6PR Gary Adshead Programme
E&OE
GARY ADSHEAD:
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison joins me on the line. Thanks for your time, Minister.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Gary, good to be with you.
ADSHEAD:
Obviously we know how difficult it might be for some people. What has prompted this pilot scheme?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We had a Productivity Commission inquiry which we promised to undertake in coming into government to look at the whole childcare and early childhood learning sector and one of the key points of feedback was the lack of flexibility particularly for people as you said who by the nature of their work, they may be police or nurses, or emergency service workers or Customs officers from my old portfolio whose hours mean they can’t access the same mainstream childcare services that everyone else can and gets a subsidy for. So it is important that these people stay in work and be able to be in work and we want to make sure that we can get the sort of childcare services they need to them where they are. That is what the in-home care trial will be about. It will run for two years starting in January of next year. It will support some 10,000 children through about 4,000 nannies through service providers.
ADSHEAD:
Is it means tested?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yes, it is means tested and will taper right off and we really do want to focus on middle to low income families here. The key criteria though is that someone needs to be able to show that they are unable currently to access those mainstream services. We are not trying to run something here to replace the normal mainstream services. It is all about those who haven’t been able to access those in the past because of the nature of their work. It could also be, Gary, because of their children having particular needs or if they are in a regional area where the broad nature of services is not available and they need to access something like this to keep them in work.
ADSHEAD:
So I suppose from up until some scheme like this it has just been down to juggling situations whether it be friends, family to fill that gap and look after the kid while they are off doing their shift but you are saying – you are suggesting that people don’t go into that kind of work environment, don’t go into those kind of work hours at the moment or they are restricting themselves because of the problems of getting someone to look after the kids.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s exactly right and that’s what we are trying to alleviate here. Sometimes they just choose not to work or they are paying quite significant amounts of money to keep themselves in work and given the only reason they have to do that is they doing the sort of job and hours and in many cases they are key workers when we are talking about police, nurses and others like that we need them to do those jobs. They need to do those jobs for their families but we also need them in our community working in those areas. So this is a way of recognising the nature of what they do and the importance of it.
ADSHEAD:
Is it because some of them might be single mums or dads?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yes.
ADSHEAD:
Is that part of it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s true. But it is often, particularly in emergency services type occupations you will have a nurse and a firie or you will have two police officers or you will have things like this. They find it very impossible to juggle those sorts of things and it usually means one person just chooses not to work. That puts them at a disadvantage to other families simply by nature of what they have chosen to do for a living and we want to support them as well.
ADSHEAD:
Alright. I take it that you would agree that probably going back some years we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. It was just you have to cope the best you can if that is the work you want to do. The sort of conversation is changing; we are getting a bit more flexible on this. Do you think that is a good thing or given the cost of this, I think it is $250…
MINISTER MORRISON:
$246 million over two years.
ADSHEAD:
Yep.
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is just a reality; it is just how things have changed over the years. One of the statistics I have heard is over the last ten years we now have a majority of single parents working in single parent families. That is a good thing. That wasn’t the case ten years ago, the way the childcare support is now available for single parents in particular has helped them achieve that. Now when a single parent is in work then that means they are usually on a higher income. They are able to support their family better and give their kids the choices they want to give them. We all know that the best form of welfare is a job and that is what these services and support subsidies are designed to help parents achieve – a job.
ADSHEAD:
Alright, when will it start?
MINISTER MORRISON:
In January and we will be working through the guidelines and the rules and they will be released. The key thing is the childcare workers will need to have a first aid qualification, they will also need to have a working with children certificate, as you would expect. But they don’t have to be teachers, early childhood professionals in having those teaching qualifications. If you are looking after a child overnight because mum and dad are on shift work or something like that you aren’t going to be doing too much learning at 3 o’clock in the morning. So, it is a much more flexible scheme.
ADSHEAD:
They can be overseas workers who come in to work as nannies specifically, from other countries perhaps?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well what the key requirement is, is that they have to be working for a service provision accredited agency. So you can’t just have someone, you can’t have babysitting. We are not going to subsidise people to do the ironing and prepare the evening meal. What this is about is through an approved service provider, we will get the integrity measures right that is why we are doing it as a pilot first times up. We have had issues in family day care which many of your listeners would be aware of where there has been some rorting in that sector because of its informality and we want to make sure that this scheme doesn’t fall prone to the sorts of weaknesses we saw in that scheme.
ADSHEAD:
And I assume as part of the application that they have to get it – it would be reference letters etcetera from their employer to stand up that that is the situation they are in?
MINISTER MORRISON:
The subsidy will be paid to the service provider not to the individual nanny or to the family. So that provides a protection for people who are already doing things as a family. It is not there to affectively subsidise another family member to be a family member and we know a lot of family members go the extra yard. That is part of being in a family, it happens in all of our families, our parents and uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters, we all help each other out and hopefully that will continue but this is for where additional support is needed in these circumstances.
ADSHEAD:
Can I just ask you before you go Minister, as a member of Cabinet, how are you feeling towards Indonesia right now?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I am hoping they will do what is in their interest which is to recognise this is two very deserving cases of clemency. Indonesia will be doing themselves a disservice if they go ahead with this. I mean, they are out there arguing for clemency for their own citizens in other parts of the world and I don’t see how they can do that successfully and then proceed here. There are also legal issues which are still pending and I think in the interest of justice and for their own credibility of their own system they need to ensure that those things are fully gone through. So look – hope is fading but if there are two cases deserving of clemency– no one condones what the two young men did; Andrew and Myuran– but if there are two cases of people really transforming themselves in prison I think they are two pretty good cases.
ADSHEAD:
It is obvious and fair to say that there would be some response from the federal government if the executions go ahead in say the next 24-48 hours? Have you had those discussions?
MINISTER MORRISON:
There have been many discussions around related issues but they are for the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Both have done an outstanding job in managing the delicacies of this but at the same time they have been extremely forthright in putting forward Australia’s case in this and for these two young men and their families, and there has been a lot of support provided by consular officials and others in what has been a very trying situation over a long period of time. So I take my hat off to Julie Bishop and Tony Abbott.
ADSHEAD:
Yes, I saw that video and you may be aware of it now where some of the leading actors in WA – in Australia, I should have said, have suggested that the PM get on a plane and go there. Is it that simple?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No, it is not that simple. It is very difficult and at the end of the day, they are a sovereign country, these are their rules, they are entirely able to do what they want in their own borders and that is why for people who are travelling around the world they need to understand that once they are out of Australia, they are out of Australia. They are subject to the laws and penalties that exist in those countries. We will do what we can in these circumstances but there is no golden ticket here.
ADSHEAD:
Minister, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks very much, Gary. Good to be with you.