Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s big moves on free childcare and TAFE

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will fast-track the introduction of major cost-of-living legislation into parliament during the next two weeks — including a guarantee of three days of subsidised childcare each week for Australian families — and making fee-free TAFE permanent.

Albanese hopes to wedge the Coalition on the bills and if Liberal and National MPs do vote against them it will give Labor fresh attack lines for the fast-approaching federal election campaign.

Three days of subsidised childcare is “about putting in place the building blocks for a universal childcare system”, Labor said.

The policy “is fundamentally about making sure every child gets a great start in life and start school ready to learn,” Education Minister Jason Clare said.

“At the moment the children who need early education the most can’t access it,” Clare said.

“They are missing out. As a result they start school behind and often never catch up. This will help fix that.

“Every child has the right to go to school — and governments have a responsibility to make that possible.

“We believe every child has the right to go to early education, to help make sure they don’t start school behind — and our Labor government is going to make this possible.”

Passing laws to make fee-free TAFE permanent will save “students thousands of dollars to train in key occupations, while delivering the skilled workers Australia needs”, the Albanese government said.

“Our focus is on Building Australia’s Future while helping with the cost of living now,” Leader of the House Tony Burke said.

“This fortnight we’ll continue delivering on that agenda — securing cost-of-living support for families through childcare reforms, while setting up our future prosperity through skills, training and future industry,” Burke said.

“Peter Dutton has spent this entire term of parliament standing in the way of cost-of-living support for Australians.

“He’s now admitted there are huge cuts coming if he wins but won’t say what they are until after the election.

“Peter Dutton’s only plan is secret cuts to services such as Medicare for all Australians, confirming you’ll be worse off under him.”

Dutton opposes cost-of-living measures

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has opposed most cost-of-living measures, claiming they will have the opposite effect by pushing up inflation and delaying interest rate cuts.

However, underlying inflation is now sitting at 3.2 per cent, and most economists believe the Reserve Bank will cut rates on February 18.

The Coalition is promising to cut wasteful government spending and cap the number of federal public servants at 200,000 — saving up to $24 billion.

“If we find wasteful spending our intent is to cut it,” Dutton said.

“That’s money you can use to pay off debt or put downward pressure on inflation.

“We will protect frontline positions but won’t allow the public service to balloon.”

Labor and the Greens have targeted Dutton, who is refusing to reveal other cuts until after the federal election.

The strategy by the Opposition Leader risks a scare campaign that he will shred budgets for Medicare, Centrelink, veterans, the ABC and education.