Cost is the Coalition's priority around child care - Women's Agenda

Cost is the Coalition’s priority around child care

Cost is the biggest obstacle the Shadow Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare Sussan Ley wants to overcome.

“I have been attending roundtable discussions around the country and throughout Australia, in rural areas, in capital cities, along the coast, the same theme is emerging,” Ley says. “The big problem is that it is too expensive. Parents, with all sorts of working lives, cannot afford childcare so they are not participating in the workforce to the extent that they are qualified to, and the extent they want to be.”

Ley disagrees with the government’s position that record levels of fee assistance have eased the price pressure on parents in recent years. She claims fees figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics have grown by 27 % in Australian cities between June 2010 to June 2013.

“For the government to say that costs aren’t rising because of their investment is just not right,” Ley says. “The reality is quite different. The cost of care is now out of reach to a lot of people and it needs to be overcome.”

She is adamant her party can achieve it.

“In 2007 childcare wasn’t an issue whereas it really is now. We had it sorted,” she says. “What’s happened is that costs have gone up and spaces have gone backwards. You can’t implement a new framework that adds considerable cost to the system and then suggest fees haven’t risen as a result of it.”

How will the Coalition do that if they’re elected?

“We need to be brave enough to make wholesale change,” Ley says. “The policy settings in childcare belong to a different generation. Working lives are no longer based around a nine-to-five work day so the system needs to catch up. We need to ensure childcare supports the decisions that parents, particularly women, are making about work.”

The Coalition’s policy position on childcare is two-fold.

“The first thing is we support the principle of the National Quality Framework but we want to make sure it’s implemented in the best possible way,” Ley told Women’s Agenda. “In the immediate term we would seek a meeting with our colleagues around the NQF to ensure it is managed in a way that addresses cost which is something people are clearly struggling with.”

In terms of developing a strategy to bring the national child care infrastructure into line with modern lives Ley is committed to a Productivity Commission Inquiry.

“I’m keen to ensure the Inquiry looks into everything,” she says. “We will ensure childcare is looked at from a workforce participation perspective and a family-balance perspective as well as the best interests of the child. It is vital that it supports parents participating in the workforce to the extent they want to.”

Ley agrees with the Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare Kate Ellis that the current system disincentives operators from opening.

“If you were a private investor looking to build childcare centres the chances are you wouldn’t do it,” Ley says. You would put your money somewhere else. There is so much uncertainty and volatility in childcare right now because we’re in the middle of implementing these new rules that have already added cost. No one knows how many people will be pushed out.”

Ley says making the system attractive for private operators will be critical to improve the supply of positions. How that may happen will be a matter for the Productivity Commission.

Yesterday Women’s Agenda spoke to Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare, Kate Ellis on how Labor will address affordability and accessibility of childcare should they get the mandate to continue in government on September 7. Click here to read the story

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