Farrer MP Sussan Ley pushes to 'sublet' childcare places

Politics - Childcare
The current member for Farrer is The Hon Sussan Ley MP. Farrer is the Federal Australian electorate in which Broken Hill sits.

Ms Ley is a member of the current Abbott Government. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Ley briefly at Parliament House in Canberra last year (2013). See blog post about my meeting here - 8 June 2013, Broken Hill, Sussan Ley and the Canberra connection -

http://www.ilovebrokenhill.com/2013/06/broken-hill-sussan-ley-and-canberra.html

The Hon Sussan Ley MP

Fast forward to this week. I was interested to read an article in the major daily Victorian/Melbourne newspaper 'The Age' on 26 July 2014 p 21 News section, that Ms Ley was keen to support some of the proposed recommendations from the Productivity Commission, in particular the idea of 'subletting' childcare places.

As I don't have children, understanding details about arranging childcare isn't my strong suit.

However, if you do have children, childcare is a huge issue.

I didn't realise that if you took your child out of childcare, temporarily, say for example you're having another child, or want to travel, and you therefore don't need the place for a while, there was a reasonably significant fee to hold the position open.

Another example that Ms Ley cited, "was a fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) worker, who may wish to take their child out of childcare for an ad hoc week to spend time with them", so it would make sense that they could do so without a significant financial penalty.

The Productivity Commission recommends the removal of regulatory requirements to allow parents to temporarily return their childcare places if they are not being used.

Sounds a great idea to me.

The Commission handed down a 900 page draft report into childcare and early childhood learning last Tuesday 22 July 2014. The broad aim being to create a more flexible and accessible sector.

A number of recommendations were made, and the final report is due by the end of October 2014.

The government did not wish to fully respond to the report until the report is finalised.

Whether it's Broken Hill or anywhere else in Australia, accessible and affordable childcare is a hot topic for discussion. It is critical for families to enable parents to work.

I hope there are many positive changes for the better as a result of this Productivity Commission report and the recommendations they make.

Cheers, Jane Deany

Judith Ireland and Rachel Browne are the authors of 'The Age' article were I sourced my information.

Farrer's Sussan Ley newly appointed Assistant Minister for Education

The Hon. Sussan Ley MP

Politics
Congratulations are once again in order to The Hon. Sussan Ley MP who was honoured with being included in Prime Minister Elect Tony Abbott's newly elected LNP Coalition Government's cabinet, which Mr Abbott announced on Monday.

Ms Ley has been elevated to one of the eleven members of the outer ministry, in the role of Assistant Minister for Education.

South Australian Federal Member for Sturt, The Hon. Christopher Pine MP is the newly appointed Minister for Education.  Mr Pine is also the new Leader of the House.

I congratulate Ms Ley on her new responsibilities and wish her well in her new role. Naturally, congratulations and best wishes are also in order to Mr Pine and all the newly appointed MPs.

Ms Ley is the Member for Farrer (the Federal electorate which includes Broken Hill).

For more information about Ms Ley, please see her website www.sussanley.com . I wrote a post about her re-election on 8 September 2013, please see link to that post here.

For further information about Tony Abbot's first ministry, see link here sourced via a link from ABC Australia's website www.abc.net.au, which re-directs to www.scribd.com website page.

Best wishes to all new MPs, cheers, Jane Deany

Congratulations Sussan Ley re-elected for Farrer - 7 September 2013

Sussan Ley, Federal member for Farrer

Politics - Federal Election 2013
Congratulations The Hon. Sussan Ley MP, representing the Liberal Party of Australia, on winning the seat of Farrer again, and this time gaining a seat in the newly elected (on 7 September 2013) Coalition Government of Australia. It was a decisive victory for Ms Ley. It indicates a strong vote of confidence in the work Ms Ley has already been doing for the electorate since she was first elected to parliament in the seat of Farrer in 2001.

At that time Broken Hill was not part of the division of Farrer it was instead in the division of Parkes. However the electoral boundaries changed due to a redistribution prior to the 2007 Federal election, which saw Farrer grow in land area to just under 200,000 square kilometres, and the boundary change to take in Broken Hill.

Once again in late 2009, due to another redistribution that saw the loss of one NSW division altogether, Farrer increased in size by over 47,000 square kilometres, to cover a total area of 247,097 square kilometres. The redistribution saw the transfer of just an additional 727 electors to the division.

(Redistributions are designed to ensure that each electorate has a representative and roughly equal number of voters in each division, and are influenced by population growth and flows to different areas over time).

From our brief meeting in Canberra earlier this year and from what I have read, I believe Sussan will continue to be an effective member in this huge electorate which stretches as far away as Albury on the Murray River. Fortunately Sussan has a commercial pilot's licence and uses a plane regularly to fly around this vast electorate, which is almost the size of New Zealand.

At the time of writing this post, 100 out of 105 polling booths in Farrer had finished counting and 82.6% of the vote had been counted. Ms Ley had won 66.3% of the vote on two party preferred voting and was enjoying a 1.7% swing towards her on that basis, with her nearest rival Gavin Hickey representing the Country Labor Party, suffering a corresponding 1.7% swing away from him.

Seven other political parties contested the seat. The parties and their respective candidates running in this division, in order of appearance on the ballot paper were -

Rise Up Australia (Narelle Davis)
Democratic Labour (Brendan Cattell)
Katter's Australia (Ken Trewin)
Australian Liberal (Sussan Ley) - retained
Palmer United (Ron Emmerton)
Country Labor (Gavin Hickey)
Bullet Train for Australia (Tracey Powell)
Christian Democrats (Frank Horwill)
Australian Greens (Christina Sobey)

I'm confident Sussan will make every effort to represent the people of Broken Hill, and everyone in the electorate of Farrer, effectively, energetically and diligently.

Broken Hill's mining heritage has meant there have been strong links to Labor in the past, so Sussan made local history when she won one of the eight Broken Hill booths - Morgan Street Street School - from Gavin Hickey 351 to 328 votes.

I wish Sussan well in her new responsibilities. ABC Broken Hill reported earlier today that she has indicated a couple of issues she's going to get right onto, and they are to address issues relating to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and black spots with mobile phone reception. See link here to read more from that ABC article.

Note if another candidate from another party was elected, I would wish them well also, as this is a non-political blog. Okay, yes, this is a political themed article, but I'm just trying to report the facts, write about something very topical, and I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, and this is my blog ;-) 

Cheers, Jane D

Broken Hill, Sussan Ley and the Canberra connection

Politics
Broken Hill at the Federal politics level is part of the Farrer electorate.  A huge area of 247,097 square kilometres.  The electorate was named after William Farrer (1845 - 1906), a noted wheat breeder and experimentalist.  The electorate reaches as far away as the Albury City Council, and includes the shires of Balranald, Berrigan, Congaro, Corowa, Deniliquin, Greater Hume, Hay, Jerilderie, Lockhart, Murray, Wakool, Wentworth, Urana and Central Darling.

This week I visited Canberra to 

• enjoy some of the city's many 100 year anniversary celebrations
• see Parliament in action; and
• visit the fabulous Turner exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, which had just opened.

Sussan Ley (left) and me
Pro Hart 'Off to the races St Pats'
in Sussan's Canberra Parliament
House office

It was when I was watching Parliament on Monday 3 June that I saw the Federal Member for Farrer, The Hon Sussan Ley MP in action in the House of Representatives.  Sussan is currently the Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, and Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning.  All of a sudden I realised that this might be a good opportunity to try and catch up with her.

I had tried to meet Sussan on a few of my visits to Broken Hill but, with such a huge electorate to cover, she was 'out on the road'.  In her case, it may be that she was 'out in the sky' as she has a commercial pilot's license and flies around her huge electorate, which is roughly the size as New Zealand.

I chatted with her media adviser Steve Block and I was delighted to find there was the opportunity for a very quick introduction the following day.

After a very quick tour of some of Parliament House
and a very long walk to her office, I met Sussan and we had a very quick chat as she was heavily booked with appointments and commitments.

After she asked me a few questions, I only really had the chance to ask her one very important question "What does she love about Broken Hill?"

Her reply was the "light, landscape, history, number of pubs and clubs and the people".

Unfortunately time didn't permit more reflections or questions from me, but at least we've met and can communicate via phone for another more in depth discussion another time.

Sussan's website is www.sussanley.com.  Sussan was elected as the member of Farrer in 2001 and has held the seat of Farrer since then, being re-elected in 2004, 2007 and 2010.

The www.aph.gov.au website has a lot of information about Sussan (and all the Senators and Members), see link here to her details.

Stand by for another article in the future.

Cheers, Jane D