Doorstop: SUBJECTS: Childcare cost increases; cost of living; schools

TANYA PLIBERSEK, ACTING LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thanks very much for coming out this afternoon. It was extraordinary to see the Government boasting today about childcare costs going up. It is an extraordinarily out of touch Government and an extraordinarily out of touch minister that thinks it okay for costs to be going up above the rate of inflation. I was surprised also to see the Government boasting about their new childcare policy that will take effect in the middle of the year that will see 280,000 families worse off, including 88,000 families on the lowest incomes. It is so out of touch that this Government thinks it is a good thing that childcare costs continue to rise in the way they have, particularly when we know childcare costs have gone up almost 20 per cent over the last four years. That means that the average family is paying about $2,000 a year more than they were four years ago for their childcare.

 

JOURNALIST: The National Catholic Education Commission is calling for $1 billion in their Gonski funding to be restored in the 2018 Budget. Is Labor still committed to giving dollar for dollar what Catholic schools would have got over 10 years under the original agreements?

 

PLIBERSEK: We have been absolutely clear that we will restore every dollar cut by the Commonwealth Government - $17 billion of funding cuts over the next 10 years. It is an extraordinary thing that this Government has managed to cut funding from public schools and from Catholic schools, and increase funding to some of the wealthiest, high-fee charging private schools - and at the same time claim that they have made somehow made the system fairer. We know these funding cuts hit public schools the worst. They certainly have hit the Catholic-systemic schools very hard indeed. And we continue to see some very wealthy schools see multi-million dollar increases over the decade.

 

JOURNALIST: Ms Plibersek, do you find it odd that Susan Lamb did not seek and obtain a copy of her parents’ marriage certificate to present to the British Home Office when all you have to do is fill out a form that you can easily find on the Queensland Government's website. Do you find that odd since it would have enabled her to renounce her British Citizenship?

 

PLIBERSEK: I am not in a position to answer detailed questions about the steps that Labor MPs took to find documents of the type that you are detailing - what I can say certainly is that our legal advice, on all of our MPs, says that they took every reasonable step to renounce citizenship before they became Members of Parliament. David Feeney is the only one about which there is a question. He can't find some of the documentation for one of the citizenships that he was supposed to renounce. And because of that, he has referred himself to the High Court. 

 

JOURNALIST: The Catholic schools have also said that religious schools should keep all of their current exemptions under discrimination law. Is Labor in favour of schools being able to sack teachers because of their sexuality?

 

PLIBERSEK: We are not proposing to change any of the current exemptions for Catholic schools. What I would say is that I think most Catholic schools are very thoughtful about keeping the very best staff and I don't expect to see a spate of people being sacked because of their sexuality.

 

JOURNALIST: The British Home Office rejected Ms Lamb's application to renounce her British citizenship. Doesn't that mean she's still a British citizen sitting unlawfully in Parliament?

 

PLIBERSEK: No, they rejected her application to renounce citizenship because they said there was no evidence that she was a British citizen. But as I have said, I am not in a position to offer detailed commentary on these issues. We have strong legal advice that says our Members of Parliament took every reasonable step. And we were prepared, during the last sitting of Parliament to make sure there was no doubt, to refer any of our MPs about who the Government made claims about to the High Court - the Government voted against referring our MPs to the High Court because it didn't want to include its own MPs about whom there are questions in that same referral. Now, we are still prepared to refer our MPs to the High Court, any of those that the Government says there is a question about, as long as the Government will put its own MPs into that same referral. They're running a protection racket for their own MPs. We are prepared to have a bi-partisan referral, they are not.

 

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] the New South Wales Government is looking at pushing out mental health classes for children. Is Labor in favour of that?

 

PLIBERSEK: We haven't seen the details of what is proposed but anything that strengthens the good mental health and resilience of our young people is a positive measure and of course, we would be supportive of that.   

 

JOURNALIST: Wages have stagnated for a few years now. How tough are families doing it when it comes to childcare fees?

 

PLIBERSEK: Just last week, we saw statistics showing that this is the longest uninterrupted decline in living standards that we've seen in a quarter of a century. Childcare fees continue to go up. Health and education out of pocket expenses continue to go up because of this Government's cuts to health and education. At the same time, we see that wages are stagnant, or even declining because this Government has supported cuts to penalty rates. We have got a Government that continues to make it harder for families to make ends meet through their cuts, through their attack on wages and working conditions and now, wants to introduce a new increased tax on 7 million low and middle income earners. All of this in order to give a $65 billion tax cut to big business and a tax cut to people earning more than $180,000 a year. Their priority is always millionaires and multinationals over ordinary families struggling to make ends meet.

 

JOURNALIST: The Australian Medical Association has today come out [inaudible] the Government needs to prioritise a tax on sugary beverages. Does Labor support this? 

 

PLIBERSEK: I think it is very important that we take steps to tackle the obesity epidemic in Australia. And we went to the last election with a $300 million proposal, preventative health proposal to tackle obesity, to introduce a national strategy on increasing people's levels of psychical activity. When we were in government, we had a strong preventative health strategy that was cut when the Liberals came into office - hundreds of millions of dollars cut from prevention and from primary healthcare.  We don’t want the next generation of Australians to be a generation where life expectancy actually goes backwards because of avoidable conditions that come with obesity – heart disease, diabetes and so on. So it is important that we have a strong focus on prevention, and the Federal Government should be playing a proper role in that.

 

JOURNALIST: But would you support a tax on sugary drinks?

 

PLIBERSEK: We don’t have a plan for a sugar tax at the moment. But we do think, working with the food industry to do food reformulation, as we began to do with the health star rating system, and working with health professionals, including doctors, to make sure that their patients can lead a healthy lifestyle, do make good diet and exercise choices. And we can do that through a strong prevention strategy, and we should be.

 

JOURNALIST: [inaudible]

 

PLIBERSEK: I’m sorry I didn’t hear the beginning of that –

 

JOURNALIST: Do you think enough is being done to help people address their mental health –

 

PLIBERSEK: To help students or to help –

 

JOURNALIST: To help students and people.

 

PLIBERSEK: We know that young people are feeling a lot of pressure today. There are a lot of pressures on young people that didn’t exist when I was a school kid, and a lot of that relates to the sort of social media pressure that a lot of young people are putting on themselves and on each other.

 

So I think schools being able to help children build resilience and good mental health is a good thing. I don’t think we could fairly say that we are doing enough at the moment, although we have had great programs like the Headspace programs rolled out. There’s always more that we could do to support our young people.

 

JOURNALIST: Why do you say the current discrimination law has the balance right given we have seen instances of gay teachers being sacked for their sexuality?

 

PLIBERSEK: Well I think- the simple fact is we have no plans to change anti-discrimination exemptions at schools at the moment. We think that the balance is about right.

 

JOURNALIST: Just on the question of the terrorist, sorry the terror, the Victorian crime gangs are creating in Victoria, what should be done Ms Plibersek, and do you agree with Minister Peter Dutton who says the longer the Victorian Government fails to act, the longer Victorians will suffer at the hands of thugs?

 

PLIBERSEK: Well I very rarely agree with Peter Dutton, I can’t think of a single instance in fact. It would be terrific if, instead of just looking to point the finger of blame, the Federal Government actually played a role in making sure that all Australians feel safe. 

 

We’ve actually seen almost 180 million dollars cut from the Australian Federal Police. Wouldn’t it be terrific if, instead of looking around for someone to blame, Peter Dutton actually stepped up to the mark, stopped criticising Victorian police, and restored the funding to the Australian Federal Police so they can do their work properly.

 

Thanks everyone.