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| Family Day Care
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| changes postponed
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Changes designed to address child swapping rorts in family day care have been postponed.
Minister for Social Services Mr Scott Morrison has delayed the changes to enable further consultation with the family day care sector to avoid any unintended consequences.
"Today I have revoked a determination that prevented family day care providers from obtaining a session of care for their children from a family day care provider whilst they were engaging as a family day care provider," Minister Morrison said.
"This measure, referred to as the 'child-swapping' rule, was aimed at stamping out serious non-compliance that had arisen as a result of a number of unscrupulous family day care providers.
Mr Morrison said the changes will be reinstated following a period of consultation to ensure legitimate operators and families who depend on the services can still access them.
"While I remain absolutely committed to stamping out these 'child-swapping' rorts, we need to ensure that we mitigate against any unintended consequences for legitimate operators and the families who depend upon them.
"I have therefore decided to put the measure on hold, whilst further consultations occur with the Family Day Care sector. I welcome the representations made to me on the impact of these changes. Where measures do not provide desired outcomes or lead to detrimental consequences I am happy to make changes.
Mr Morrison has indicated a zero tolerance approach to fraudulent behaviour moving forwards.
"Once further consultation has occurred I will be bringing forward revised measures to stamp out non-compliant behaviour to ensure that the child care rebate and child care benefit schemes are not abused," said Mr Morrison.
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