Tony Abbott has revealed that new childcare spending does not necessarily depend on passing family tax benefits cuts from last year’s budget, saying he is open to alternative savings.
The prime minister said on Monday the government was prepared to talk to Labor and crossbench senators about how to fund the childcare package, which will form a centrepiece of Tuesday’s budget.
The social services minister, Scott Morrison, has previously warned that the extra spending was contingent on stalled changes to family tax benefits passing the parliament, but Labor signalled it would not budge on its opposition to the changes.
Abbott’s latest comments appeared to reflect acceptance that those 2014 budget measures were unlikely to win support from enough senators.
The prime minister spoke to the media in Canberra on Monday to promote the package, a day before the treasurer, Joe Hockey, delivers his second budget amid political pressure to deliver after the first budget received a negative reception.
When asked what he would say to families that would lose family tax benefit (FTB) when the youngest child turned six, Abbott distanced himself from the measure that was set to raise $1.9bn but remains stalled in the Senate.
“That’s actually a measure from last year’s budget. It’s not a new measure,” he said.
“It’s one of the measures stalled in the Senate and the point we make is that we can’t go ahead with the childcare initiatives with the jobs for families package unless we get offsetting savings. We’re prepared to talk to the Labor party and the crossbench about where these savings will be found, but savings must be found for this to go ahead.
“The point that I’ve been making all along is that we support choice. We absolutely support choice. But once children are a certain age, obviously then we think that it’s fair enough for people to go into the workforce and to be supported when they do so.”
When pressed on whether there was room to move on the cutoff for the family tax benefit changes, Abbott said he would not preempt discussions that could be held after the budget between Morrison and the opposition and the crossbench.
Although he said the government stood by the “justifiable and desirable” savings outlined in last year’s budget, Abbott said “let’s talk” about the offsetting savings.
Morrison said last week that the increased investment “requires the savings elsewhere in the social services portfolio under the family tax benefit to make sure we can better spend the welfare dollars that we have available”.
And Morrison also told the ABC’s 7.30 program last week: “With all of the jobs for families package that we’ll be launching within the budget next week, that is tied to family tax benefit savings that were put forward in last year’s budget.”
On Sunday Abbott hinted at further talks with crossbench senators but appeared to still want the family tax benefit changes: “While we’re very committed to this improved jobs for families childcare package there will need to be savings in the family tax benefit area to fund it … So there is, I think, a sensible trade-off here between savings in the social security area, savings in the family tax benefit area which then are reinvested in childcare.”
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Labor would look at the details of the package but “if the government is proposing to rob some parents of family payments to pay other parents in childcare that is not a very good equation”.
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said the government was cruel to trumpet the childcare spending as a cost-of-living measure “when on the other hand they are taking thousands of dollars away from families and holding them ransom to these outrageous cuts”.
“The government seem to think children miraculously become cheaper when they turn six,” he said of the proposed FTB changes. “It’s not a position we support and not something the government received a mandate for at the last election.”
The Greens say linking the FTB with childcare changes forces senators to make a “false choice”, but new leader Richard Di Natale said the party would “absolutely consider” the childcare package if it was not tied to cutting family payments.
“Why is it that the government can only resort to blackmail to get a budget measure through when there are so many other ways of ensuring that the community gets the services that they deserve,” Di Natale told reporters on Monday, pointing to childcare and the linking of the formation of a medical research fund to the ultimately failed GP co-payment policy in last year’s budget.
Di Natale, who came took the reins of the party on Wednesday, is expected to meet Abbott later this week to discuss the measures contained within in Tuesday’s budget.
Family First senator Bob Day has changed his position on the FTB changes, saying he is against putting the savings into the childcare package. Day was willing to consider the bill when the money was being used to alleviate debt, but he opposes the childcare bill because of its focus on working parents rather than stay-at-home mums.
A spokesman for Day told Guardian Australia that the senator was “not going to budge” from his position, and that the government “still has some way to go” in convincing the crossbench to pass the FTB measures.
Only one crossbencher, Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, supports the measures outright, with a spokesman saying Leyonhjelm “has a problem with middle class welfare”.
Three more crossbenchers – independents John Madigan and Nick Xenophon and Palmer United party senator Dio Wang – will consider the measures further before committing.
Madigan said he opposes the childcare package because it “lessens choice for the mother or the primary caregiver who wishes to stay at home to look after their children”.
The remaining three senators – independents Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus and Motoring Enthusiast party senator Ricky Muir – say they support changing the childcare system, but remain opposed to cutting the FTB.
A spokesman for Muir said that the government’s focus in the childcare package is “misguided”.
“While getting parents back to work is important, childcare reform should be undertaken with a focus on what’s in the best interest of the child,” he said.
