The Greens should revisit its childcare policy after this week voting with Labor to freeze indexation on the child care rebate and substantially reducing it.
The Greens supported the Gillard Government’s Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Budget Measures) Bill 2010 in the senate, which sought to cap the 50 per cent rebate on childcare fees at $7500.
Senator Nash, who represents the Shadow Childcare Minister in the senate, said the rebate had risen to $8179 but now that it will be capped and no longer indexed, it means families will be out of pocket of up to $700 a year.
“It is an $86 million budget savings measure to fund the administration of the new National Quality Standards for early childhood education. True to its form, the Gillard government raids whatever it can put its mitts on to pay for its promises because it has wasted so much money, like $80 million spent on administering an emissions trading scheme that doesn’t even exist,” she said.
“Despite her protests about the government’s intentions earlier this year, the Greens childcare spokesperson Senator Hanson-Young voted with Labor to cap the rebate. She briefly appeared in the senate chamber when the bill was being dealt with to withdraw amendments to the bill that she moved earlier in the year. It’s a far cry from her position then.”
In her second reading speech on the legislation in February, Senator Hanson-Young said:
“It was not good enough for the government simply to freeze the indexation for child care at the 2008-09 levels and not consider doing whatever they could to ease the burden on working families—those families who of course rely everyday on the childcare support measures.”
“While I find it perplexing that this bill will only save us $86.3 million over four years, it could cost some parents upwards of $1,000 extra per year. We want childcare standards in this country to be raised.”
“If we see a freezing of the indexation, as suggested in this bill by this government, with no recourse as to how we make thing easier for parents, we will see parents being forced to pay higher childcare fees. They will be struggling to keep their kids in places that have better quality care and resorting to care that is substandard, simply because they cannot afford the best-quality care that their children deserve.”
“….Trying to find budget savings in child care and early childhood education services just does not make sense. It is one of the places you would not touch if you were a government who believed in training and educating, in caring for our future generations, for our future schoolchildren and for our future workers, in ensuring that, right from the word go in those really formative years of zero to five, we give our young Australians the best support and the best chance possible. But of course this government has ignored that problem, has ignored that vision, and decided, ‘We will find some budget savings with the childcare rebate.’ I do not think that is good enough.”
The Greens own childcare policy states “All Australian families are entitled to access high quality, affordable childcare when they need it.”
“Senator Hanson-Young must explain to the thousands of families why the Greens deserted them to support the government and how they must now find the extra money to pay for childcare costs,” Senator Nash said.
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