Child Care News
Parents promised cheaper childcare in 2022 Budget Reply
Kidspot - Stacey Hicks - March 31, 2022Families with more than one child under the age of six will receive cheaper childcare, if Labour is elected. Labor says it will deliver cheaper childcare to ‘almost every family’ if elected. During tonight’s 2022 Budget Reply, Anthony Albanese announced that 1.26 million...
Is the budget good for women? The paid parental leave change takes us backwards and childcare costs were ignored
The Conversation - Elizabeth Hill - March 31, 2022Among the many budget papers is the Women’s Budget Statement, a booklet outlining what the federal government is doing for Australian women. This includes A$2.1 billion for measures on domestic violence, women’s health, training and leadership. As Prime Minister...
Why few dads will take up the federal budget paid parental leave offer to be primary carer
ABC News - Nassim Khadem - March 31, 2022The budget changes allow fathers to access parental leave at the same time as any employer-funded leave, the same way mothers can. Before Tuesday night's budget, only the primary carer — typically women — was eligible to take 18 weeks and the secondary carer...
Budget 2022: Wait lists tipped to grow after childcare pay plea falls on deaf ears
The Australian - Natasha Bita and Amanni Siddeek - March 30, 2022Short-staffed daycare centres have warned of longer waiting lists after the number of carer vacancies doubled during the pandemic. Goodstart Early Learning, the nation’s biggest childcare provider, predicted worsening staff shortages as fewer Australians graduate from...
ECEC peak bodies respond to a Budget that holds little promise for the sector
The Sector - Freya Lucas - March 30, 2022Early childhood education and care peak bodies including Early Childhood Australia (ECA), Thrive by Five and the Australian Education Union (AEU) have responded to last night’s Federal Budget, with a consensus that the Budget overlooked key issues for the early...
Everything parents need to know about in the 2022 Federal Budget
Kidspot - Laura Aubusson - March 29, 2022Key policy changes for families include an overhaul of the paid parental leave scheme, a $420 tax break for working Aussies and a one-off $250 payment for welfare recipients and carers. Cash payment of $250 A one-off cash payment of at least $250 is coming for...
The 2018 childcare package was partly designed to help families work more. But the benefits were too modest to matter
The Conversation - Bob Bray, Ben Phillips, Ilan Katz and Matthew Gray - March 29, 2022The federal government introduced the Jobs for Families Child Care Package in July 2018. Then Education Minister Simon Birmingham had said the package would create a “simpler, more affordable, more accessible and more flexible early education and childcare...
Childcare key to boosting workforce: Simson
Financial Review - Sally Patten - March 29, 2022The best way the federal budget could have addressed the labour shortage was to provide more affordable and accessible childcare. The high-profile businesswoman has been calling for free childcare for at least 20 years and noted that countries that have it...
New paid parental leave measures not quite what expectant family wanted
The Sydney Morning Herald - Nicole Precel - March 29, 2022Mark Giliam and Aki Mochizuki have a 20-month-old daughter Ayla and are expecting another baby in just three weeks. But the couple from the bayside Melbourne suburb of Seaford say they have been avoiding childcare because it’s too expensive. Instead, they do...
Psychiatrist discusses the signs your child is thriving in childcare
Kidspot - Dr Kaylene Henderson - March 28, 2022Starting your little one in childcare can feel like such a daunting process. Some of you will have already managed to navigate this emotional minefield (well done you!). But it’s quite likely that some of you are yet to decide on a centre and, having desperately spotted...
Women are left holding the policy baby
Financial Review - Craig Emerson - March 28, 2022Reform of the Child Care Subsidy would ease cost-of-living pressures for working families. It’s not the size of the spend that counts, it’s the quality. Yet federal budgets over the last few years have been dominated by expensive, low-quality spending that ministers and their...
Australian Unity taps into childcare growth with new fund
Commercial Real Estate - Nick Lenaghan - March 28, 2022Wealth manager Australian Unity is making its first foray into the childcare sector, launching this month a new fund, seeded with six facilities worth $30 million, with another 12 centres in due diligence. The Australian Unity Childcare Property Fund aims to expand to $250 million...
‘What does our future look like?’: What families want from the federal budget
The Sydney Morning Herald - Caitlin Fitzsimmons - March 27, 2022For Danielle Johnson in the marginal Sydney seat of Bennelong, the upcoming federal election is the first time she has ever cared about politics. Like many Australian families with young children, Mrs Johnson, 35, works part-time, while her husband Richard, 33, works...
No Australian child should be left stranded in a childcare desert
Canberra Times - Jay Weatherill - March 26, 2022More than one-third of Australians live in a childcare desert. For the first time in Australia, the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University has analysed childcare accessibility by location for children aged zero to four years across the nation - and the findings are stark. The researchers...
Mapping Australia’s childcare blackspots
ABC News - Inga Ting, Alex Palmer and Katia Shatoba - March 24, 2022ike thousands of Australians who turned their backs on pandemic-weary cities over the past two years, Caitlin Wilson and husband Jonathon Peatfield moved to regional NSW to escape the rat race. They had no idea that the competition for child care in bucolic Uralla...
