Why is funding childcare so hard to prioritise?
We do not need to save any money in order to buy submarines.
We do not need to save any money to fund innovation.
We do not need to save any money to fund company tax cuts.
But hold on! We do need to save money if we want to fund childcare.
Of all the strange peculiarities of policy making, this might be the very strangest. That funding some policies allows you to spend without a care in the world. And funding other policies requires you to pinch money from Paula to pay Peta the parent.
And this is how it is with funding childcare. The Coalition says we can only fund childcare if we can save the money somewhere else.