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Australian opposition Labor party pledged a A$3 billion ($2.2 billion) childcare package during an election campaign and said it plans to allow parents to claim more rebates regardless of their income if it won the polls.
The policy would start January if the party is victorious in next month’s election and entails a 15 percent increase to childcare benefit payment, Labor leader Bill Shorten said at a press conference in Melbourne. The proposal includes a rise to the childcare rebate that would let families claim back as much as A$10,000 a year for each child, he said.
Labor’s childcare package could boost support for the party, which narrowly led Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s governing Coalition 51 percent to 49 percent in the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll published four weeks before the July 2 election.
The Labor plan may put pressure on Turnbull to reverse a decision to delay promised childcare fee relief until July 2018, the Herald Sun reported. The prime minister’s approval rating slid by 3 percentage points to 45 percent, according to the survey published Saturday on the Australian Financial Review.
Turnbull, 61, has promised to cut corporate tax rates and boost infrastructure spending in his bid for a second term in office. The prime minister’s coalition has been characterized by union-backed Shorten, 48, as being out of touch with average workers.
“Labor’s plan for childcare is fairer, it’s affordable, it’s quality and it’s going to happen a year-and-a-half earlier than the Liberal’s†policy, Shorten said.
Qualified families earning below A$150,000 a year are the biggest winners, according to the Herald Sun report Sunday. For about 800,000 families who currently qualify for the childcare benefit, the policy would deliver as much as A$1,600 in extra assistance and some families would be A$5,000 a year better off, the report said. Labor’s policy will be funded within the A$3 billion increase to childcare funding announced by the Turnbull government, the newspaper said.