Senator Amanda Stoker is calling for nannies to be made tax-deductible.

The proposal is designed to facilitate more options for new mums and dads who may be looking to return to the workforce. Rectifying Australia’s slumping fertility rate and cracking down on the cash-in-hand nanny black market would also be an aim of the policy.

Senator Cory Bernardi says this is the wrong way to go about generating choices for parents after they have had kids.

“I think there is an attractiveness to looking for a better way and making people more reliant on themselves,” says Bernardi.

“If we cut people’s taxes, then they can spend their money how they like and the government won’t have to subsidise them.”

“It means that parents who want to stay at home and sacrifice and look after their own children should be in a position to be able to do so, because their utility bills would be lower and they would have lower taxes.”

Mr Bernardi says the system disproportionately encourages people to return to employment after having kids and is calling for this to shift.

“Right now, every incentive is for people to leave their children and pay someone else to raise them and look after them, while mum and dad busily work,” he says.

“Anyone whose had a parent at home with them when they get home from school or stay home with them during the day, knows the benefits of that.”

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