Child Care News
Hidden costs of childcare
The Australian - Natasha Bita - February 15, 2014PRICIER than private schooling and with waiting lists just as long, childcare has taken on mortgage-like proportions in Australia's big cities. Some centres now charge more than $160 a day for daycare on Sydney's north shore, where babies tend to sprout into toddlers before they reach...
Indigenous childcare faces funding crisis
The Australian - Patricia Karvelas - February 15, 2014ABORIGINAL and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled childcare centres are fighting to keep and expand their funding, pleading with the Abbott government and members of the new indigenous council to boost their reach to help vulnerable indigenous children. The Secretariat...
Rebates for in-home care already exist: Ellis
The Australian - Patricia Karvelas - February 15, 2014LABOR has called on the Productivity Commission to urge the government to tell families they can receive childcare benefits for in-home nanny-style care under legislation that has been deliberately kept quiet. Labor's childcare spokeswoman and former childcare minister Kate Ellis told the...
First Jewish childcare centre hopes to attract more Jewish families to Canberra
Canberra Times - Fleta Page - February 15, 2014Canberra's first Jewish day-care opened this week, a first step in creating the "Jewish infrastructure" needed to attract more Jewish families to the region while servicing the 1200-strong local community. The Gan Yisroel community and childcare centre was funded by Melbourne...
Childcare subsidies too complicated, need to be simplified: report
ABC News (AM) - Norman Hermant - February 14, 2014Australian's maze of childcare subsidies is a mess that baffles even those who work in it. Now a new report is recommending sweeping changes to the childcare benefit and childcare rebate schemes. The report commissioned by the advocacy organisation Early Childhood Australia and...
French lessons in providing quality preschool education
Financial Review - Claire Lundberg - February 14, 2014I started the new year in Paris with a mission: to enroll my daughter in école maternelle, France's universal preschool program. This required a visit to our local city hall. As I walked across the park that sits between it and my apartment, I felt a little emotional - Sophia had just turned two in...
Home is where the harm is: care lobby
The Australian - Natasha Bita - February 14, 2014THE family home is not safe or clean enough for nannies to look after young children, private daycare operators have told the federal government's childcare inquiry. In a bid to stamp out growing support for taxpayer subsidies to au pairs and nannies, the private centres have claimed...
PEP's Koczkar swaps private equity for social finance
Financial Review - Marianna Papadakis - February 14, 2014Rob Koczkar, the former managing director of Pacific Equity Partners, is turning his back on private equity to head up non-profit social investment organisation Social Ventures Australia. Mr Koczkar spent 15 years at Australia’s largest private equity firm before leaving a year ago to pursue...
Bill to to allow childcare centres to reject unvaccinated children defeated
Brisbane Times - Amy Remeikis - February 14, 2014Everytime Chief Health Office Jeanette Young fronts the media to talk about a disease outbreak, Opposition MP Jo-Ann Miller will see LNP blue. Ms Miller's bill to keep unvaccinated children out of child care was, as predicted, defeated in parliament this week. The parliamentary committee...
Woodside Commits $20M to Early Childhood Development
Pro Bono - February 13, 2014Australia's largest oil and gas company, Woodside, has announced it will contribute up to $20 million over 10 years to support programs and Not for Profit organisations that focus on early childhood development. Launching the company's new social investment initiative, The Woodside...
Action needed on Qld vaccination rates: MP
Nine News - February 13, 2014The Queensland government is risking deadly disease epidemics by not excluding unvaccinated children from child care centres, a Palmer party MP says. The Liberal National Party on Wednesday night rejected an opposition bill that would have allowed child care providers to ban children...
It's time to make childcare tax deductible
Women's Agenda - Robert Jeremenko - February 13, 2014There is much debate on the topic of how to ensure women who wish to go back to work are able to do so without significant hardship or difficulty. Such debate often includes discussion on how to eradicate positive financial incentives for women to stay out of the workforce. It's here that the...
Boy, 4, escapes childcare centre
7News Melbourne - Jacqueline Felgate - February 12, 2014Security cameras have captured the moment a four-year-old boy escaped from a Melbourne childcare centre and was left to wander unsupervised into a car park. In the video, obtained exclusively by 7News, Mohammad Al-Lakkiss can be seen running through Oak Park Children's...
State rejects no-immunisation, no-childcare plan
The Age - Kate Hagan - February 12, 2014Health Minister David Davis has rejected an opposition plan to allow childcare centres to turn away children who are not fully immunised, saying educating parents is the key to lifting coverage rates. If re-elected in November, Mr Davis said, the government would set a target for 95 per cent of...
G8 Education has 'significant opportunities': CIMB
Financial Review - Sarah Thompson - February 11, 2014G8 Education may have just added 63 childcare centres to its portfolio of now nearly 300 centres but its domestic market share is still only 4.7 per cent. It's a good thing, according to CIMB, which has retained its "add" recommendation on the stock, citing "significant opportunities". It was well...
