Culture

The Government Are Celebrating Mother’s Day With Confusing Changes To Childcare And Parental Leave

Happy Mother's Day, ya filthy bludgers!

by Meg Watson  10 May 2015

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With the weekend drawing to a close and 2015’s federal budget announcement looming ever closer this coming Tuesday, many of us have been savouring the simple serenity of Mother’s Day. Perhaps you treated Mum to lunch, or maybe you’re taking it easy in the family home. Either way, the last thing you want to think about is what kind of new waking nightmare Treasurer Joe Hockey has engineered for us all next week.

Unfortunately, as we all know politicians are not born to mothers but autonomous reproductive beasts akin to Godzilla, the federal government have used their free time today to launch a taster of their upcoming welfare reforms. In an interview with Laurie Oakes this morning, Joe Hockey announced he would be cutting paid parental leave to those who already receive assistance through their workplace and soon after Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison staged a press conference to announce their new $3.5 billion Jobs For Families childcare package.

Strangely, despite the fact he’s responsible for securing the entire funding for the program, the Treasurer was not only absent from the announcement, he was also forbidden from commenting on it.

On the surface, the decision to announce all this on Mother’s Day seems like a smart political move. Though the headline about restrictions to parental leave looks uniquely awful, the change to stop people receiving double the amount of support as everyone else seems relatively common-sense. By cutting off the federal benefit, these parents will still be accessing the same amount as everyone else through their employer, while the government saves $1 billion over four years.

Similarly, the newly-announced childcare reforms are a welcome move for a sector that needs major help. The government claim this will be a “simpler, more affordable, more flexible, and more accessible childcare system” that will give families who earn between $65,000-$170,000 around $30 more per week. Those from lower income backgrounds will also be looked after with a safety net program guaranteeing 12 hours’ worth of childcare per week.

But there’s a catch. Most of these payments will now be subject to a new activity test which Early Childhood Australia has suggested could see 100,000 families losing benefits completely. And, to deliver on any of this at all, the government will also have to make huge cuts to the Family Tax Benefit. You know — that other thing that parents need to look after their children.

These cuts, which were proposed last year, would see the 60 percent of Australian families who currently receive the benefit lose it as soon as their youngest child turns six. The Weekend Australian reports that this would amount to a loss of $9.4 billion over four years and, in a press conference this afternoon the PM said, “unless we offset this new spending, [the childcare reforms] cannot go ahead”.

Though The Daily Tele have branded all this a “Mother’s Day gift”, with these worries and practically no support in the Senate, it really just looks like a big ol’ bunch of problems.

“Tony Abbott is holding families to ransom with cuts to Family Tax Benefits that would start now if he had his way — leaving some families as much as $6,000 worse off,” said Shadow Minister for Families and Payments Jenny Macklin. “[The government] needs to stop playing cynical politics and find a fair way to pay for these changes — Labor will fight these unfair cuts until they are scrapped forever.”

Greens MP Sarah Hanson-Young has also spoken out against the scheme saying “The Greens won’t be party to Minister Morrison’s attempt to play families off against each other and blackmail the Senate”. “Children’s education and care is far too important,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

So, all in all, you should probably just keep scoffing scones, sipping champagne and whatever else you were doing to remind your mum that life isn’t the worst. If parents have to sift through a bunch of new reforms and finances to figure out if they can still afford their rent, it should at least wait until Tuesday.

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Feature image via The Liberal Party.