Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Cost of living

Katie HALL (Footscray) (16:16): There is a bit of auditioning going on over there. I am pretty sure some of those contributions would not be made outside this place, but I am pleased to make a contribution today about something that is real. I grieve for the families who are experiencing real cost-of-living pressures in Victoria at the moment, including in my community of Footscray. With another interest rate rise yesterday, I know that families are doing it really tough, and I know that my electorate office has been working really hard to support families in applying for the power saving bonus. We were at the public housing flats in Footscray just last week assisting people in making those applications to get that all-important relief.

But as the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood, one initiative that I am particularly proud of that will provide real support to families is the initiative of free kinder, which is the biggest social and economic reform this state has seen. It is going to be transformative for the future, for the little learners, for the people who are participating in free kinder, but also for the parents, predominantly the women, who will now be able to return to work and have the savings of around $2500 each year for their child in kinder.

Over the last 12 months, as I noted, the cost of living has risen exponentially. I am proud to be supporting a government that is introducing some of its most ambitious reforms to ease pressure on Victorian families. Every night hardworking Victorians and people in my community are going home after a day at work wondering how much longer their stagnant wages are going to have to survive the rising cost of everyday essentials. As I mentioned, we have the $250 power saving bonus, we are re-establishing the SEC and we have slashed the cost of public transport regional fares, which I know some of my colleagues are enjoying. I will get to that later and how that is benefiting my mother up in Yackandandah. And now we have the implementation of free kinder for three- and four-year-olds.

We know that 90 per cent of a child’s brain development happens by the age of five and early education has a profound impact on their later years. Every child deserves the best start in life, and the Labor government is committed to removing the barriers associated with that. We know that high-quality universal public education, accessible education, is the great leveller.

Just prior to walking into the chamber I received an email from my son’s early learning centre, where today they have been learning about First Nations culture and cooking damper and participating in outdoor experiences and learning more about our local Wurundjeri culture out in Footscray. All of this feeds into why we are investing $9 billion over the next 10 years to not just make our early years learning the best in the country but make it affordable and accessible for families who need the support the most. This program is committed to not only increasing the quality of early learning and kinder in Victoria but slashing the cost of living for Victorian families. For families, free kinder means more choice, more flexibility and more money saved. Already the Labor government has invested a massive $270 million to provide free kinder this year to approximately 140,000 eligible children who need it most. A 15-hour-per-week program is available to four-year-old children in a sessional service and a 5- to 15-hour program is available to three-year-old children each week. But we are not stopping there. This is a kinder program for everyone, and by 2025 we are starting the rollout of a 30-hour-a-week program for play-based learning for all four-year-old children in Victoria as they transition to pre-prep before starting school. These reforms will keep being rolled out on a needs basis, tackling regional community cost-of-living pressures and lower socio-economic areas where we know that there are childcare droughts – areas where it is harder to access child care in the places that we need it most.

All early childhood education and care providers who deliver a funded kindergarten program in Victoria will be eligible to receive free kinder funding starting from this year, saving families $2500 per child per year. For too long Victorian families have needed to make difficult choices about when to turn the heater on because they are living pay cheque to pay cheque. Families are sitting around the table wondering if they have the means to buy those new shoes their growing child desperately needs. I know in my community cost-of-living pressures have been a constant source of concern for people coming into my electorate office seeking assistance. I know that those opposite probably have no idea what saving $2500 a year would mean to some of the families in Footscray, but for those families it is almost two times the weekly take-home pay of someone earning the minimum wage. We also of course have people who have been struggling to purchase groceries, the basics that you need to feed your family and to support your children in their education.

All of this aside, this is a huge amount of relief that we are providing to Victorian families at the same time as providing a critical investment in our children’s education. These reforms are also going to offset the cost of children accessing a kinder component in long day care settings for children who require longer care. This perfectly complements the increased rebates that the federal Labor government are implementing to further provide support for families that access early learning. Once again Labor is demonstrating that they are the only party that will walk the walk when it comes to supporting working families.

One of the things I speak to people most about when I am out and about in my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood is that this absolute transformation in early childhood education will benefit women the most. It is so much more than having a saving of $2500 per child per year; it is actually allowing families the flexibility and choice for both parents to re-enter the workforce on their own terms if that is something that they choose to do. These reforms afford parents the choice of when and how they would like to re-enter the workforce. It is a groundbreaking economic reform that will increase productivity in Victoria right now. Caring for children still remains the number one barrier for women’s participation in the workforce in Australia. That has been the case for a number of years now, and without active steps to change that the Victorian economy will suffer from that loss of productivity. Of those who are looking to increase the hours they work but cannot, over 25 per cent say that childcare responsibilities are the reason, and by alleviating the burden of caring responsibilities we are about to increase Victoria’s productivity and economic output. This means more businesses can stay open and Victorians can stay employed. As we are rebuilding after the pandemic and rebuilding our economic capacity, these reforms are vital in ensuring that we are supporting all Victorians, especially women, to participate in the workforce in any way they wish.

This reform is going to be supporting not only 11,000 new teaching and education jobs in the sector but countless infrastructure projects as the government builds 50 new early learning centres in the childcare deserts that I spoke about before. These centres will be co-located with schools. I am fortunate enough as the parent of a kinder kid to be able to have my kinder co-located with the school, and I know that that makes a huge difference to all of the families at our service in Footscray, because it ends the double drop-off. It means that you can drop your kids off at school and at kinder and get off to work, and that is just another improvement we are making as a result of our big kinder build.

Last week I was fortunate enough to visit the construction site of what will soon be a new kinder in Maribyrnong, supporting 66 new places for three- and four-year-olds, and I cannot relay to you the level of excitement that came from council and the community in Maribyrnong about this project. My electorate of Footscray has one of the fastest growing populations in Victoria, and by 2050 the population of Footscray is set to rise by over 50 per cent. So we are building the new infrastructure our little learners need and making sure that there are more places in areas where we have long day care and kindergarten shortages.

I would also like to reflect briefly on an experience my mum had recently with her seniors card, catching the train down from Albury–Wodonga. This is a cost-of-living reform I think that many people in Victoria are now using to access places in the regions or come down to Melbourne for weekends, or in my mum’s case come down to see her grandchildren. A trip that used to cost $73.20 now only costs $9.20, or $4.60 in my mum’s case because she uses her seniors card. This means that pensioners and people who are perhaps doing it a bit tough in the regions can come to Melbourne or vice versa and that there is equity in our public transport system in Victoria.

I would also like to speak about the importance of the power saving bonus in easing the cost-of-living pressures on people in my community. I would like to thank my electorate office, who have supported hundreds of people to apply for the power saving bonus so far in this third round of the power saving bonus. I know that for the people I have spoken to in community centres, in my electorate office and at public housing flats in Footscray the extra $250 in their back pocket is helping them pay for things like groceries and pay the rent, and of course many of them have found a better deal on their power bills as a result of us supporting them through the process of checking that they are getting the best deal possible.

As part of the reforms in the electricity market, bringing back the SEC is a hugely popular thing in my electorate of Footscray, because really this is about putting power back in the hands of people. For too long the electricity companies under a privatised system have, frankly, been ripping people off. We have introduced the default offer. I spoke to someone who lives in an apartment block in Footscray this week, and the default offer means that at least he has some safeguard for what he is being charged in a centralised system. There are many people in Footscray in that situation in apartment blocks. Bringing back the SEC – government-owned energy – is going to be transformative in terms of easing cost-of-living pressures. Not only will it be a totally renewable system, but it will be much more affordable, and it will take pressure off families who for too long have been held to ransom by some of these power companies who have made billions off this essential service.

So there is a range of supports available to my community in Footscray, but I wanted to acknowledge in today’s grievance debate that I know that a lot of people are doing it really tough, and yesterday’s interest rate rise has not helped. But free kinder is here, the power saving bonus is here, cheaper tickets to the regions are here and there is a whole range of supports available.