The education minister, Jason Clare, says he’s working with states and territories to look at developing a national educator register for childcare workers and regulations for CCTV in centres.
Today the government will introduce legislation to strip childcare subsidy funding for centres that repeatedly fail their safety requirements. Clare tells ABC News Breakfast the threshold could be “as simple as one” strike for a centre for its subsidy funding to be stripped.
It could be as simple as one [strike]. It is important to make a point that regulators can shut a centre right now if they think there is a serious threat to children’s safety but this will give us the power to issue a … notice to a centre and say we will shut it within 28 days unless they meet that minimum standard, or to set conditions on them as well.
Clare says this is just “one part” of the work that needs to be done.
We’ll be talking at that [state and territory ministers] meeting about a national educator register so we contract workers from centre to centre, as well from state to state, I think that what is happening in Victoria shows the weakness in that area, but also the role that CCTV can play in deterring people doing bad things and police investigations but most important of all, mandatory child safety training.
Updated at 18.07 EDT
Key events
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Clare introduces childcare safety bill into House
Jason Clare is now introducing the childcare safety bill in the House of Representatives.
The education department secretary will have the power under this bill to consider a provider’s “quality, safety and compliance history” to determine whether they should be approved to access the childcare subsidy.
Clare says this has “never been part of the childcare subsidy system” but he concedes that government’s haven’t worked fast enough.
I’ve been pretty blunt. In the last few weeks, people have been arrested and convicted of offences like those alleged before, and governments of different colours, state and federal have taken action, but not enough, and not fast enough. That’s the truth.
Clare says the bill also expands commonwealth powers to publish information about providers that are sanctioned for non-compliance, and publicise information when a provider is refused approval for a new service.
Updated at 19.23 EDT
Hecs legislation to increase income threshold before debt repayments begin
The new Hecs legislation also increases the income threshold for paying off the debt.
Clare says that the threshold will increase so you’ll only be repaying the debt when you earn above $67,000, rather than the current threshold of $54,000. For someone earning $70,000, the government says it’ll reduce their minimum repayment by $1,300.
That’s real cost of living, health, more money in your pocket, not the government’s, when you really need it. This is important structural reform … This is about putting money back into your pocket and putting intergenerational equity back into the system.
Unsurprisingly, Clare takes a dig at the Coalition for opposing the policy during the election. He says one unnamed Nationals MP told the media: “My kids are paying off a university debt, and I reckon they voted Labor.”
Updated at 19.13 EDT
The bells are ringing! Parliament begins as Jason Clare introduces Hecs debt bill
Parliament is sitting, and Jason Clare’s first order of business is introducing the Hecs debt bill, cutting 20% off existing university and Tafe debts.
Clare says it will help 3 million Australians, and cut student debt by more than $16bn, most of the benefit going towards young people.
These are the Australians who will build Australia’s future, who are already building [it], and this will take a weight off their back.
Updated at 19.06 EDT
Littleproud ‘relaxed’ over possibility Nationals dump net zero
David Littleproud says he’s “relaxed” over Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack pushing for the Nationals to abandon net zero, and says the policy is a decision of the whole party room.
David Littleproud on Monday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Nationals leader tells Sky News he has “real concerns” about net zero, and has asked Matt Canavan, a vocal net zero critic, and Ross Cadell to review the policy.
I’m open, and that’s why I started this process, and wanted to make sure that we do this calmly and methodically and understanding the human toll, the economic toll, the social toll this is having on our communities. I don’t think people in metropolitan areas understand and appreciate exactly the burden you’re asking us to bear.
McCormack, a former Nationals leader, told the Australian on Wednesday that he will back Joyce’s private member’s bill to scrap net zero and refused to rule out a Nationals leadership challenge. Asked whether he’d be able to hold the leadership, Littleproud says he’s “comfortable in his own skin” and “relaxed”.
I was the leader, the first leader to have the political courage to say no to the voice. I was the first leader in our history to have the courage to get nuclear energy into our Coalition policy setting. I was the first leader to get divestiture powers into our Coalition policy…
I don’t wake up in the morning worrying about [a leadership challenge]. If you do that, if you focus on yourself, then you’re not focused on what you’re trying to achieve.
Updated at 19.16 EDT
Josh Butler
Clare flags later meeting to address wider range of issues in childcare sector
Back to the early education safety press conference: the education minister, Jason Clare, says today’s federal parliament bill deals mostly with cutting funding and increasing spot checks at underperforming centres, measures he called a “stick” to encourage providers to lift their game.
But he said a meeting of state and territory education ministers next month would look to a wider range of issues, including whether to offer more training and support to centres, examining more CCTV rollouts in childcare, and the long-discussed national database or register of childcare workers.
The early education minister, Jess Walsh, said more had to be done on “helping those providers to lift their game”.
Clare conceded that today’s federal legislation “isn’t the only thing we need to do”, noting the need for a national register to track workers from centre to centre and across states.
The minister also said a separate meeting of state and territory attorneys general, also held next month, would look at reforms to working with children checks – which Clare said were “overdue”.
Updated at 18.30 EDT
Algal bloom inquiry raised as questions raised about future
Parliament could soon hold an inquiry into the algal bloom crisis in South Australia, to look at how the government should deal with a similar environmental disaster in the future.
Ross Cadell, a Nationals senator and shadow minister for water, has been among those pushing for an inquiry, and told RN Breakfast this morning it would help to “come up with the methods of how we can deal with something of this size”.
Cadell says he won’t be “overly critical” of the federal government in it’s response to the bloom, but believes the state government was slow to act.
I think they’ve [the government] come together to try and make this inquiry and see how we can do better. I don’t think they’ve got the tools at their hands under the current guidelines of what a natural disaster is, what emergency response is, to naturally fit this, so part of the inquiry is looking fit for purpose of the future.
I think South Australian government probably was a bit slow to react…but I’m not going to be critical. This is people suffering. I’m not going to sit here and point fingers.
Updated at 18.24 EDT
Minister says reforms should have happened ‘yesterday’
Jumping back to the government’s presser on childcare, state and territory education ministers will meet next month to establish a national educators register, and Jason Clare says that “can’t happen fast enough”.
Work is already being done by the states, including Victoria, to establish state based registers, but Clare says there needs to be a nationally consistent register.
The truth is, this should have happened yesterday, and this can’t happen fast enough, and states are already taking steps to expand their existing teacher registers, Victoria is a good example of that.
So where states do that, that’s good, but we need to join it up, because to make the system work the way it needs to work, we need to be able to track people, not just from centre to centre, but from state to state.
Updated at 18.15 EDT
Ley says Coalition will support childcare reforms
Childcare reforms are “above politics” says the opposition leader, Sussan Ley.
Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley. The opposition leader has indicated the Coalition will support the Albanese government’s childcare reform laws. Photograph: Lukas Coch/EPA
Speaking to Sky News, Ley says she’ll discuss the Hecs and childcare reforms with her party room, but the Coalition has said it will support both.
I’m pleased with the government’s efforts around child care, because it’s too important to get that wrong, and I have said we want to be above politics in the interests of caring for families. We’ve just been horrified at these stories.
Ley adds that while the Coalition will work “constructively” on these two pieces of legislation, that doesn’t mean a “blank cheque of goodwill for everything that comes across the table from the Labor party.”
Updated at 19.19 EDT
Reforms not about ‘shutting centres down’: Clare
Jason Clare, Jess Walsh and skills minister Andrew Giles are standing up in parliament to talk about the Hecs and childcare legislation being introduced today.
Clare says funding is the “biggest weapon” the commonwealth has to crack down on standards within the childcare sector.
It’s something like $16bn a year, and that covers about 70% of the cost of running the average childcare centre, childcare centres can’t operate without it. And I think it’s fair. I think most mums and dads will think it’s fair that if centres are repeatedly not meeting the sort of standards that we set for them, that we should have the power to be able to cut that funding off.
This is not about shutting centres down. It’s about lifting standards up and giving us the powers to make that happen.
As we mentioned earlier, Clare said this is one part of the reforms the government is looking at. The education minister will meet with his state and territory counterparts next month, and will look at establishing a national educator register.
Updated at 17.58 EDT
Questions raised as to timing of removal of childcare subsidies in event of breach
There are still questions over when a childcare service would be stripped of its subsidy funding.
Childcare minister Jess Walsh is on RN Breakfast this morning, and is asked when the legislation would be used – whether for failing to meet standards or when there is an actual incident.
Walsh says the government can issue a “show cause” notice for “repeat offenders”, which would require a service to show the government why they should maintain their funding.
The legislation gives us the ability to put all of that information and for the secretary of my department to make a decision to identify those repeat offenders, those providers, those services that persistently and consistently fail to meet standards and fail to keep our children safe …
We can start by issuing a show cause notice as to why that provider, that service, should maintain their commonwealth funding through the childcare subsidy. And we can make that show cause notice public.
Updated at 17.52 EDT
Coldplay couple: everything is ‘on camera’, Albanese says
The prime minister has weighed into the story that’s taken the globe by storm … I’m of course talking about the Coldplay couple caught on a kiss cam.
“You can’t get away from it!” said the PM, dialling into KIIS fm this morning, but he said it just shows how everything can be recorded.
It’s just a reminder that everything you do these days is on camera, no matter who you are, whether you’re a public figure or just this couple, obviously, [a] couple that weren’t supposed to be a couple at a Coldplay concert, and they ended up, the whole world knows who they are now, so I think [it’s] a wake up call.
Updated at 18.08 EDT
Childcare safety legislation ‘one part’ of reforms says minister
The education minister, Jason Clare, says he’s working with states and territories to look at developing a national educator register for childcare workers and regulations for CCTV in centres.
Today the government will introduce legislation to strip childcare subsidy funding for centres that repeatedly fail their safety requirements. Clare tells ABC News Breakfast the threshold could be “as simple as one” strike for a centre for its subsidy funding to be stripped.
It could be as simple as one [strike]. It is important to make a point that regulators can shut a centre right now if they think there is a serious threat to children’s safety but this will give us the power to issue a … notice to a centre and say we will shut it within 28 days unless they meet that minimum standard, or to set conditions on them as well.
Clare says this is just “one part” of the work that needs to be done.
We’ll be talking at that [state and territory ministers] meeting about a national educator register so we contract workers from centre to centre, as well from state to state, I think that what is happening in Victoria shows the weakness in that area, but also the role that CCTV can play in deterring people doing bad things and police investigations but most important of all, mandatory child safety training.
Updated at 18.07 EDT