Child Care News
Geelong childcare support: 10,000 families could miss out on more than $15 million
Geelong Advertiser - Harrison Tippet - November 14, 2016ALMOST 10,000 Greater Geelong and Surf Coast families could soon miss out on more than $15 million in childcare support, a not-for-profit has warned. Goodstart Early Learning yesterday warned 9541 families in the federal electorates of Corio and Corangamite would miss out on $15.6...
Jones calls out federal hypocrisy over funding of childcare assessments
Courier Mail - Kelmeny Fraser - November 14, 2016A STOUSH has erupted over serious backlogs in checking standards at 300 Queensland childcare operations more than six years after an agreement to introduce a national scheme. State Education Minister Kate Jones has increased attacks on the Federal Government over its funding contribution...
Private equity buyers to home in on health, leisure, tech assets: Minter Ellison
Financial Review - Joyce Moullakis - November 14, 2016The report also notes that while the vocational training industry has been affected by regulatory changes the early education and childcare sectors remain ripe for activity. "Childcare has been an active sector, with opportunities for further consolidation and a favourable government...
More preschool children able to learn foreign language under expanded ELLA program
The Mercury - Loretta Lohberger and Anne Mather - November 14, 2016TASMANIAN children will have the chance to begin learning a foreign language before they start school under an expanded Early Learning Languages Australia program. The Federal Government will today announce applications for the program will be open to all Australian preschools. The...
Boom time for corporate childcare in Australia
Sydney Morning Herald - Kelsey Munro - November 13, 2016Parents paying up to $190 a day for childcare places are propping up $1 billion in profits for private childcare operators and their landlords, with questions being asked about who is really benefiting from billions in taxpayer subsidies for the sector. Eight years after the spectacular collapse of Eddy...
One in four childcare centres fails to make grade
The Courier Mail - Trenton Akers & Kelmeny Fraser - November 13, 2016A QUARTER of the state's childcare operators are failing to meet national standards and hundreds of operators are yet to be rated by inspectors years after the scheme started. Data released by the independent authority overseeing the ratings reveals 605 childcare operators in Queensland failed...
Who profits from Australia's childcare?
Brisbane Times - November 12, 2016Listed long-day care provider G8 Education made an $88.6 million profit in 2015-16. Folkestone Education Trust, the owner of 393 early learning properties here and in New Zealand enjoyed a 20.5 per cent rise in net profits to $106.8 million in 2015 on the back of 5.5 per cent rent hikes the...
Fitzroy Crossing: real human crisis forgotten in debate over rights
The Australian - Paige Taylor & Victoria Laurie - November 8, 2016The Baya Gawiy early learning centre, recognised for transforming the lives of some of the nation's most disadvantaged children, will soon run out of funding and faces closure. Elsia Archer, president of the vast shire of Derby-West Kimberley that covers the town of Fitzroy Crossing, is aghast...
Australia's largest childcare provider pressures Government to speed up plan to boost subsidies
ABC News - Julie Doyle - November 7, 2016The country's largest childcare provider is pressuring the Federal Government to speed up its plan to boost subsidies for working families. The Government's plan to increase subsidies and remove the annual payment cap for most families is scheduled to start in the middle of 2018. But the...
Childcare worker sues for compo claiming lifting children left her 'unable to continue' working
Herald Sun - Peter Mickelborough - November 6, 2016A CHILDCARE worker who claims her job has destroyed her plans to work into her 70s now wants ratepayers to help pay for her forced retirement. Lifting children in and out of cots, comforting them, changing their nappies, helping them on to chairs and playground equipment, assisting them with...
Vaccination rates rise as effects of no jab, no pay policy begin to kick in
Sunday Telegraph - Samantha Maiden - November 6, 2016NEARLY 100,000 families have had childcare rebates and welfare payments suspended or cancelled for failing to vaccinate kids under No Jab, No Pay reforms since January 1. The Sunday Telegraph can reveal an estimated $38 million in welfare payments for Family Tax Benefit A alone have been...
Childcare costs rising three times faster than government rebates
Daily Telegraph - Natasha Bita - November 5, 2016CHILDCARE costs have risen three times faster than government rebates, forcing more than 110,000 families to pay full fees for part of the year. Federal Education Department data revealed hourly fees for long daycare rose 5.4 per cent in the past year, on average, across Australia. But the...
Tragedy of son's death spurs day care battle
The West Australian - Nick Butterly and Elle Farcic - November 5, 2016A Perth couple have called for tougher monitoring of WA's growing family day care sector a year after their two-year-old son drowned in a backyard pool. The plea came as the childcare worker at the centre of the tragedy was fined for breaching rules that led to the drowning. The childcare provider...
We've abandoned gender equality and child welfare in the name of cost-cutting
The Guardian - Cassandra Goldie - November 4, 2016Low-income parents will feel the financial squeeze at every stage of childhood if the government pushes through cuts to family payments and paid parental leave. What was once an effective family payments system – redesigned by the Hawke government to achieve a 30% reduction in child...
Study answers what's best for children - child care or home care
The Courier Mail - Jackie Sinnerton - November 4, 2016CHILDCARE kids are as emotionally and socially healthy as children who are kept at home. Working parents can heave a sigh of relief as research found five-year-olds who went to childcare in their first three years turned out to be happy, stable kids. The five-year European study from the Economic...
