Labor leader Bill Shorten describes women as having the ‘second job in the family’

LABOR leader Bill Shorten has risked offending half of the nation, describing women as having the “second job in the family” and being the primary partner who is responsible for childcare.

LABOR leader Bill Shorten has risked offending half of the nation, describing women as having the “second job in the family” and being the primary partner who is responsible for childcare.

In a remark likely to inflame women, Mr Shorten said men relied on women to organise child care.

In announcing his $3 billion childcare package to increase subsidies yesterday, Mr Shorten — who described Tony ­Abbott as a dinosaur — also relegated women to having “the second job in the family”.

“Let’s face it, men in Australia rely on the women in Australia to do the childcare and to organise childcare,” Mr Shorten said.

“Where you’ve got mums working part-time or fulltime, it’s the second job in the family, and frankly they’re doing a lot of the unpaid work — they’ve got to try to work out the childcare bills.”

The latest Newspoll, published in The Australian today, shows the two-party preferred vote locked on 50-50, as Labor conceded a percentage point to the Coalition.

Primary-voting poll results show the Coalition has slipped one point to 40, while Labor (35) and the Greens (10) also each conceded a point.

“Other” parties including the Nick Xenophon Team, were the big beneficiaries, jumping from 12 to 15.

Mr Shorten will today announce childcare resources would be redirected to high demand areas under a Shorten government in a bid to reduce waiting times for working parents struggling to find a place for their children.

And 1200 new after-school care services would be provided under a $160 million package to give low and middle income earners more access to childcare places.

Labor would invest $100 million into high-demand areas, which it claims would allow expansion of around 300 services to provide more places, with priority given to not-for-profit services and those providing for disadvantaged children.

A further $63.2 million over three years would be provided in grants of up to $50,000 to expand Outside School Hours Care in areas of high demand or where it is unavailable.

But, Labor’s $3 billion childcare package — which aims to raise the $7500 rebate to $10,000 — has already come under pressure, with official data showing it could in fact push up fees and make childcare more expensive.

Mr Shorten also struggled to explain how Labor would pay for the policy.

The independent Productivity Commission last year strongly argued against simply increasing the childcare rebate from its current cap of $7500 per child because of concerns it would provide an incentive for centres to increase their fees.

The plan is in stark contrast to the Coalition’s, which will wind both rebates into one and set them against a benchmark per-hour price meant to keep fees down from July 2018.