Child Care News
Govt treating childcare workers 'with disdain': Albanese
News.com.au - June 11, 2020The government is leaving childcare workers in the lurch by withdrawing their ability to access JobKeeper payments next month, according to Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Education Minister Dan Tehan announced on Monday childcare fees would resume from July 13 with workers...
Australia followed the science in managing COVID-19. We must do the same with early education
Women's Agenda - Professor Frank Oberklaid AM June 10, 2020There is another area, however, where there has been little if any progress in efforts to have policy informed by the science – the research that documents the benefits of high quality childcare to child development and early learning. Recently media commentary and analysis...
Rent delay triggers anger for some childcare landlords
Financial Review - Liam Walsh - June 10, 2020Childcare giant G8 Education put some landlords on edge after missing a deadline for rental payments. The delays came during tense negotiations for pandemic rental cuts with landlords, who said G8, with 475 Australian centres, had never missed payments before...
Liberals say most families pay less than $5 a hour for childcare
News.com.au - June 10, 2020Liberal Senator Holly Hughes speaks to the media in Canberra about the government's decision to phase out the emergency free child care subsidy on July 12. She says that most families pay less than $5 an hour for childcare. If families struggle with the change, Senator Hughs suggest...
Early childhood educators disillusioned by policy makers
Canberra Times - Sarah Lansdown - June 10, 2020Natalie Colbert, who owns three Canberra childcare services, said the government was meddling too far in private business in a sector that was run predominantly by women. "We've been treated like an errant, naughty child. "We were open [during the pandemic], while everyone else was safe...
Labor parliamentarians attack child care 'snapback'
News.com.au - June 10, 2020June 10, 2020. Labor members of parliament speak to the media about the government's recent announcement to end the free childcare subsidy in July. MP Amanda Rishworth, Senator Jenny McAllister, MP Alicia Payne and MP Josh Burns attack the Liberal government's cancelling...
The age of industrialised childcare is coming to an end
Financial Review - Parnell Palme McGuinness, Columnist - June 9, 2020If you set out to design and fund a system of childcare that maximised the productivity and wellbeing of parents and gave children the very best start in life, modern “early childhood campuses” are not the model you’d settle upon. Fully subsidised childcare, which has been available to all families...
Half of childcare spots filled amid pandemic fears: G8
Financial Review - Liam Walsh - June 9, 2020Childcare giant G8 Education hopes a new government pandemic package will help temporarily ease cost pressures. But longer-term questions remain about the hit to occupancy levels, a key measure of sector profitability, with free childcare set to end on July 12...
G8 Education share price jumps higher despite the government ending its free childcare scheme
The Motley Fool - James Mickleboro - June 9, 2020The G8 Education Ltd (ASX: GEM) share price has been a strong performer this morning and is trading notably higher. At the time of writing the childcare centre operator’s shares are up over 6% to $1.10. This compares favourably to an impressive 3.1% gain by the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO)...
Women running childcare centres about to face more upheaval
The Sydney Morning Herald - David Crowe - June 9, 2020The women who run Australia’s childcare centres are about to discover how it feels to be the mice in a government experiment. After being promised a federal wage subsidy until the end of September to get them through the pandemic, they are now being told they will lose the JobKeeper...
Warnings that women will be hardest hit by reintroduction of childcare fees
Sydney Morning Herald - Fergus Hunter and Jennifer Drake - June 9, 2020Women who rely on access to early childhood services to go to work and the highly feminised childcare workforce stand to lose the most from the government's decision to reintroduce fees and end JobKeeper wage subsidies for the sector. That's the warning from childcare advocates...
Free childcare doesn’t suit the Coalition’s ideology – we get what we voted for
The Guardian - Lisa Bryant - June 9, 2020The government’s decision to bring back fees will hurt the predominantly female childcare educators and mothers most. History will remember parts of Covid-19 Australia fondly, I suspect. Like the way public policy decisions were stripped free of ideological bias and policy that actually worked...
Childcare providers call for activity test review as free childcare nears an end
Herald sun - Sophie Elsworth, Tamsin Rose - June 9, 2020Parents receiving the emergency childcare package due to job loss during the coronavirus pandemic will unlikely be able to cover fees once they start again, childcare providers warn. Education Minister Dan Tehan pointed to attendance rates rising to 74 per cent of pre-crisis levels as driving...
The measures put in place to prop up Australia's childcare system were a chance to fix the system
The Canberra Times - Editorial - June 9, 2020It was, all too briefly, a glimpse at what parenting would look like if childcare were free. For those still working, the April 2 announcement was a temporary weight off the shoulders, a lessening of the burden of household spending, a chance to save a bit of money. For those in job strife and kids too young ...
Dan Tehan can't turn back the childcare clock
The Sydney Morning Herald - Georgie Dent - June 9, 2020Back in April the Prime Minister spoke these words: "This virus is going to take enough from Australians without putting Australian parents in that position of having to choose between the economic wellbeing of their family or the care ...
