Senator TAMBLING (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Security)(4.01 p.m.) —I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard

Leave not granted.

Senator TAMBLING —Madam Deputy President, this bill facilitates implementation of the significant changes in the delivery of child-care payments contained in the Child Care Payments Bill. It introduces a number of transitional arrangements which ensure the smooth introduction of the new payment arrangements for families and child-care providers. In particular, it ensures that children currently using the long day care sector to provide outside school hours care for their children are not disadvantaged by the introduction of the new school child rate of child-care assistance. It also provides exemptions from the planning framework for child-care operators who had taken action to build or extend a child-care centre before the planning limits were announced on budget night. The bill provides for the repeal of the Child Care Rebate Act 1993 and provides for amendments to various other acts which are necessary to implement the new payment arrangements. Madam Deputy President, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Ordered that further consideration of the second reading of this bill be adjourned until the first sitting day in 1998, in accordance with standing order 111.