The Opposition has today shown their true colours, targeting payments to families for child care and saying the support creates a “cycle of dependency”.

The comments were made by the Federal Liberal Member for Mayo, Jamie Briggs, who wrote in The Australian Financial Review: 

“Pensions, disability support, family tax benefits and childcare support, among others create a cycle of dependency for millions of Australians”.

In Mr Brigg’s electorate over 4,800 families have benefited from child care payments totalling almost $12 million in 2009-10. 

Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care, Kate Ellis said that it was extraordinary to label families receiving child care assistance as being welfare dependent and shows the Coalition grasping for ways to deal with their $7bn black hole.

“The Coalition should tell families now exactly what their plans are for child care payments,” Ms Ellis said.

“Under the Gillard Labor Government more than twice as much is being spent on child care than was spent in the Howard years.

“We’ve also increased the Child Care Rebate – available for every family with a child in registered care from $4354 to $7500 and as a percentage of disposable income child care costs have almost halved.”

“Parents deserve to have peace of mind knowing that their children are getting high quality care while they’re at work if they choose to return to the workforce after having children.”

“That’s why we’ve introduced the National Quality Framework for child care. We want every parent to have access to the highest quality care for their kids.”

“Ninety percent of brain development occurs in the first three years of life and from when a baby is born until they are three years old children learn more and learn faster than they ever will for the rest of their lives.”

“Rather than calling out child care price hikes and urging parents to raise their concerns with their state or territory consumer affairs office, the Opposition has irresponsibly chosen to scaremonger by attributing price increases in some child care centres to the National Quality Framework.”

Independent modelling predicts the cost of these important reforms will peak at around $8.57 per week in 2014-2015.

“Every family has a right to high quality child care and the Gillard Labor Government will not back away from giving children the right educational building blocks in the early years to ensure they are off to a great start at school,” Ms Ellis said.