Ms Camille Loftus:

Largely, what we are talking about here today. It was the End Child Poverty Coalition which has argued for many years for second-tier supports. This is exactly what we have done, but we have always said along the way there is a need for a residual FIS. It simplifies the system. It delivers a much more progressive system of child income support, but we always need to deliver those extra supports for low-paid families. Much as I would like to see wages increase and much as I would like to see people have access to much more work than they do at present, there will always be households which are not capable of earning what they need to support their family's needs and, therefore, an in-work benefit is an important support.

These were relatively new a number of years ago, although there are well-established systems in liberal welfare systems or Anglo-Saxon welfare systems, the United Kingdom and the United States being two of the primary examples in this regard. As I stated, over the past number of years, with globalisation pressures and the kind of issues with which most welfare states are now engaging, they are an extremely common mechanism, but the tax system, rather than the social welfare system, is increasingly being used as the way to deliver. We also have consistently made the argument that much better investment in services is required.

The focus at present is on a second year of early childhood care and education. There are real issues in terms of withdrawing money from families which will not benefit. As Senator Healy Eames pointed out, some families would lose an income support and not benefit from the service. Those are real issues.

It is one of the reasons we have given the examples of free schoolbooks, better health care and after-school care, which are the kinds of things we need to look at to shift the balance of support for children to a services approach rather than to concentrate solely on child income support.