Mr ANTHONY —My question is addressed to the Minister for Family Services. Is the minister aware of a report commissioned by the New South Wales government on child care and the immense concern this report is causing to families? Can the minister inform the House of the Commonwealth's commitment to child care and how this compares with the New South Wales level of commitment?

Mr WARWICK SMITH —I thank the honourable member for Richmond for his question. As I mentioned, I have heard of the NCOSS survey. It was a half-day survey—a phone-in. It does give me concern and it gives sensible people concern because the outcome of that survey is misleading. It will cause a continued level of undue concern to some families in New South Wales. The approach taken was to run it for half a day and just ask people to ring in and say what their immediate problem might be. It did not offer any assistance whatsoever. Indeed, it is claimed in the NCOSS survey that the fee increases are between $15 and $40 per week per child. That is grossly overstated. The national data of August 1997 indicates that community sector fee increases average around $14 per week compared with $1 per week increase for the 70 per cent of families using the private centres. The Commonwealth, under my department, has provided $8.3 million to help community service providers identify ways to restructure their operations to minimise the impact of fee increases on parents—a very commendable decision taken by the government.

If community services choose to have more staff than required by state government regulations and/or pay above award wages, that is a legitimate service decision to make but it is not one that should be funded by the broad range of taxpayers. We are providing them with support to address their management structures and they should take advantage of that. The Commonwealth, as I mentioned earlier, has provided $1.2 billion this year—a significant increase on last year—and for the next four years, $4.9 billion—a huge amount of money for child care in this country. In New South Wales the Commonwealth support is over $300 million.

You asked in your question how New South Wales are dealing with child-care issues. I think this is important, because it underlines the hypocrisy of the phone-in that they conducted. I was surprised when I became minister and took advice about these issues—because personally child care is important to me, as it is for the member for Richmond and any other sensible member in this place—at the lack of progress by New South Wales to implement the jointly funded Commonwealth-state national child-care strategy to increase the supply of places. It is indeed quite interesting, because there is a total lack of commitment by the New South Wales government to do so. They rely on Commonwealth funded child care for child development, but New South Wales is the only state in the Commonwealth that does not have a universal policy for access to preschool year for four-year-olds. So many New South Wales families rely on Commonwealth funded child-care services to meet the development needs of their children—all the more reason why this strategy is so important to New South Wales.

As I mentioned earlier today, we passed that in this place yesterday, with the support, I might say, of everyone in the parliament. I think that was a major achievement for the government. Almost 60 per cent of the outstanding places under the growth strategy for child care are in New South Wales, and fewer than 10 per cent of those centres allocated to New South Wales have in fact actually been established. So New South Wales have not committed, as the other states have, to providing the level of places that is available under the growth strategy.

There is another point I would like to make to honourable members. I think the demographics with regard to child care are important for members to understand. There are 3.4 million children in Australia aged 0-12. Six hundred thousand of these children use Commonwealth funded child-care services—that is about 18 per cent—and 330,000 Commonwealth funded child-care places were in place at June 1997. Around 300,000 families—over 70 per cent of those accessing care—receive child-care assistance. As part of the bill that was announced yesterday, the new arrangements will start after Easter, which I thought was an appropriate time for parents for that to commence, and 395,000 families as at June have actually claimed child-care rebate. So the number of families accessing the $1.2 billion that is provided by the Commonwealth is a very substantial number. In the issues that I outlined earlier today, the assistance that we provide is quite enormous.

Mr Bevis —You should tell us about the funding that is now provided and that they have to pay more.

Mr WARWICK SMITH —You should listen; I understand you have got children. It is important for parents to get good information. We have provided a detailed information service. Information has been provided to every member in this House and has been circulated right around the community. There is a 1800 number that will run Monday to Friday and all day Saturday—a proper service to help families find out about the best child-care arrangements to suit them and to get details about the fees.

These issues deserve our universal support in this parliament. They do not deserve the cheap shots that have been taken by Bob Carr yesterday and that cheap survey that he ran. I think it was an appalling stunt that he pulled yesterday. It does not underpin the detailed consultation that I and my department have undertaken with the community. All the detailed subordinate legislation is being provided to every interest group, including the unions, in this country to provide us with further information as we work through and develop a policy which is fundamental to the families of this country, which I intend personally to champion, along with my colleagues in this government.