Budget 2021: Women’s security ‘a major focus’ as $1.7bn childcare package announced

As Josh Frydenberg unveils $1.7bn childcare package to help working mothers, Assistant Treasurer says there will be more.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during a press conference at a childcare facility in Narrabundah, Canberra, on Sunday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar says women’s economic security will be a “significant focus” in next week’s budget, as the government unveils extra funding for childcare.

“I think it’s always incumbent on the government to appeal to every Australian and certainly women, being 51 per cent of the population, is a group that we have put an extraordinary effort into,” Mr Sukkar told Sky News.

“If you look at the gender wage gap where that has gone under our government as far as narrowing, whether you look at the recovered jobs since the pandemic disproportionally recovered for women.

So women’s economic security is going to be a significant focus, their broader security is going to be a significant focus.”

Josh Frydenberg on Sunday unveiled a new $1.7bn childcare package which will see working parents save up to $124 a week.

The government will junk the cap on childcare subsidies of $10,560, while half of Australia’s families with one child in childcare will have 95 per cent of their out-of-pocket expenses for any additional kids paid for by the government.

Mr Frydenberg said the budget measure was designed to ease the squeeze on working families and encourage mums to get back to work.

“Our focus has been targeted … on those families with two or more children in childcare who have an effectively higher marginal rate of tax,” he said in Canberra.

“This is not the first and last word we have had on childcare.

“Our focus has been on ensuring our families have choice and right now without this package, there would not be as much choice for families.”

But Anthony Albanese said the package did nothing to address sky-high childcare costs.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney, the Opposition Leader said the government had refused to acknowledge there was a problem last year.

Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

“What we know is that childcare costs have been increasing this year by around about four or five times the inflation rate,” Mr Albanese said. “We have the least affordable childcare system in the OECD.

“Scott Morrison has missed an opportunity. He’s missed an opportunity to respond to fixing up the problems that his own personally created childcare policy has created.

The Opposition Leader said Labor’s childcare policy is “more comprehensive” aiming to provide universal affordable childcare.

“There is nothing there to regulate the costs that are at record highs under this Government.”

“This does nothing to move towards a universal, affordable childcare system. Something that Labor says we need to do because childcare is not about welfare.”

Sukkar hints at housing affordability measures

Mr Sukkar hinted there would be housing affordability measures in the budget,

“We’ll continue to support first homebuyers and the residential construction industry, absolutely, in the budget,” he said.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers said the budget would be impacted by the bungled vaccination rollout.

“That international border will be closed for longer than it needs to be because Scott Morrison has bungled his two key responsibilities – to get the vaccination rolled out safely, and quickly, and effectively, and to manage the quarantine system,” Mr Chalmers told Sky News.

“The defining stuff-ups of this pandemic here in Australia are directly the responsibility of Scott Morrison, the incumbent. I think it’s entirely reasonable for us to point out that the economic recovery would be stronger were it not for those two defining debacles — quarantine and vaccinations.