Second Reading Speech
Mr Brough (Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs)I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill is an important step towards fulfilling the government's recent childcare initiatives for Australian families.
It provides in particular for the Child Care Management System (CCMS), which is a significant investment in improving the supply of information and accountability across the childcare sector. The CCMS is a national childcare computer system and recognises the need for better management and information underpinning the government's projected $11 billion investment over four years in child care.
The new system will provide the best information on childcare supply and usage that has ever been available across Australia for families, childcare services and government. In part, this will support the Child Care Access Hotline, which gives families access to up-to-date information on childcare vacancies, in that childcare services will now have simplified arrangements for reporting to the hotline.
Just as importantly, the CCMS will simplify and standardise the administration of childcare benefit for families. All approved childcare services will be brought online to give weekly information on childcare usage and fees directly to the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Centrelink, to allow swift calculation of childcare fee reductions and weekly delivery of payments to services in arrears. Families will also be able to access directly an online statement through the Family Assistance Office about their childcare usage and childcare benefit payments made on their behalf to their childcare services.
The CCMS will reduce the administrative burden on childcare services. It does, however, represent a significant change to the way in which services currently interact with federal government. All Australian government approved childcare services, and therefore very many families, will benefit from the improvements from the CCMS. Accordingly, the new system will be rolled out progressively across childcare services from 1 July 2007 over a period of two years.
The CCMS will complement the childcare compliance strategy announced in the 2006 budget to protect the integrity of payments made in support of families using child care. This bill also provides these compliance measures, which will strengthen the relationship between government and the childcare sector, as a means of maintaining the focus on Australian families and most importantly their childcare needs. This measure will target projected funding of around $1.7 billion per annum in childcare benefit. Childcare benefit is most commonly delivered to families through childcare services. Approval of services to participate in the childcare benefit program is based on their compliance with certain conditions and it is this compliance system that is being strengthened.
In combination with the new CCMS, the new compliance measures will help to minimise the risk of incorrect payments and fraud, and to detect them as soon as possible should they occur. They will also help to increase services' awareness of their obligations and the consequences of non-compliance with their obligations.
An essential new element of strengthening the compliance system is the introduction of a civil penalties scheme. The civil penalty scheme provides for the imposition of a pecuniary penalty on a service that contravenes a civil penalty provision. This bill sees the introduction of a new obligation on a service to provide information in relation to the Child Care Access Hotline on time. This obligation is a civil penalty provision. The delivery of up-to-date information on time to the hotline means that families are able to be fully informed of any vacancies at childcare services in their local area. The hotline is also a source of information and an indicator enabling the assessment of childcare place needs in a particular location or region.
The civil penalties scheme will operate in conjunction with an infringement notice scheme. An infringement notice that is issued to a childcare service will provide the service with the option of paying the lesser penalty set out in the notice or proceeding to a court to determine liability.
The civil penalty and infringement notice scheme will be developed further in the future. Its introduction will provide a wider range of penalties that may be applied to childcare services to ensure that penalty is suited to the level of non-compliance. This will require further legislative amendment.
The civil penalties and infringement notice scheme will not directly impact on families receiving childcare benefit. A family will be affected only where an approved childcare service consistently fails to comply with its obligations under family assistance law, such as through the application of existing sanction provisions.
Families are entitled to know if the service's approval is under threat or terminated because their childcare benefit may stop and they may become as parents liable for full fees. Therefore, if a particular childcare service should fail to comply with one of its conditions of approval, or have its approval suspended or cancelled, another compliance measure in this bill will allow the department to pass that information on to the families who have their children in care with the service.
Other compliance measures are included in the bill. The bill also includes other measures that make improvements to childcare benefit administration. For example, the amendments to the absence provisions will reduce the administrative burden on both families and services. Childcare benefit will be paid for the first 42 days of absence from care for each child, regardless of the reason for the absence and without the need for documentation. Other amendments of a similar order are also made by this bill. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Ms Plibersek) adjourned.