that's a sneaky little tactic to try and make it sound better, because that's what matters to Labor—it's the headline and the spin; it's not the reality. But, more importantly, the Productivity Commission said that removing the activity test completely would cost $2.3 billion a year. So, somewhere in there, something is rotten. The government wants us to accept its modelling that removing the activity test for three days will only cost $426.7 million over four years. It's also worth noting that the vast majority of families are already eligible for 72 to 100 hours of subsidised care, meaning that this policy will barely move the dial on increasing access.”
“Added to that are the soaring out-of-pocket costs for their child care. That's why it's crucial to make sure that taxpayers' money goes to those who need the support of early childhood education the most. The activity test inherently rewards effort and aspiration. It incentivises people to contribute to society through work, through study and through volunteering. But, under Labor's policy, families who are working hard to create a better life for their children get nothing; meanwhile, families who might spend their days—gosh!—doing an activity like yoga or going to the shops will have the same level of access. Labor continues to punish and disincentivise hardworking, aspirational Australians. There are also serious questions about the costing on this policy.”
“We're in a cost-of-living crisis, and families are counting every single dollar and trying to make it go as far as possible. But then they see Labor spending taxpayers' money—their hard-earned money—like it's an endless pot of gold. In a cost-of-living crisis, the government must be intentional with every single dollar it spends. Instead, Labor's been on a reckless spending spree with temporary sugar-hit solutions, making the situation simply worse for families. Since coming to power, Labor has added $347 billion in spending. That's around $33,000 per household. But families aren't $33,000 better off—that's for sure. In fact, a family with a typical mortgage has spent $50,000 more in interest on their home loan. Their living standards have collapsed by almost nine per cent. And we're in a deep household recession.”
“Ultimately, the biggest losers of this policy are families living in those thin markets and childcare deserts. Very many members sitting behind me have communities that cannot find a place in child care because this government has not delivered any new places to them. Increasing their access to 72 hours a fortnight might sound good in a headline, but there's no point if there's no care available in the first place. The member for Fenner said earlier, which brought me to a giggle, that he was standing up for the regions. This is a slogan that Labor throws at regional Australia, and regional Australia just does not buy it. Labor likes to say it's the party for workers, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Labor doesn't care about what workers need, and it doesn't care about the regions. Labor only cares about what Labor needs.”
“While those already in the system may be impacted in a limited way, it's the new working families seeking to enter the early childhood education system that will be forced to compete for new places alongside those who do not meet the top activity test levels. The coalition has always believed in choice and in flexibility. This policy does absolutely nothing for families who choose something other than child care or for families who need the flexibility. Things don't always happen exactly the way we plan, so it's important—so important—that our early childhood education system can offer some flexibility. But, again, Labor's policy offers nothing for families who work non-standard hours—people like our hardworking nurses, our shift workers, our emergency services, anyone who works the night shift. There are no options for them.”
“And get this: they've even used the Community Child Care Fund—created by the coalition to address gaps in regional, remote and rural areas—to fund metropolitan and inner-city seats, including, colleagues, the very regional seat of Grayndler! While they say they'll build 160 centres, history tells us not to expect much on that front. They won't deliver on their promise, like so many others. The reality is that there's no point having access to three days of subsidised care if no care is available in the first place. Labor's done nothing to address this—nothing to address access. The vast majority of families accessing the Child Care Subsidy are already eligible for 72 to 100 hours of care per fortnight.”
“It only cares about the headlines and the spin, not the substance and not delivering for Australian families what they need. This legislation is all about Labor's legacy, and Labor's legacy is driven completely by this Prime Minister's ego. What it isn't driven by, however, is what our families, our educators and our service providers need. They need access, they need affordability and they need quality. Labor is spending around $15 billion a year on early childhood education, and, since the election, they've announced around $8 billion worth of new policies. But, despite that, Labor hasn't delivered a single new place for those families with little or no access.”
“A three-day guarantee means nothing if you can't access a place. Labor has completely neglected this part of the equation, and this policy does not address the current cost-of-living pressures that families face all over the country. But what more could you expect from a Labor government that has been using early childhood education as a political plaything, as its political pawn in the lead-up to the next election? Let's face the facts. If this is such a good policy, which Labor introduced last week, they could have passed this legislation this fortnight. But they haven't. 'Why haven't they?' I ask Australians. Why haven't they? Because it's all just a political game for the Labor Party. Time and time again, Labor has shown its true colours.”
“Labor's proposed changes are a slap in the face for working parents—parents who want to work and those who have to work because of Labor's cost-of-living crisis. Once again, this is what they do, those opposite—they are at war with aspiration. They are removing the priority of access for working Australian families. What Labor is proposing, to remove the activity test for three days, is fundamentally unfair, and it's divisive. It's pitting working families against non-working families—pitting them against each other. And it's pitting those who access early childhood education against those who don't, whether that's by choice or because there are no available options. Increasing access to early childhood education in this way, without any meaningful policies to address supply, does not equate to quality education.”
“Early childhood education is an essential service that families rely on to study, to work and to pay the household bills. That's how the minister introduced her bill last week. And I must say, I found myself agreeing profusely with that statement, as that is exactly why this legislation should be voted down. When the coalition brought in the biggest reforms to the sector in decades by introducing the childcare subsidy and the activity test, it was because we recognised the very fact that she highlighted in her introduction: it was to strike a balance between targeted childcare support for hardworking families who rely on it, a generous safety net to protect the most vulnerable and, most importantly, ongoing support for high-quality learning.”
“It was funding that was designed for regional, rural and remote communities, and Labor are already robbing those Australians to give them more inner-city votes. So, if you think this Building Early Education Fund will be any different, I think you'll be sorely disappointed. The only thing you're getting from the beef is a bad taste in your mouth when you realise that Labor only cares about—well, Labor. This train-wreck of a government doesn't deserve three more years of your trust. You cannot trust it, because all that three more years will bring is more years of pain for Australian families.”
“To regional Australians and to those groups who think that this is a fabulous idea—understandably; I get that—I want to ask you just one thing. If Labor cared so much about you—like they pretend they do right now, in the lead-up to an election—why didn't they do anything during the last three years? Don't be fooled by this shiny announcement and don't be fooled by the promise of funding for services in the regions. They've already been caught out taking money from the regions through the Community Child Care Fund—which was designed for the regions—and giving it to inner-metro seats. They cannot be trusted. Services in regional areas have been forced to close their doors because they've missed out on much-needed funding—funding that was redistributed to metro areas, including to services in the Prime Minister's own electorate of Grayndler.”
“Where is the cost-of-living relief for Naomi's family and families like hers—families who are paying more at the supermarket, more at the bowser, more for their utility bills, their rents, their mortgages and their education costs; families who are working multiple jobs just to keep the lights on and food on their table? When will this Prime Minister finally admit to those families that he has failed them? He has failed you. And, while we're talking about people the Prime Minister has failed—and it's a long list—I want to talk about regional Australia. I don't think the Prime Minister knows where the regions are—unless, of course, there's a photo opportunity. Late last year Labor announced plans to build 160 new services in regional and outer suburban areas if they win government—another promise.”
“They are not fooled when the Prime Minister holds a press conference, usually using a childcare centre as a political backdrop, telling them they are saving money. He keeps telling Australians they are saving money and that they are better off under Albanese but the reality is they are not and they know it. They are not mugs. The Prime Minister and his government continue to treat Australians like mugs, but they know better. Last week I received an email from Naomi, who is currently paying $16,000 a year for child care after the childcare subsidy for one child. That's set to increase by another $10,000 when her youngest child attends care from October. That is a lot of money—$36,000 a year for two children to attend childcare. What does the Prime Minister have to say to that? There's nothing cheap about that child care.”
“If I had a dollar for every time the Prime Minister said that Labor will deliver cheaper child care for Australians, I could retire today. But sadly, for those Australian families, cheaper child care has become another one of Labor's broken promises. And don't just take my word for it; let's have a look at the data. According to the Department of Education's own data, childcare costs have increased by 22.3 per cent since June 2022, and, according to the ABS data, out-of-pocket costs for families have increased by 12.7 per cent since Labor's cheaper childcare policy came into effect in 2023. But Australian families already know their childcare costs are increasing and they are not fooled.”
“Over three years ago, those opposite promised Australians that life would be cheaper under Labor and, in those three years: interest rates have increased a massive 12 times; energy bills, not down by $275 but up by $1,000; living standards for Australians have collapsed by almost nine per cent; 27,000 businesses have gone insolvent—the most ever; and a family with a typical mortgage has spent an additional $50,000 on their interest payments. Under Labor's economic mismanagement, Australians have experienced the longest sustained period of inflation since the 1980s, the government have left a litany of broken promises and policy failures in their wake, and Australians are the ones paying for it. Let's take cheaper child care, for example.”
“I move: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) it has been almost three years since the Government was elected and the cost of child care has increased by a whopping 22.3 per cent; (b) since the Government introduced its cheaper childcare policy, out of pocket costs for families have sky rocketed by 12.7 per cent; (c) almost 30 per cent of child care services are charging over the hourly rate cap under the current Government, compared to 21 per cent under the previous Government; and (d) this is just another broken promise from the Government, that continues to leave Australian families behind; and (2) calls on the Government to deliver: (a) more access to early childhood education and care places to support Australians to return to the workforce; and (b) real cost of living relief to families.”
“They haven't delivered a single new place for families with little to no access, and child care is more expensive. Now their plan is to add more demand into a system that is struggling, a system that is at capacity, because Labor have failed to get the policy settings right. This is a government with no meaningful policies to address the issues of access, affordability and quality in the sector, only bandaid solutions. We have a government chasing headlines and not delivering substance. Australian families deserve to know: why do they always pay more under Labor?”
“The Prime Minister promised Australia cheaper child care. He promised a pay rise for 200,000 educators by the end of the year. But just like all of his other promises, like no changes to superannuation, no changes to the stage 3 tax cuts and—who can forget?—cheaper power bills, he has failed to deliver for Australians. Under Labor, the cost of child care has risen by 22.3 per cent, and the latest inflation data shows that, since Labor's changes to the child-care subsidy, out-of-pocket fees have skyrocketed by 12.7 per cent. Meanwhile, they've completely bungled the worker retention payment, with just 15 per cent of educators to receive the pay rise. Labor is failing educators and failing Australians. Labor is spending $15 billion on early childhood education, but guess what?”