Interview - ABC Darwin Mornings

LARA STIMPSON, HOST: There's been a few reports in recent years which describe what's called a child care desert, where there are nowhere near enough child care places to meet the demand from working families. If you look at the amount of child care centres on the map, there's just big gaps of where they are. The Northern Territory, particularly southern parts, places like Central Australia and the Barkly, always make it onto that list as being a child care desert, which is why this news is significant. The Federal Government is funding a brand new child care centre in Karama. They've also locked away some money for one in Tennant Creek, too. Jess Walsh is the Federal Minister for Early Education. She joins you from Canberra this morning. Good morning, Minister.

JESS WALSH, MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: G'day, Lara. Thanks for having me.

STIMPSON: How many Territory families will benefit from these developments?

WALSH: We're announcing today that we've reached an agreement with the NT Government to build two brand new early learning services. One in Karama, as you said, Manunda Terrace Primary School. That will have 60 places and support children and families there with quality early childhood education. And we're building a service with the NT Government in Tennant Creek as well. We're still finalising the details of the Tennant Creek early learning service, but together both of these services will provide great quality early childhood education and care for Territory families for generations to come.

STIMPSON: So, you're partnering with the NT Government on this. What's the funding split, particularly for that centre that you've confirmed in Karama?

WALSH: In Karama, the Commonwealth is contributing $8.7 million dollars in funding to deliver 60 places and the NT Government is effectively contributing the Manunda Terrace Primary School site. We've been really pleased to work closely with Minister Jo Hersey and the NT Government so that we can provide families in that area and in Tennant Creek in the future with quality not-for-profit-led early learning.

STIMPSON: OK, the not-for-profit piece is important. That's something that's come up in recent reporting, particularly by Adele Ferguson for Four Corners. The difference between for-profit and not-for-profit providers and the level of care. Of course, you can't lump everybody under the same umbrella, but that has been a point of concern in recent years and in particular over the past 12 months. You've also have signalled that for, particularly that development in Karama, but I'm imagining in Tennant Creek as well, your preferred provider would be an Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisation. Can you describe that choice?

WALSH: Yes, we want to see more quality, not-for-profit services, Lara. We know that around 70 per cent of early child care places are provided by for-profit services. So, we do want to see more quality not-for-profits, and we want to support more Aboriginal-led delivery as well. We know that ACCO-led early learning is great for Indigenous children. It's part of our commitment to Closing the Gap. I've visited a lot of ACCO-led services around the country, and we know that culturally safe, strong education for Indigenous kids helps them get a great start in life.

STIMPSON: You're hearing from Jess Walsh who is the Federal Minister for Early Education on 1057, ABC Darwin. I'm Lara Stimpson. Is it the Government's view that we would move to a primarily or a predominantly not-for-profit child care operating space in Australia where the majority of those care centres are not-for-profit as opposed to for-profit?

WALSH: We definitely do want to see more quality not-for-profit services there. And in fact, this NT agreement is the eighth and final agreement in our Building Early Education Agreements. Across the country we're building 42 new not-for-profit-led services, and they're in areas of need. They're in areas that are disadvantaged. They're in areas that are undersupplied. And also, just while we're talking about Manunda Terrace Primary School, it's important to note, too, that 80 per cent of the services that we're building around the country will be co-located with schools. We think that is a great thing for providing quality early education into the future. We know that when children attend early learning services at school it helps them get ready for school. They can see the big school up the road, and they can go there ready to make friends and ready to learn. And it's also great for families too because families are running around, they will have been running around this morning potentially doing a double drop off. And school-based early learning helps families have a one-stop drop as well. More generally, when you talk about for-profit providers, it's really important to know that the vast majority of them meet and exceed the National Quality Standard. And so, our focus is really on delivering high-quality early education that's affordable and that's located in the places that it's needed as well.

STIMPSON: Just to some other news this morning, Minister, the ABC is reporting today your Government's changes to the private health insurance rebate which have been quite controversial. Winding back that Howard-era measure for over-65s will hugely affect age pensioners. You're looking to make about $3 billion in savings from winding back that rebate. $1.6 billion of that will be raised from people who are on the age pension so that they're people who can least afford these kinds of changes. Why not carve out those pensioners, people who are at that end of the spectrum, who will be greatly impacted by what you're trying to do?

WALSH: Well, the changes that we're making to the private health insurance rebate essentially say that the rebate will be calculated on income, not on age. So, your rebate would be the same whether you're under-65 or over-65 based on your income. The reason that we're making that change is because we need to make investment in the aged care system and we've been upfront about that. The entire $3 billion that is generated by this policy change goes into providing more aged care beds and more aged care packages, because really we know that older Australians need that investment in aged care and we want to see them get the aged care system that they need and that they deserve.

STIMPSON: The aged care system is one thing, but the hospital system is another. And it's estimated that because of these changes, about 44,000 people in this group will dump their private health insurance. You can expect that would add increased pressure to our public health system. Has the Government accounted for that aspect of things?

WALSH: The Government's modelling shows that people will continue over time to take up private health insurance. I think the changes of people leaving their health insurance are very small on the Government's modelling and they are short term. In the long term, we expect that people will continue to invest in private health insurance. But again, it is really important to say that $3 billion that is generated from this policy change will go directly into aged care. All of the $3 billion will go into aged care. All of it will go into providing more beds and more packages for the aged care system that older Australians need.

STIMPSON: But despite the criticism and the concern, and this is from a wide range of groups, Territory and State governments, Council on the Ageing, age pensioners themselves, there's no carve out on the table for them.

WALSH: Well, again, the changes that we're making mean that people get the same private health insurance rebate based on their income, whether they're under-65 or whether they're over-65. And we think that that's a reasonable step to take in order to generate that $3 billion of investment that we need in our aged care system.

STIMPSON: Minister, thank you for your time this morning.

WALSH: Thanks so much, Lara.