Topics: Joe Hockey biography, Productivity Commission report into childcare and Sri Lankan asylum seekers.
E&OE…
Chris Hammer
We’re joined now by the Liberal Senator for Victoria, Scott Ryan. Good morning, Senator.
Scott Ryan
Morning, Chris.
Hammer
Now according to a new book the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, didn’t believe the Budget was tough enough. On reflection, that shows something of a political tin ear doesn’t it?
Ryan
Well I saw the report of that this morning. They’re not the Treasurer’s words, so let’s wait and see the context of it in the book. But budgets are always iterative processes. They’re developed by the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet and they take time to put together.
Hammer
Now unity is important for a government and the perceptions of unity, and in fact the whole idea of Cabinet is you can have disagreements behind closed doors and then come out with a unified view. Having a book like this come out, where senior members of the Government and senior staff are talking to a journalist about differing views inside the ERC, falling out say between Joe Hockey and Ian Macfarlane, it’s an undisciplined look, isn’t it?
Ryan
I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t seen the book; I’ll read it when it comes out. But I think a book like this could potentially add to people’s understanding of how government works. So, let’s wait and see what the book says before we jump to conclusions.
Hammer
Do you think that part of the book is people’s, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Peta Credlin, going on the record and being quoted in the book; is that sensible? I mean you’re the elected Senator for Victoria; one of them. You’re obviously got a mandate to speak publicly, but should staff be going on the record?
Ryan
Well again, let’s wait and see what the book says, Chris. But I think explanations of how government works can only contribute to the understanding of complex processes like putting together a Budget. Let’s wait and see what is says, but I don’t think there’s anything exceptional in that.
Hammer
Ok. Moving on, the Productivity Commission has recommended rather sweeping changes to childcare payments. A single payment, means tested, sliding scale, expanding the people who can be paid under the scheme including grandparents, nannies – provided they’re properly trained and regulated. What are your thoughts about this proposal?
Ryan
Well let’s put this in context first. It’s a draft report from the Productivity Commission, and the Productivity Commission often adopts this process where it will propose some ideas that are the ideas of the commissioner who’s working on it …
Hammer
And then they get feedback, so let’s give them some feedback.
Ryan
And then they get feedback. Well it’s important also to get feedback from stakeholders, you know people who work in the sector, and particularly parents accessing childcare. And that is another iterative process, and then we will release a final report with suggestions and recommendations after lengthy considerations. So let’s just put the draft report in that context. What the Productivity Commission has come out and suggested is that we need to make this payment system and support for access to childcare more transparent and more accessible. And it’s come up with a couple of proposals to consider that and we’re looking for feedback as the Productivity Commission is.
Hammer
So what’s your first take, though? Just in general principle terms.
Ryan
Well I think the important point the Productivity Commission has made is that the current payment system is remarkably complex. It’s complex for parents, its complex for providers and it’s even complex for them, trying to understand the interaction between the benefit, the rebate, and other payments available on the system. It’s clear from anyone that uses the childcare system that flexibility is a real issue; you know I have a young son. The six o’clock closing times are a challenge for virtually any parent. Another issue is that over the six years of the Labor government costs went up by more than 50 percent, and so that’s something that also needs to be looked at is what is the regulatory burden on this sector that is contributing to that cost increase.
Hammer
There’s a productivity element in this as well, isn’t there? Because if parents are sort of restricted in what they can do in the workforce that’s a problem not just for them, but for all of us isn’t it?
Ryan
No. What we’re saying is that we don’t think that you should overregulate this sector; that means well there is that participation effect which has a couple of aspects to it in an obvious sense. One of which is the flexibility of childcare timing around shift workers and those who might need to start before childcare centres open and might have trouble getting there by 6pm. That will often impact both parents. There’s also the issue of how the current payment system operates, and as the Assistant Minister alluded to yesterday, you do find a lot of young parents, and in particular women, who are working part-time two or three days a week. And one of the reasons they put forward for that is that that’s where the system supports them to work and it becomes quite expensive to work more than that. There are also personal decisions, and a lot of people want to work part time at that stage of life. But undoubtedly the childcare system also has an impact.
Hammer
And these recommendations, this sort of draft report, do you see any downside in any of these proposals?
Ryan
Well, I think it’s fair to say that one of the things the Government asked the Productivity Commission to look at was how we can best use the proposed funding envelope, to use the jargon, but the money that’s budgeted four years for childcare, which is more than $28 billion from the Commonwealth. It’s also a growing part of the Budget, so it’s not proposing any sort of freeze; it’s actually proposing how we best use this growing Commonwealth subsidy. So how we use that to fairly support families, but also to facilitate workforce participation, and also the early learning aspects of childcare and early learning. There’s a whole range of social and economic objectives here, and the Productivity Commission is proposing a particular way of trying to deal with all of them because there’re trade-offs.
Hammer
One problem that occurs to me is simply regulating such a system. If you have sort of inspectors going to formal childcare centres now, how do they manage to cover nannies and grandparents and parents and all that? It could be very expensive, couldn’t it?
Ryan
Well one of the things I think the Productivity Commission considered was about qualifications, and that is one of the things that is in the current system. In childcare centres we are moving towards a more qualification-based framework for employment and what the Productivity Commission, I understand, looks at in this sense is do we extend that to in home care for those people for whom the formal childcare system doesn’t work but that we do maintain the need for qualification? And that’s one way that those areas can be regulated.
Hammer
Ok, moving on to a final issue, asylum seekers. There are 157 we now learn, Sri Lankan asylum seekers being held on a customs boat on the high sea. How long can they be held there and what should happen to them?
Ryan
Well this is a matter that’s before the courts, so I’m not going to suggest what should or shouldn’t happen. I understand the court is sitting again today. I understand that the court is seeking to reach a resolution on this particular case as quickly as possible. That final decision could well be a matter for the courts.
Hammer
Ok, Senator Scott Ryan. Thanks for your time this morning.
Ryan
Thanks, Chris.
(ENDS)