Mr Turnbull used the tax deduction one-year-old Addison Mignacca, of Penshurst, was getting to help her buy a home to justify making no change to negative gearing. Credit:Michele Mossop In spruiking the benefits of negative gearing the Prime Minister went so far as to pose for photos last week in Sydney with the Mignacca family, whose one-year-old daughter Addison is now the proud owner of an apartment in Penshurst. This is something that could not happen under Labor's "reckless" abandonment of negative gearing,Turnbull declared. A lot of people think it shouldn't happen under Turnbull either. Where is the justice, and economic sense, in spending billions on subsidising property investment by a government that says it cannot afford the $3 billion needed to finance urgently needed reforms to the childcare system?

The man got angry after he tripped over the girl, who was playing on the floor. Credit:Peter Braig At present we pay parents $7500 a year, which is $144.23 per week, to help out with childcare expenses. Note the different amounts to offset family spending: $300 a week for property investment but only $144.23 a week for investment in a child's early learning. This childcare rebate does not even cover the cost of one day's care in most capital city centres. Families earning less than $43,727 a year can also qualify for a further $208.50 a week childcare benefit which is usually paid straight to the centre. The new and widely supported childcare policy, known as the Jobs for Families Childcare Package, follows the recommendations of the Henry review and the Productivity Commission, and combines, and increases, these two payments.

Where is the justice, and economic sense, in spending billions on subsidising property investment by a government that says it cannot afford the $3 billion needed to finance urgently needed reforms to the childcare system? Most families, it is claimed, would be better off by about $1500 a year. They would now get a total of $173 a week towards the cost of childcare. Still not even close to what Addison Mignacca's dad gets each week towards the cost of her property but even this is a bridge too far for the government. Get this. Parents can have the extra childcare money only if they give up certain family benefits and paid parental leave entitlements. That is why the Jobs for Families Childcare Package is stuck in the Senate.

The Senate education and employment committee this month recommended its passage but it's not going to pass while its funding is tied to cutting other family-support programs. Labor and the Greens are generally supportive of the overall direction of the reforms, although both argued in their dissenting reports to the Senate committee that denying assistance to women who work less than eighthours a week is unfair, a position strongly supported by the ACTU which argues that some casual workers cannot control the hours they are given. That ought to be an easy detail to fix but the far bigger issue is the government's unwillingness to finance childcare reforms from consolidated revenue. How many other areas of policy are expected to, in effect, self-finance? Robbing Peta to pay Pauline

Because this is so unfair, and because it appears to have no precedent in other policy areas, you have to wonder whether this punitive approach is driven more by ideology than by reform or even budgetary considerations. These policy ideas were the brainchild of Scott Morrison, now the Treasurer, when he was minister for social services before Turnbull becamethe Prime Minister. It was Morrison who accused new mothers of "double dipping" by taking up their legal entitlement to both government and employer-paid parental leave schemes. It was Morrison who proposed that 136,000 single parents have their family payments reduced when the youngest child turns 13. It was also Morrison who suggested only a week ago in a speech to a Christian group that divorced women are not only singularly unhappy but also over-reliant on the health system.

What's next? Family Court orders requiring women to forgo using the public health system as a precondition of divorce? Morrison's ideal Australian family might be one where everyone stays married and women stay home and so don't need parental leave or childcare and won't miss the family payment for teenagers. But that's not the way most Australians live – or choose to live. We want choices about our personal lives and we expect those choices to be respected, rather than being implicitly challenged by government family programs. Labor says its proposed changes to negative gearing – restricting the tax benefit to new housing stock – would save $32 billion over a decade.

That would pay for the childcare reforms. And, because Labor would grandfather existing negative gearing arrangements, Addison Mignacca's father can keep his $300 a week. A forward-looking government would prioritise an educated and socially skilled population prepped and ready for the new economy. It would shut down negative gearing entirely and invest the $110 billion (savings over a decade) in childcare and Gonski. Sadly, that's not going to happen but even Labor's modest reforms would be better than what is on the table now. Twitter @SummersAnne

Anne Summers is the editor and publisher of the free digital magazine Anne Summers Reports.