Labor will unveil another step towards achieving its long-term goal of universal childcare as it ramps up efforts to stave off becoming a one-term government at the next election.
In one of Anthony Albanese’s final major speeches of the year, the prime minister will announce his plans, if re-elected, to give families earning up to $530,000 a year access to the childcare subsidy for three days a week.
The proposal would also scrap the controversial activity test, which determines the level of childcare subsidies parents get based on the number of hours they work in a fortnight.
Albanese will use the speech to portray Labor as the party delivering a more equitable future while attacking the opposition for being “stuck in the past” and dragging the rest of Australia back.
“The aspiration to give your children the best chance in life drives every parent – whoever you are and wherever you live,” Albanese will tell the audience in Brisbane on Wednesday.
“The Liberals might treat early education like a luxury parents have to prove they need. We know early education is an opportunity every child deserves.
“In the 21st century, every child has the right to go to early education, to help get them ready for school – and our Labor government is going to make this possible.”
In September, a Productivity Commission report recommended the federal government increase funding and simplify subsidies for early childhood education and care. It also called for the activity test to be scrapped and for every family who chooses to access early education to get at least 30 hours or three days of access a week.
Albanese will also criticise Peter Dutton’s comments describing a 15% wage increase for childcare workers as a “sugar hit” and reference former Liberal National turned independent senator, Gerard Rennick, who claimed without evidence that early education “destroys the family unit”.
“Another day and another issue where the Liberals are not just stuck in the past – they are trying to drag the rest of Australia back there to keep them company,” the prime minister will say.
The proposal comes as pundits ponder whether there will be another federal budget handed down before the next federal election.
The latest poll results in December show the Coalition is leading Labor 51.8% to 48.2%, on a two-party-preferred basis.
Labor’s primary vote has declined by 4.7 percentage points since the last election, with the Coalition up by 2 percentage points, the Greens by 1 percentage point and independents by 2.4 percentage points.
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Albanese has said he intends to run a full term of government, hinting at a May federal election, but has left the door open for an earlier trip to Government House.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, accepted there was a “possibility” Labor could lose government after one term, but that the party would offer voters a “sense of stability, a sense that we’ve got an economic plan”.
“We’re rolling that out in difficult times, we’re helping people where we can, and that’s a tribute to Anthony’s leadership,” he told ABC radio.
Dutton has used this week to attack the federal government over its handling of antisemitism after an arson attack against the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and has promised not to display the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags if he is elected the next prime minister.
The opposition leader told 3AW radio on Tuesday Jewish Australians could leave the country because “they don’t feel safe here”.
Dutton added that the use of First Nations flags was “something that has come into vogue in recent years” and that Australia should unite under “one national flag”.
The Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, accused Dutton of seeking to “grab a few culture war headlines” and said he was “once again proving himself unfit to be prime minister”.
