Transcript - Radio Interview - ABC Perth Mornings - Thursday, 28 November 2019

NADIA MITSOPOULOS, HOST: Now in the scheme of things I think Australians are pretty lucky in what publicly funded services are at our fingertips and admittedly they don't exist without hiccups and criticism. But we have universal healthcare, we do we have financial support for tertiary education. There's Centrelink. How about free childcare?

RUSSELL WOOLF, HOST: It's something that Labor MP Patrick Gorman I'm sorry is calling for. He joins us this morning. Why do you think having free childcare in Australia is a good idea?

PATRICK GORMAN, LABOR MP: I think what we need is to move our childcare system to be more like our primary school system. We have free primary school. Parents have choice in where they can choose to send their children - whether they want to go into the independent sector. But having a nationally based free childcare system, to make sure that we invest in young kids brains, make sure that our kids don't start behind when they hit the formal schooling system. We know that 90 per cent of a child's brain development happens before they walk into a primary school. We should invest as much as we possibly can in that.

HOST: It's a bold idea and I'm sure there are a lot of people listening to you that will be nodding their heads in agreement. But is this a little unrealistic?

GORMAN: Well it was part of a project done by the University of Western Australia, sort of calling for bold long-term policy ideas. So I admit this is not going to happen next year. It's probably not going to happen at the next election, but over time we should start to build the system towards that universal access child focus. And I think it is possible - there are other countries in the world that do have free childcare systems. We know that it has huge productivity benefits. It's not all costs. There'd be some huge benefits for our nation if we were to head down this path and as you yourself said, we've had a Medicare system that has stood for some 30 years providing great services, world-class healthcare. I think we should also make sure we've got world-class early childhood education.

HOST: Eight to nine. Patrick Gorman is a Labor MP and joins us this morning. Now as Nadia said there'll be people listening that will say this is a great idea, but there'll be many people listening that are not grandparents or parents or carers that will immediately be screaming at us you know you know how much is this going to cost. So answer that question what would it cost?

GORMAN: Let's start with the simple fact that the government spends about 8 billion dollars a year on childcare. And what we know is that for the childcare providers, the bulk of that money then just goes straight into rent for the centres. It's just pumping money into a real estate bubble effectively, whereas your local primary school with local government primary school obviously doesn't have those real estate costs. So this would actually also help reduce some of the inefficiencies in the system but it would be expensive and that's why we need to talk about it in a long-term measured way. One of the problems I think we have as a nation in our political debate is that we know we tear ourselves apart. Everyone goes into a corner. We find the minutiae and argue about things, rather than actually talk about well what's in our national interest in the long term and I think it's in our national interest in the long term to have the smartest possible kids, the best possible education and all the research tells us that means investing in people earlier than we currently do.

HOST: You must have a rough dollar figure though as to how much this would cost. Because I imagine it would be quite unaffordable.

GORMAN: We can afford to give huge tax cuts to people on over $200,over $200,000 a year. We are a rich country and we do invest a lot in education. So I haven't specified the way in which you would go about implementing this because I actually have the first principles discussion first, which is should we make sure that our childcare system is focused around the child's education needs rather than just the parents work needs.

HOST: And have you had any support from your colleagues on this?

GORMAN: Look I'll  be honest, it's not the time in the Labor Party to be coming out with huge spending ideas. So but I think people know that I'm very passionate about making sure that we have the world's best early childhood education system. So some colleagues have said this is fabulous. Some have said let's see where this lands in the scheme of things. And I've been really clear this is about a long-term, next decade, we're about to hit 2020. This is something I'd like to see by 2030, not by next year

HOST: And they'd be embedded in schools?

GORMAN: I'm open to different suggestions. I think we've got some great private childcare providers in the system and I wouldn't want to do anything that necessarily destroys their businesses as many of them are owned by small operators who've seen the need for providing childcare services in our community. But one option that's been discussed many times is using school land which again helps deal with rental costs, which is one of the biggest cost drivers in childcare. Childcare fees are gone up 28 per cent - I'll get this in and I'm going to have to go and vote in a division - childcare fees have gone up 28 per percent in the last six years. This system isn't working, so parents are paying more. The Government's paying more. We do need to do something radical to fix the system long term.

HOST: Patrick Gorman, the bells are ringing, you need to go. He's the Labor Member for Perth.