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Labor Pledges $3 Billion Spend On Childcare Package

Bill Shorten is set to unveil the plan on Sunday.
Labor will make a big childcare announcement on Sunday
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Labor will make a big childcare announcement on Sunday

Labor will boost childcare funding by $3 billion from 2017 if it wins the upcoming election.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten made the big announcement in Melbourne on Sunday.

The Labor plan would give parents earning between $60,000 and $80,000 an additional year of childcare support and is being interpreted as a centrepiece election campaign announcement from the ALP.

The Labor proposal has been unveiled on the same day as the coalition pledges $5 million for endangered species protection.

In Labor's package, the childcare rebate would be lifted to $10,000 while the childcare benefit payment would increase by 15 percent.

"Childcare makes the difference, affordable, quality, accessible childcare make it is difference as to whether or not mums are able to go to work, whether or not children get the best start in life," Shorten told reporters on Sunday.

"That's why I'm really pleased to announce our plan, which is fairer, which isaffordable and provides sooner child care relief than my proponents are proposing in this election."

Education Minister Simon Birmingham told Fairfax Media Labor would struggle to pay for the measures.

"If they want to offer the same support as the Coalition then they need to find the money to pay for it," he told Fairfax Media.

Under the government's plan, the current childcare rebate and childcare benefit will be replaced by a single means-tested subsidy and households earning up to $65,700 will get an 85 percent fee subsidy.

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