Speaker 1: When you meet parents of children five and under, they
Speaker 1: usually do have some difficulty in getting the care they
Speaker 1: need for the children.
Speaker 2: They have on the days they need it.
Speaker 1: This is why women in Australia, despite being so well
Speaker 1: educated and highly skilled, are just not represented in the workforce.
Speaker 2: The way men are. This is a structural barrier.
Speaker 1: And my husband and I were really struck at the
Speaker 1: time by the fact that there just wasn't anything we
Speaker 1: could do individually to change it.
Speaker 2: It was clear to us that there wasn't an easy fix.
Speaker 3: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven am.
Speaker 3: There's no nice way to put it. Child care is stuffed.
Speaker 3: Just to ask anyone with kids, it's prohibitively expensive. Getting
Speaker 3: the days you're after is like winning the lottery. And
Speaker 3: then even if you do get some kind of government subsidy,
Speaker 3: you have the pleasure and joy of hours of your
Speaker 3: life on the phone to Centealek and trying to sort
Speaker 3: through the reams of paperwork. We're at a critical point though,
Speaker 3: where the government is promising a huge overhaul and the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister just said he's open to reducing the cost
Speaker 3: to just ten dollars per kid per day. Today the
Speaker 3: Parenthood's Georgie Danton, why the system's so broken and the
Speaker 3: Center for Policy Development's cuto born on one way to
Speaker 3: fix it. It's Wednesday, June nineteenth, Georgie. People who have
Speaker 3: kids get used to this thing where you have to
Speaker 3: put your baby down on a waiting list for a
Speaker 3: childcare service before it's even been born. That's what happened
Speaker 3: in my area. I live in a childcare oasis arratively,
Speaker 3: and it's still like that. We all kind of think
Speaker 3: it's normal and get used to it, but actually, like
Speaker 3: that's not normal at all, is it.
Speaker 2: No, it's not.
Speaker 1: Look some people are really lucky to live in an
Speaker 1: area and have care when they need it, and certainly
Speaker 1: I do know there are Australians who are in that
Speaker 1: fortunate position. I know myself that when my husband and
Speaker 1: I had our first child, we don't have family.
Speaker 2: Who live in Sydney.
Speaker 1: We just assumed that we could easily find a spot
Speaker 1: for her on the days that we needed and it
Speaker 1: was an actual nightmare and it took us about four
Speaker 1: months to find a position for her and the only
Speaker 1: place we could get was in the CBD that neither
Speaker 1: my husband or I.
Speaker 2: Worked in a CBD, so we had to take her.
Speaker 1: Into the city by bus and then sort of make
Speaker 1: our way to our own places of work. That was
Speaker 1: sort of twenty minutes outside of the CBD and that
Speaker 1: was thirteen years ago, and it was one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five dollars a day, So even with the childcare subsidy,
Speaker 1: we were spending more on our day care fees than
Speaker 1: we were paying on rent, which in a city like
Speaker 1: Sydney is pretty impressive because it is an expensive place.
Speaker 1: But really that was part of the experience I had
Speaker 1: that I guess put me on a path where I
Speaker 1: was very keen to advocate for this to be different.
Speaker 3: What are the major structural problems as you see them?
Speaker 1: So we know that for parents in Australia they struggle
Speaker 1: with two main issues when it comes to early childhood
Speaker 1: education and care, and they are being able to access
Speaker 1: care that is suitable and then being able to afford
Speaker 1: that care.
Speaker 2: And we have got a situation.
Speaker 1: So it's estimated that thirty five percent of families in
Speaker 1: Australia live in a childcare desert, which is described as
Speaker 1: a place where there are three or more children for
Speaker 1: every available position within a twenty minute drive, and it's
Speaker 1: not surprising that childcare deserts are more sort of congregated
Speaker 1: in rural, regional, remote areas, but it's interesting that there
Speaker 1: are actually childcare deserts in every Sea capital city as well.
Speaker 1: And then the other issue that a lot of families
Speaker 1: face is that the cost of care is quite prohibitive.
Speaker 1: So we do have a childcare subsidy, which means parents
Speaker 1: are entitled to some of the fee being subsidized by
Speaker 1: the federal government.
Speaker 2: But for a lot of.
Speaker 1: Families they're paying out of pocket more than one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a day. And if you've got two children, you
Speaker 1: can see how quickly that adds up. And so at
Speaker 1: the parenthood we often describe it as the sort of
Speaker 1: cost of working crisis because a lot of families. We
Speaker 1: polled about twelve hundred families with children under six in October,
Speaker 1: and eighty five percent said that they need two incomes
Speaker 1: to meet the cost of living, but a huge proportion
Speaker 1: also said that the cost of childcare is so high
Speaker 1: that they're not working as much as they would.
Speaker 2: Like to work. You can see how the cost.
Speaker 1: Of living crisis meets the cost of working crisis for
Speaker 1: families and it creates a huge amount of financial pressure.
Speaker 3: So where did it all go so wrong? How do
Speaker 3: we end up in this position?
Speaker 1: We have got a really fragmented early childhood education and
Speaker 1: care system in Australia, and I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: people would make the point, and they do make this
Speaker 1: point that if you had a blank piece of paper,
Speaker 1: you would not draw the system that we've.
Speaker 4: Got now, I said by a thoughtful municipal council. It
Speaker 4: provides a baby parking station where mothers can keep their
Speaker 4: offspring while they do the weekly shopping or pay a
Speaker 4: visit to the dentist. You can leave your baby body
Speaker 4: r or by the day, but not permanently.
Speaker 1: You know, Once upon a time, childcare was really only
Speaker 1: something that single parents needed, single mothers in particular, and
Speaker 1: so there were sort of limited options available.
Speaker 5: One third of Australia's five and a half million workforce
Speaker 5: are women. Sixty percent of those are married women, which
Speaker 5: doesn't mean they're liberated. It could mean that they work
Speaker 5: one hundred hours a week in two jobs, one underpaid
Speaker 5: and the other at home not paid at all.
Speaker 1: And then that definitely changed in the eighties and the
Speaker 1: early nineties when women working really changed the workforce changed dramatically.
Speaker 5: Hello and welcome to the very first edition of Women
Speaker 5: on the Line, the national program of women's news.
Speaker 3: And current affairs.
Speaker 2: Things such as childcare is a classic example.
Speaker 3: In the end, women end up having to take on
Speaker 3: the responsibility for childcare, and so in the end women
Speaker 3: take it up as an issue as well.
Speaker 1: There was a radical shift in the number of women
Speaker 1: working and that has necessitated early education and care being
Speaker 1: needed more.
Speaker 6: Our children's Services program will provide for the very needs
Speaker 6: of children and is essential to enable parents to play
Speaker 6: a fuller part in our society. We will allocate twenty
Speaker 6: million dollars extra for childcare in our first budget.
Speaker 1: And we have got a whole lot of sort of
Speaker 1: complexities in what a family can have access to when
Speaker 1: they have a baby. And we also do have a
Speaker 1: situation where you have got some preschools that are run,
Speaker 1: you've got family daycare, you've got long day care services,
Speaker 1: you've got a for profit market, you've got a not
Speaker 1: for profit market. But it's not meeting the needs of
Speaker 1: enough children and enough families the current system that we have.
Speaker 1: So some works that has been done recently by the
Speaker 1: Center for Policy Development proposes a new model where every
Speaker 1: child is entitled to access at least three days a
Speaker 1: week of quality early learning. This would be a radically
Speaker 1: different system for children, but also for parents and families.
Speaker 3: After the break, what a reimagine childcare system might look like,
Speaker 3: cad Oburn, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: The way we do childcare in this country in the
Speaker 3: future is being decided at the moment, and you've been
Speaker 3: looking at whether there is a chance to totally reimagine
Speaker 3: the system. Tell me more about that.
Speaker 7: I am very confident that we'll see something happen here.
Speaker 7: The Prime Minister and many of his ministers have made
Speaker 7: it really clear that this is a priority for his
Speaker 7: government and they clearly want to leave a legacy.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 8: The principle is very simple. Early education is vital for
Speaker 8: children's future, and childcare is an essential service for families,
Speaker 8: but as well for the economy.
Speaker 7: We have already seen some movement with a commitment to
Speaker 7: wage increases for early childhood workers, and more their commitment
Speaker 7: to supporting families through changes to paid parental.
Speaker 8: Leave and the mission we will set for the Productivity Commission,
Speaker 8: which will be asked to report in the first term
Speaker 8: of a labor government is to investigate moving to a
Speaker 8: ninety percent subsidy for childcare for every Australian family.
Speaker 7: And the reports from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Speaker 7: and the Productivity Commission should be giving them really concrete
Speaker 7: recommendations to build from.
Speaker 9: A major policy reform like Medicare, superannuation and free public education.
Speaker 9: Childcare currently twice as expensive in Australia compared to other
Speaker 9: developed nations, so.
Speaker 7: What we're wanting to do is reposition the system to
Speaker 7: be universal, like schooling or medicare, where all children have
Speaker 7: access and those who need greater support really receive it.
Speaker 7: So we're recommending a number of reforms to create what
Speaker 7: we see is a really truly universal system. So it
Speaker 7: includes a legislated entitlement for all children to access a
Speaker 7: minimum of three days of education in care a week
Speaker 7: at a low set fee or at no cost, so
Speaker 7: a low set fee could be something like ten dollars
Speaker 7: a day. We also recommend shifting to what we're calling
Speaker 7: a child centered funding model, so the current childcare subsidy
Speaker 7: would cease and our child centered funding model would be established.
Speaker 2: For all children.
Speaker 7: There would be greater investment in Aboriginal community controlled sector
Speaker 7: and ensuring that services are inclusive and culturally responsive environments,
Speaker 7: that they offer services where all children and families feel welcomed.
Speaker 10: And comfortable In mind, though, what do you make of
Speaker 10: this report out today? It's from the Center for Policy
Speaker 10: Development Childcare three days of free childcare for disadvantage families
Speaker 10: others thirty bucks.
Speaker 8: Well, this is an important contribution to the policity. Bat
Speaker 8: Web made child care cheaper for more than one million
Speaker 8: Australian families. And we know that early education is so
Speaker 8: important for our youngest Australians to develop their social skills
Speaker 8: and to prepare for school, and that it also helps
Speaker 8: with productivity by allowing mums and dads to be back
Speaker 8: at work if they choose to do so.
Speaker 3: So all of this sounds great, but also really expensive.
Speaker 3: Can we afford it?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 7: We understand that it would cost probably around seven billion
Speaker 7: per year once fully implemented, which is in line with
Speaker 7: what was costed in the Productivity Commission. But this doesn't
Speaker 7: take into account the long term savings and returns from
Speaker 7: our model. So we've estimated that three billion dollars in
Speaker 7: additional annual tax revenue and seven billion dollars in an
Speaker 7: annual GDP increases from parents working more hours incentivized by
Speaker 7: free or low cost early childhood education and care. So
Speaker 7: we do need to acknowledge that whatever we do is
Speaker 7: going to require upfront investments in the future of Australians
Speaker 7: children and families. But the other choices that we continue
Speaker 7: to spend thirteen billion dollars annually on a system that
Speaker 7: is failing Australian children and families. But we also just
Speaker 7: know that the benefits, the learning and development benefits that
Speaker 7: children get from their participation that then carries through to
Speaker 7: the rest of their lives. And so it really is
Speaker 7: so critical that this is really invested in and seen
Speaker 7: as such a critical time for both children and their
Speaker 7: development but also to support their families.
Speaker 3: Finally, Georgie, we have this Productivity Commission report coming down
Speaker 3: pretty soon and we know the Labor Government is planning
Speaker 3: to make some big changes in this area. Just give
Speaker 3: me a sense of how significant this moment is. Could
Speaker 3: you have imagine this when you started down this lobbying path,
Speaker 3: however many years ago?
Speaker 1: So I have been the CEO of the Parenthood for
Speaker 1: just on four years, and if four years ago, someone
Speaker 1: had said to me that we would have a prime
Speaker 1: minister saying that universal access to high quality early childhood
Speaker 1: education and.
Speaker 2: Care is a legacy that he would like to leave.
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have believed that, Like genuinely,
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have believed that we have
Speaker 1: had over the last couple of years, we have seen
Speaker 1: a really radical shift in the recognition not just from
Speaker 1: the federal government but also from all of the states
Speaker 1: and territories, and that is labor and liberal state governments
Speaker 1: saying we're not doing the early years right and recognizing
Speaker 1: that for both the educational development of children but also
Speaker 1: for the full economic participation of women, we need to
Speaker 1: get the early years right.
Speaker 2: And so it is a really exciting time and.
Speaker 1: It is rare to be on the precipice of something
Speaker 1: where you can really genuinely say this would be once
Speaker 1: in a generation change.
Speaker 3: Georgie, thanks so much for your time and for all
Speaker 3: your work in this space.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Also in the news today, Victoria is set to raise
Speaker 3: the age of criminal responsibility from ten years old, meaning
Speaker 3: children that young will no longer be able to be arrested,
Speaker 3: charged or detained. The new age of criminal responsibility will
Speaker 3: be twelve, with Labor Premier just cinter Allen promising to
Speaker 3: introduce stronger consequences for serious, high risk and repeat youth offenders.
Speaker 3: And the Reserve Bank has left interest rates on hold,
Speaker 3: revealing it now does not believe that inflation will come
Speaker 3: back down to regular levels for some time. The board
Speaker 3: said it wo or anything in a rout, with the
Speaker 3: risk growing that the next change in interest rates could
Speaker 3: be a hike rather than a cut, according to analysts.
Speaker 3: I'm Ashelin McGee. Thanks for your company. We'll see you
Speaker 3: again tomorrow morning.