As a mum in need of child care, I'll be better off no matter who wins the July 2 election.
At least, that's what Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten say.
Both leaders are promising to help families with one of their biggest cost-of-living pressures: childcare fees.
Labor wants to tweak the existing complex system to give low and middle-income families more cash from the benefit, and by lifting the cap on how much they can recover from the 50 per cent childcare rebate.
The coalition wants to roll all payments into one and pay a higher proportion of fees for low and middle-income families.
That's good news as long as you're doing at least eight hours of work or study a fortnight (any less and you get no subsidy).
However, neither party has a solution to the problem of actually finding somewhere to care for your child.
Arguing over where the places are and aren't is a little like the housing affordability debate: should you take a childcare spot wherever you can get one or does it have to be close to where you work or live?
Finding a full-time spot is yet another challenge.
I put my son on several waiting lists when I was just three months pregnant but when it came to returning to work no full-time spots were available.
One or two days a week? No problem.
Childcare policies are all about getting women back to work, our politicians say.
It's been estimated that lifting female workforce participation by an extra six per cent - to the same level as Canada - would add $25 billion a year to Australia's economy.
That's a hell of a lot of growth if you can get the jobs.
That's why the leaders cast it as an economic problem to be solved.
But the economy isn't helped if women feel discouraged from working because everyone who talks about the cost of child care subtracts fees from a mother's wages.
Take this from Mr Shorten, after he insisted child care was more than just a women's issue: "Men in Australia rely on the women of Australia to do the child care and to organise the child care."
For goodness' sake, Mr Shorten.
In modern families, caring for children isn't the mother's sole responsibility so why should paying childcare fees be?
