Mr LEE(5.30 p.m.) —This afternoon I would like to use the adjournment debate to speak about the impact of the government's first budget cuts to child care on the federal electorate of Dobell. I would like to address two issues: firstly, the impact of the government's decision to remove operational subsidies for community child-care centres; and, secondly, the impact of the government's decision to cut child-care assistance to a maximum of 50 hours per week.

Mr Miles —We have just had this debate.

Mr LEE —The parliamentary secretary at the table said we have just had this debate. I would not have mentioned, except for his interjection, that the minister responsible, the Minister for Family Services (Mrs Moylan), has just left the chamber. Given that she was aware I was going to speak about child care, perhaps the minister will come back at 6 o'clock to respond to the points we are making. We live in hope.

In many ways we do not hold the Minister for Family Services responsible. We would have hoped that in the Expenditure Review Committee she would have tried to defend community child-care centres across the country against these cutbacks. We can only try to give her the benefit of the doubt and suspect that she might have fought against these cuts but, unfortunately, whatever position she took in the ERC, the facts of life are that child care in Australia has been cut as a result of the decisions of the government.

I would like to turn first of all to the government's decision to remove operational subsidies from community child-care centres. In my own electorate, community child-care centres are run by the local councils on the central coast. They receive a subsidy from the federal government to help low income earners afford child care. Most central coast community child-care centres cater for nought- to two-year-olds, which is the most expensive group to provide quality child care for.

Community based child-care centres in my electorate include those at Bay Village, Gorokan Care and Learning, the Spotted Gum Child Care Centre, Tom Stone Child Care, Watanobbi, Kanwal Care and Learning, Tyrell Place at Bateau Bay and also Karinya Child Care in East Toukley, which I had the honour of opening a few years ago. This is now within the electorate of the honourable member for Shortland (Mr Peter Morris). The centre is also providing quality child care to people who live in my electorate. There are about 600 young kids receiving quality child care in these centres. It is those children who will be the hardest hit by this government's decision.

Wyong Council, which operates these centres, estimates that the government's decision to remove the subsidies will add another $20 to $25 a week to child care or $80 to $100 a month per child for each parent. Many parents in Wyong, Lake Haven, Gorokan and Bateau Bay just will not be able to afford this. They will be forced to leave full-time work to stay home with their kids or trust their children to ad hoc child care.

One of the ironies is that, as a result of this decision, the new Kanwal Care and Learning Centre, which the subsidies of the former federal Labor government helped fund in January 1996, will now be struggling to survive without having to charge those high fees which some parents will simply be unable to afford. They will have to question whether they will be able to send their children to this new centre.

I now turn to the second issue, that is, the government's decision to cut child-care assistance to a maximum of 50 hours per week for all parents. I know that the honourable member for Werriwa (Mr Latham), like myself, has many parents who have to spend many hours each day travelling to and from work. These will be the parents who will be hardest hit by the decision to impose this new limit of 50 hours per week.

The government's decision, of course, is another broken election promise, not just to the parents on the central coast of New South Wales but right around Australia. They said that a Liberal-National Party government would maintain the system of child-care assistance. But, in fact, what they have done is hurt those parents on the New South Wales central coast. Fifty per cent of parents work outside the region, usually in Sydney. These parents face an eight-hour working day and two to four hours of travelling. It will be their children who will be the hardest hit.

I would particularly like to mention the Spotted Frog Kindergarten in Gorokan, which provides 39 places for three- to six-year-olds in long day care. Most children are from two income families where parents work outside the area and rely on long day care to be able to work in Sydney. These parents, whose incomes are not high, will be hit by the limit on hours and the means testing of child-care assistance. Many of these parents have recently presented me with a petition from 149 families opposed to the government's heartless child-care cuts. This is along with hundreds of other people in my electorate who have asked me to express the strong opposition of central coast residents to this government's cutbacks. (Time expired)