Child Care News
Govt boost to childcare pays off for parents
Canberra Times - Lisa Cox - April 9, 2012The number of long-day care places in the territory grew by more than 500 in a little over a year, according to new figures produced by the ACT government. Data from the Community Services Directorate shows Canberra parents struggling with the city's waiting lists for childcare...
Work-based creches ease pressure to find childcare places
The Courier-Mail - Jason Tin - April 9, 2012AS working mums and dads struggle to find childcare places, some businesses are opening their doors to their staff's children in an effort to ease the strain. Mother-of-four Tanya Titman is among those investing in office creches to help out stressed parents. Her Mt Gravatt business...
Parents feel the pinch as childcare squeezed by new federal laws
The Courier-Mail - Daniel Knowles - April 07, 2012PARENTS face a tougher fight for childcare places - and a bigger bill when they find a centre - as tough new federal laws squeeze 8400 places from the system. The cost of child care will rise by up to $13 a day per child as rules requiring an increased staff-to-child ratio are enforced...
Childcare costs ruining career dreams
Herald Sun - Elissa Doherty - April 05, 2012A QUARTER of working mums are financially worse off by returning to work and putting their children in childcare, a survey shows. The findings, on the heels of widespread childcare fee rises this year, have heightened fears women could be forced to sacrifice their career dreams.
The forces are with Abbott on flexible childcare
The Australian - Paul Kelly - April 04, 2012THE Labor Party's obsession with destroying Tony Abbott's credibility has backfired given Labor's overkill on Abbott's call for the Productivity Commission to assess the option of funding childcare at home. Abbott has made an astute pitch. There are hundreds of thousands of women who will agree with him...
More rich families get childcare rebate
The Australian - Patricia Karvelas - April 04, 2012CLOSE to 17,000 families earning more than $150,000 a year are projected to receive the full childcare rebate of $7500 this financial year. And the number of high-income families claiming the non-means-tested rebate of 50 per cent in part or in full has risen by a third over the past three years...
We’re hardly the nanny state when it comes to decent childcare
The Conversation - Eva Cox - April 03, 2012The Productivity Commission is an inappropriate adviser on how best to fund nannies – because many of the problems of the current child care funding model is a result of its market focus. Good services for children must meet much wider criteria than simply improving the productivity of their parents at work...
Our childcare can't cut it
Herald Sun - Susie O'Brien - April 03, 2012POLITICIANS should stop playing the class card and extend the 50 per cent childcare rebate to those who need nannies. I don't mean those who want nannies, like doctors' wives playing tennis, but those who actually need them, like shift workers who can't use regular childcare centres...
Nanny state makes brats of us all
Herald Sun - Pete Shenton - April 03, 2012SHOULD Australian taxpayers, as Tony Abbott suggests, really pay towards the care of children of people with enough money to pay for a nanny to live in their house and look after their kids? My initial response to this is "you have to be joking". In Britain, this would be such a class-loaded issue...
Mums trapped by lack of options
The Australian - Sussan Ley - April 03, 2012IN 18 months, I've witnessed the same evidence in every state and territory. From inner city to the suburbs, country towns or the outback, the stories may differ but the theme is the same: mums cannot get the childcare they need, at the price they can afford, that allows them to work the hours they want...
Nanny state: solutions just a visa away
Financial Review - Emma-Kate Symons - April 2, 2012When it comes to early childhood education and the professional care of infants, Australia is, according to study after study, bottom of the rich-world heap. Our pre-school system is a "glorified playgroup" at best, and we have woefully inadequate quality daycare for children under the age of two...
Nanny debate demands robust exchanges
Financial Review - Anna Freeman - April 2, 2012Why does it matter whether the childcare is provided in a centre or in a home? Surely what matters is that the care is provided safely and that parents can get back to work (and back to paying taxes) when they choose. It is hard to accept that regulation of the sector is an insurmountable barrier...
Childcare rebate safe from means test for now
The Australian - Sue Dunlevy - April 02, 2012JULIA Gillard has given the strongest indication yet that the government has rejected proposals to means-test the childcare rebate to help balance the budget, pointing to its huge increase in spending on childcare as proof of her "bona fides". However, she has hinted that the government is poised...
Explainer: Why subsidising nannies is complicated
The Age - Misha Schubert - April 1, 2012There are a hell of a lot of women out there turning themselves inside out each day to combine babies and paid work. Some of them struggle along using excellent formal childcare even though the hours don't fit well with their jobs. Some pay nannies to do pick-ups. Some use nannies instead of a childcare centre...
Nanny plan to 'sucker in' mums
Sydney Morning Herald - Misha Schubert - April 1, 2012TONY Abbott has no intention of subsidising nannies and his vow to ask the Productivity Commission to cost it but not charge taxpayers any more was just an attempt at "suckering women", said the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. But the Opposition Leader hit back, accusing Labor of "spin and relentless negativity"…
