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Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Page: 5170

Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) (13:31): I thank Senator Nash for her contribution. You will get plenty of time to talk about the carbon tax when that legislation comes before the parliament, but on this occasion we are talking about child care and, in particular, this piece of childcare legislation. I do not think I can make it any clearer. We took this policy to the last election. The Australian people, to the extent that they were interested or involved or took the trouble to find out what our policy was, would have understood that this was our policy. We made it very clear that this was what we intended to do, and the government was re-elected. I know you do not like that, Senator Nash, but the reality is that this government was re-elected.

We are simply implementing the policy that we took to the last election. We would have liked to have done it earlier, but that was not possible. We are now in a position to proceed with this legislation. As I indicated before, Minister Ellis is regularly in touch with all of the organisations and stake­holders—that is the popular word—in this industry. She regularly meets with those organisations. I do not think there was anybody in the industry—and you talked about knowledge of the proceedings—who was not aware that this was our policy. We have taken that to the people. Those people in the industry knew what our policy would be. Now what we want to do in a timely way is to proceed with this legislation and to pass what was endorsed by the Australian people at the last election.