Bowen Caught Short on Details

A week after Labor announced its unprecedented intervention into the wages market Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen still couldn’t tell Australians how many child care workers would be affected.

When pushed on how many of the 195,000 workers would miss out Mr Bowen squibbed on a response at the National Press Club today.

“Well not everybody who works in the child care sector broadly is an early childhood educator.”

Chris Bowen, National Press Club, 6 May 2019

Coalition Campaign Spokesman Senator Simon Birmingham said statistics derived from the National Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce Census showed that around 90 per cent of the 195,000 workers are early childhood educators.

“It’s not the first time confusion has reigned over Labor’s massive wages intervention,” Senator Birmingham said.

“At a press conference in Tasmania, Bill Shorten claimed that he “would like to give a better pay rise to 140,000 childcare workers” despite having briefed media that only 100,000 people would benefit from his highly irregular labour market intervention.”

“Despite Labor not publicly stating how many child care workers will benefit from their policy, it is clear that it’s not all 195,000 workers in the sector.”

“If it’s not 195,000 workers then what is it? Is it only 100,000? If it’s only 100,000 why do 95,000 miss out?

/Public Release. View in full here.