Child Care News
Daddy day care
Sydney Morning Herald - MJ Angel - May 14, 2013The number of stay-at-home-dads in Australia is on the rise. There's the hit TV show House Husbands, daddy bloggers, websites, a plethora of DIY daddy guides and 'dad-vertising'. Is this becoming the new norm or have we as a society attached unfair and unrealistic stereotypes to...
Arena to list $240m fund after raising
The Australian - Sarah Danckert - May 14, 2013The raising will be used to provide a $20m buyback for existing investors in the Arena Childcare Property Fund, which has been frozen since mid-2008 and at one time counted collapsed childcare services provider ABC Learning as a major tenant. New shares in the rebadged Arena REIT...
Eddy Groves leaving for Canada, despite being a 'flight risk'
The Australian - May 13, 2013A COURT has given bankrupt childcare boss Eddy Groves permission to make a fresh start in Canada, despite serious questions about his financial activities in the past five years. The possibility that the former ABC Learning Centres boss might turn fugitive like failed businessman...
Daycare fee hikes hit 80pc of clients
The Australian - Patricia Karvelas - May 13, 2013MORE than 80 per cent of parents with children in care have been hit by fee increases in the past year and almost 90 per cent said they would vote for a party that committed to making childcare more affordable and accessible. The Australian Childcare Alliance, which represents 70 per cent...
Oh baby, this is expensive
Sun Herald - Sylvia Pennington - May 12, 2013It's Mother's Day - a good time to weigh up the costs of a new mouth to feed. 'OMG, we're having a baby!' …Once the initial shock abates, expectant couples have a slew of financial decisions and tasks to work through, budgets to draft and bills to pay. For 29-year-old media project manager...
Tony Abbott backs No Jab, No Play campaign
The Sunday Telegraph - Jane Hansen - May 12, 2013A TONY Abbott-led government will crack down on people who choose not to vaccinate their children by supporting childcare centres' right to turn away children who are not immunised and by reviewing family benefit payments to vaccine refusers. In response to The Sunday Telegraph...
Nuts to ignorant hippies
The Sunday Telegraph - Claire Harvey - May 12, 2013PEANUT butter bad, whooping cough and polio good. That's the inescapable message parents are hearing at the childcare centres of Sydney. It's not the childcare centres' fault - but it has to change. Taking a nut bar for play lunch is strictly forbidden at most childcare facilities, to...
Immunisation debate splits communities
The Sunday Telegraph - Jane Hansen - May 12, 2013IT'S A tale of two country towns. Both are set in rolling green hills, both have populations of a few thousand and each has a unique position on the state's immunisation table. Bargo, in the southern highlands, has the highest immunisation rate at 100 per cent, according to the National...
Queensland childcare reforms to hit families with higher costs
Courier Mail - Kris Crane - May 11, 2013QUEENSLAND families will be slugged with increased childcare costs as the industry struggles to meet new reforms. From January 2014, long-day care facilities will require an early childhood teacher to be in attendance and at least 50 per cent of staff to have - or be working towards...
Rolling back government handouts won't be easy
The Australian - Judith Sloan - May 11, 2013Take also the case of childcare. Many voters have had children and gone out to work without any assistance from the taxpayer. Admittedly, the real cost of childcare was lower because the government had not begun the long march of over-regulation, which dramatically has driven up...
Prove vaccinations or no enrolment
NEWS.com.au - Sue Dunlevy - May 11, 2013PARENTS will face tough new hurdles if they want to enroll unvaccinated children at school, under a crackdown being planned by Health Minister Tanya Plibersek. Making the improvement of vaccination rates a national priority, the minister says it time for a "rigorous" national policy...
Sydney's childcare crisis
7News Sydney - Chris Maher - May 10, 2013Plans are being drawn up to ease Sydney''s crippling shortage of childcare centres. While some suburbs have dozens of children waiting for each vacancy - centres are becoming more expensive to set up, with some built in the wrong areas. Like many working mothers Linda Scott she's...
Former chief financial officer James Black in court over collapse of childcare group ABC Learning Centres
Courier Mail - Liam Walsh - May 10, 2013A FORMER chief financial officer of ABC Learning Centres has faced criminal charges relating to the collapsed childcare chain. James Black, the former CFO, appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court this morning on three charges following an investigation by the corporate watchdog...
Child care and parental leave: where the parties stand
ABC News - Naomi Woodley - May 10, 2013Child care and paid parental leave are major issues in which everyone has a stake, from parents and families, to employers and business groups, to governments and taxpayers. How should Australia balance the personal needs of families and the national benefits of productivity? What...
How can we value Abbott's leave scheme when we don't value child care?
Sydney Morning Herald – Stephanie Peatling – May 10, 2013Timing is a wonderful thing. Mother's Day is on Sunday and has had its usual build up via patronising advertisements and stories in which people talk about the enormous sacrifices their mothers made for them – all in exchange for an annual gift of a pair of flannelette pyjamas…
