Mr McCLELLAND(4.49 p.m.) —I move—

Mr Kerr —A great member. Very busy with the petitions.

Mr McCLELLAND —Thank you. I move:

That this House:

(1)   expresses its concern at the cutting of the operational subsidy to Out of School Hours (OOSH) services and the imposition of an increased threshold of eligibility for child care assistance to families;

(2)   notes that:

(a)   cuts to Out of School Hours funding will result in OOSH services having to increase fees to cover the loss of the operational subsidy which will threaten the quality of child care as OOSH services will be forced to cut costs to meet budgets;

(b)   the loss of the operational subsidy means that OOSH services could be facing high administration costs in order to meet the new fee relief system which could result in the closure of smaller services; and

(c)   the consequences of cutting funding to OOSH services will result in a situation whereby parents will be dropping children off at school early in the morning to unsupervised playgrounds and picking them up from school well after the school day has finished, or allowing their children to remain in an unsupervised home in the morning and return to an unsupervised home in the evening; and

(3)   calls upon the Federal Government to revoke its decision to cut operational subsidy to OOSH services and to restore the previous access to child care assistance for eligible families.

I have moved this motion because the government's decision to cut operational funding to out of hours school care services will drive up fees and force children into substandard services or, worse still, make them latchkey kids.

The history of the out of hours school care service is that it was a federal government initiative in the early 1970s. It caters for children five to 12 years of age and provides supervised and planned recreational and homework activities. The success of the program is demonstrated by the numbers. In 1982 there were 7,900 children in out of hours school care; in June 1996 there were 71,846 children, a massive increase in that period.

The funding structure that currently exists is that the services are funded on a per capita enrolment basis in the form of an operational subsidy. That operational subsidy represents a constant stream of income, no matter what variations occur in the student population. Most out of hours school care services are school based and non-profit. The community has come together in the interests of the children.

The government's proposed changes to the system will completely cut operational subsidies, which will mean a cut of between $24,000 and $41,000 to individual out of hours care services. As a sweetener to that reduction, however, the government has offered a sum of $12 million which is being spent on consultants. So each and every out of hours school service is being given $3,000 to engage a consultant, and that consultancy report is a precondition to an application for a capital grant of $7,000 and a possible grant of $3,000 for equipment. So there is a compulsory expenditure of $3,000 for these consultants for a potential $10,000 grant. It is an administrative absurdity and a gross waste.

In addition to that, the list of consultants was provided only last week, and those consultants have to now be briefed by the out of hours services and they have to provide their consultant's report by October. These are going to be very cursory reports or they are going to be variables filled in on a word processor, all for the princely sum of $3,000 a pop—a ridiculous situation.

But the government is working to a timetable where the operational subsidies are going to be cut on 1 January. It is a completely unworkable timetable, and the Minister for Family Services (Mrs Moylan) should immediately review it. It is absolutely stupid, and I understand that she is receiving that feedback from the sector.

As it stands, the additional funding that parents of children in out of hours school centres are going to receive—or, at least, a limited number of them are going to receive by way of child-care assistance payments—just will not compensate for the loss of the operational subsidy.

The consequences are that many parents, particularly those with several children requiring out of hours care, will be forced to move their kids from the current services. They will have two choices: to put their children into untrained, backyard services or to drop their kids off early in the morning and let them go to an empty home in the afternoon—so that they will literally become latchkey children.

Last week the minister said that as a nation we can do no more important task than `ensure the safety and the protection of our children'. If the minister allows these operational subsidies to be cut, she is a blatant hypocrite.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jenkins) —Order! Is the motion seconded?

Mr Fitzgibbon —I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.