6 years ago
BIRMO STILL WON’T OWN UP TO CHILD CARE FAIL
THE HON AMANDA RISHWORTH MP
Two years since the election, families are paying the price of the Government’s child care failures – with the rollout of the new system coming at the same time as fees are hiked by up to another 10 per cent.
Families are already paying over 20 per cent more for child care under this Government – more than $2,160 on average.
And today the Government launches a system that will leave 279,000 families worse off– one in four – and cut support for the early education of some of Australia’s most vulnerable children in half.
The Minister is completely out-of-touch with parents and child care – and he’s passing the buck at every turn.
Last week he suggested that parents simply ‘change centres’ in response to fee hikes.
And today he’s announced that they will simply keep a list of complaints about child care fee rises. The Government needs to act – not just keep a list of naughty providers.
The Government has imposed this new system on providers and forced them to pay the costs of implementing it – costs including new IT systems, new staffing and billing arrangements, new red tape, and the costs of personally registering staff and families in the system.
These costs, imposed by the Liberals onto the sector, are now being passed onto families.
The fact is that nothing in the Government’s changes will cap fees – it will only cap the amount Government pays. Fee increases above the government’s benchmark price will have to be paid by families – and it will only increase by CPI – well below the real cost of care.
At the last election, Labor’s plan for more affordable child care included a policy to give the ACCC powers to crack down on unjustified price increases – together with new transparency and accountability standards for the sector.
It’s no wonder that around 15 per cent of families haven’t signed up the new system – around 175,000 families.
For the one in four families around Australia who will be worse off under the Liberals new system, it would cost as much as $5,300 a year to replace the day of early learning their children will lose because of the new activity test.
Only the Turnbull Government would reduce access to early learning for Australia’s most vulnerable children.