Thursday, 30 May 2024

Early childhood education

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:33): (556) My question is for the Minister for Children. Minister, your predecessor believed that the community sector sessional kinder services would not charge higher fees to adjust their operating model under the government’s kinder arrangements, despite the experience in fact of many parents. I therefore ask: do you accept that some community sector services have raised their fees and will raise their fees to adjust their operating model to the government’s kinder program and that additional support is therefore required?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:33): I am very pleased to receive and respond to Mr Davis’s question, because I have been seeking to clear up whether those opposite support free kinder or they do not. It certainly –

Members interjecting.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: President, I cannot hear myself, let alone assume that the chamber can hear me, for those who might be yelling over the top of me.

David Davis: On a point of order, President, the minister has started off on the wrong tack. She started off attacking the opposition. She should just answer the simple question.

The PRESIDENT: I am tempted to go and add a ruling to the book about ruling about the wrong tack. The minister has just started, and I would appreciate it – and I appreciate it is coming from all sides of the chamber – if the minister can answer the question in silence.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Thank you very much, President. I appreciate that those opposite might wish they were on the answer side of question time, but if you would like to answer your own questions, I suggest perhaps do not ask them in the first instance. But what I have been seeking to understand is whether those opposite support free kinder or they do not support free kinder, let alone getting into the intricacies.

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: I have not called you yet, Mr Davis. Dr Heath was up for a point of order before you, sorry.

Renee Heath interjected.

The PRESIDENT: You will give him yours? Okay.

David Davis: On a point of order, President, question time is where the opposition or non-government parties ask questions of the government ministers, and they answer the questions. It is not a time for the minister to seek information from the opposition – actually the opposite is the case – so it is just on relevance.

The PRESIDENT: I will call the minister back to the question.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Thank you very much. I was very much seeking to be relevant, but as I have said, I am trying to understand whether those opposite support free kinder or they do not, because the shadow minister recently wrote to me asking whether kinders would be able to charge an additional fee. I was a bit confused because judging from those opposite the question seems to suggest that they are not in favour of charging additional fees, and yet the shadow minister for education is writing to me and asking me whether or not kinders should be allowed to charge an additional fee.

Our Best Start, Best Life reforms, which include free kinder, are an important part of ensuring that every child in Victoria gets access to two years of learning, because we know that children who get two years of learning do better at school, they do better in the transition to school and their school journey, and their school outcomes are better both through primary school and secondary school if they get access to kinder, and an important part of delivering access to kinder for children is free kinder. So those opposite, instead of asking such ridiculous questions in question time, need to decide whether they support the early education of our children through the delivery of free kinder or if they do not.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:37): We have heard a little rant there, but let me thereby ask this question. Minister, a briefing signed by the Acting Treasurer Danny Pearson released $1.2 million across 2022–23 and 2023–24 to provide transitional support for these community sector sessional services who currently charge higher fees to adjust their operating model, and I therefore ask: will your department provide additional support in 2024–25?

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:37): Thank you, Mr Davis, for your question. More than 90 per cent of services eligible to participate in free kinder are participating in free kinder. We also know that the funding model for kindergarten is ensuring that there is adequate funding available for those kinder programs. What those opposite need to do is decide whether or not they actually support free kinder, and instead of having the shadow minister write to me asking to charge additional fees and then putting questions like this suggesting that somehow the funding model does not work, they need to work out on their own side whether they support free kinder and support the early education of children in Victoria or if they do not.

David Davis: On a point of order, President, the minister again is trying to attack the opposition rather than answering the simple question: will your department provide additional support in 2024–‍25, as they did in the previous two years?

The PRESIDENT: I believe the minister was relevant to the question that she was asked, but I will uphold that in question time, as per the previous rulings, the answers are not there for the ministers to hop in to the opposition, so I will call the minister back to the question.

Lizzie BLANDTHORN: Thank you, President, and I am more than happy to talk about the extensive investment that we are providing in early education and in particular in kinder. The Best Start, Best Life reforms are nation leading. They represent a $14 billion investment in the early education of children, because we know that children who have access to two years of early education do better in their educational journey and their lifelong outcomes than those who do not.