Child Care News
Mixed response to plan to delay childcare reform
The Age - Daniella Miletic - September 10, 2013Childcare affordability will not be eased by a Coalition plan to delay requirements for centres to employ higher-qualified workers and boost the number staff per child, a peak industry body has warned. As childcare providers examined the Coalition's childcare policy, released last Thursday...
Telstra SA Business Woman Award finalists announced
The Advertiser - Julian Swallow - September 9, 2013CHERYL Shigrov has built a thriving business from looking after a parent's most precious cargo. The founder of Precious Cargo Education runs four playgroup, transition, preschool and childcare centres at St Peters, Myrtle Bank, Westbourne Park and Lockleys, and has 200 staff. Each centre...
Why 'traditional' family will be overtaken by next year
Sun-Herald - Cosima Marriner - September 8, 2013The number of couples without children will overtake the number of traditional nuclear families for the first time next year, as couples increasingly delay having babies and the general population ages. Social researcher Mark McCrindle described it as a changing of the generational guard...
Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott's 100 day fix-it plan for the nation
The Sunday Telegraph - Samantha Maiden - September 7, 2013CHILDCARE. The Liberal leader has pledged to ask the Productivity Commission to launch an inquiry into childcare to consider how it can be made more flexible, affordable and accessible. This will be a "priority" of the new government and the Productivity Commission will report within 12...
Navis Capital swoops on Guardian Childcare
The Australian - Bridget Carter - September 7, 2013THE $US3 billion ($3.27bn) private equity firm Navis Capital has swooped on Australia's third largest private childcare operator, Guardian Childcare Alliance, in what is believed to be one of few major deals in the space since the buyout of ABC Learning. Navis bought the majority of the...
Childcare workers fear fund knockback
The Australian - September 7, 2013EIGHTY per cent of childcare providers who have applied for funding to increase the wages of their teachers are likely to be knocked back under an Abbott government, after the Coalition revealed it would suspend and reallocate the $300 million fund created by Labor. The childcare sector was...
Late Coalition policy seeks to reduce childcare staff numbers
The Age - Dan Harrison - September 6, 2013A Coalition government would seek to slow or abandon requirements for childcare centres to lift staff numbers in child-to-staff ratios and employ more highly qualified workers. The Coalition posted its childcare policy on its website late on Thursday, without issuing a press release or...
Company chiefs call for means testing of paid parental leave
The Australian - Andrew White and Damon Kitney - September 6, 2013COMPANY directors and chief executives have rounded on the federal Coalition's $5.5-billion-a-year paid parental leave policy, warning it should at least be means tested and would make little difference in helping women to return to work. In a "captain's call" that has provoked criticism...
Gun, ammunition found in Sydney childcare centre
Sydney Morning Herald - Megan Levy - September 6, 2013A handgun and 58 rounds of ammunition have been found hidden in a garden at a childcare centre in Sydney''s south-west, police say. Ballistics experts are examining the weapon, which was found hidden in the centre in Greenacre on Thursday night, to determine whether it can be linked to any...
Fathers should take a bigger childcare role
ABC The Drum - Rhiannon Cook - September 5, 2013Want to know how to solve the parental leave dilemma? Create policies that include fathers too, writes Rhiannon Cook In the debate over which party has the most vote-worthy parental leave scheme, the role of fathers has been largely ignored. The focus has been instead on how much...
No extra funding for nanny rebate
The Australian - Patricia Karvelas - September 05, 2013THE Coalition has conceded any extension of the childcare rebate to nannies under an Abbott government would not be matched by a boost in funding to the subsidy scheme as a whole. The admission in answers to a questionnaire circulated to both sides of politics by the nation's...
Childcare trumps parental leave as the bigger policy issue for parents and employers
BRW - Caitlin Fitzsimmons - September 4, 2013The evidence is unequivocal: all parents and their employers really want is steady, long-term childcare so they can play their full part in the workforce, while parental leave is a much lower priority...
Kevin Rudd's parental leave, child care comparison incorrect
ABC News - Fact Check - September 4, 2013Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the Coalition's paid parental leave scheme would cost more than childcare payments to families. "It is $22 billion," Mr Rudd said on the ABC's Q&A program on September 2. "It is more than we spend for the entire nation on childcare support for all those...
Work/Family
The Age - September 4, 2013The policies: where the parties stand. Ready reckoner: the policy pitstop. Labor. Labor has introduced a paid parental leave scheme, paid at the minimum wage for 18 weeks after the birth of a child, with another two weeks for partners. It also increased the rebate for out-of-pocket...
Parents face long wait for childcare places as city employment increases
The Mercury - Michelle Paine September 3, 2013HOBART will face an increasing shortage of childcare as city employment grows, says Lady Gowrie Tasmania chief executive Ros Cornish. Lady Gowrie's Hobart centres were already turning away people who wanted places for older babies and full-time care, she said. "We have a real log-jam...
