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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mumma MIA's daily news podcast,

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Speaker 1: The Quickie. Do you live in a childcare desert? A

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Speaker 1: new Productivity Commission report has found that quite a few

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Speaker 1: Aussies do, and the trials they go through to try

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Speaker 1: and secure a spot for their tiny human can end

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Speaker 1: in a stressful return to work if they can indeed

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Speaker 1: return in the capacity they want to at all. Today

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Speaker 1: we find out what parents are going through for daycare

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Speaker 1: and why the Commission doesn't think it impacts our return

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Speaker 1: to work choices at all. But first, here's the letters

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Speaker 1: from the Quikie Newsroom. Wednesday, October sixteenth, The federal government

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Speaker 1: has outlined a range of measures aimed at cracking down

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Speaker 1: on subscription traps that make it difficult and confusing for

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Speaker 1: people to cancel ongoing contracts. The legislation will also target

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Speaker 1: online retailers who force customers to set up accounts and

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Speaker 1: provide unknown necessary information during transactions, as well as tactics

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Speaker 1: such as drip pricing that add hidden fees and dynamic pricing,

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Speaker 1: which can increase the cost of a purchase during a transaction.

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Speaker 1: Deceptive practices like claiming customers only have a limited time

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Speaker 1: to buy will also be outlawed. They'll also look into

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Speaker 1: businesses who make it difficult for customers to contact them

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Speaker 1: when there's a problem. Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi says it's

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Speaker 1: time to end dodgy business practices and that hidden fees

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Speaker 1: and traps are putting even more pressure on the cost

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Speaker 1: of living crisis. Anglicare's latest rental affordability snapshot shows there's

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Speaker 1: very few places across the entire country where essential workers

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Speaker 1: can afford to live. Teachers can manage the rent on

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Speaker 1: less than four percent of available properties in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: Nurses can afford just one point four percent, ambulance workers

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Speaker 1: two point two while fewer than one percent of early

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Speaker 1: childhood educators and construction workers can find places to rent.

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Speaker 1: If you're on minimum wage, then you can afford just

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Speaker 1: zero point six percent of available rentals. It wasn't just

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Speaker 1: city centres with the shortfall of available housing. Even in

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Speaker 1: places with the greatest availability like far west New South

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Speaker 1: Wales or outback Queensland, are experiencing higher living costs, fewer

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Speaker 1: job opportunities, and larger commutes. The analysis compared the full

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Speaker 1: time award wages of sixteen key occupations after tax with

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Speaker 1: the price of forty six thousand rental properties on a

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Speaker 1: weekend in March. Homes were deemed unaffordable if a single

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Speaker 1: person would have to spend more than thirty percent of

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Speaker 1: their take home pay on housing. OSSIS can expect the

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Speaker 1: price of tomatoes to go up after the discovery of

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Speaker 1: a virus in a crop in South Australia. It's the

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Speaker 1: first time the tomato brown rugos virus has been detected

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Speaker 1: in Australia. The highly transmissible disease is believed to impact

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Speaker 1: the yield of an individual plant by up to seventy

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Speaker 1: five percent. Authorities have quarantined the farm in Essay, with

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Speaker 1: perfection fresh tomatoes not seen on supermarket shelves in weeks

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Speaker 1: the fruit dumped, costing the business tens of millions of

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Speaker 1: dollars and hundreds of jobs. The virus poses no threat

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Speaker 1: to human health, but Essay's primary Industry's department wants to

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Speaker 1: eradicate it before it potentially spreads to other science Princess

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Speaker 1: Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, has told Good Morning Britain that

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Speaker 1: he visits his older sister's grave almost every day. Diana

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Speaker 1: is buried at the Spencer family estate, Allthorpe, on an

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Speaker 1: ornamental lake called the Round Oval, in an area known

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Speaker 1: as the Pleasure Garden. Charles, who is the ninth Earl Spencer,

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Speaker 1: says some of Diana's other friends also come to visit,

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Speaker 1: saying just last week one of her closest childhood friends

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Speaker 1: was also there paying their respects, which he says was

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Speaker 1: so nice. Diana's final resting place is only accessible by

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Speaker 1: boat and is not open for public viewing. There used

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Speaker 1: to be a bridge, but it was removed for security reasons.

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Speaker 1: Prince Harry, writing in his memoir spare that the bridge

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Speaker 1: was removed to give his mother privacy and to keep

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Speaker 1: intruders away. That's what's happening in the world today. Next

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Speaker 1: daycare deserts and gas lip parents. How a new report

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Speaker 1: has exposed to disconnect between care for our little ones

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Speaker 1: and the work we do. Across the nation, parents are

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Speaker 1: grappling with long waitlists and limited availability of childcare places,

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Speaker 1: forcing many to make difficult decisions about their careers. And

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Speaker 1: family life. For example, when my child was born in

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Speaker 1: Brisbane in twenty fifteen, the waitlist for all our local

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Speaker 1: daycare centers was eighteen months to two years. We ended

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Speaker 1: up deciding to move back to Adelaide so that we

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Speaker 1: were closer to family who could help us out. That

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Speaker 1: meant quitting our careers and starting over in a new state.

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Speaker 1: Jemma told us that she only managed to secure a

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Speaker 1: spot for her son just a few months before she

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Speaker 1: was due to end her maternity leave. She'd been on

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Speaker 1: a weight list for fifteen months. She now wants to

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Speaker 1: move to another area of New South Wales, but has

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Speaker 1: to factor in another potential lengthy weightlist for a new

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Speaker 1: daycare center. Pip says she'd toured daycare centers when she

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Speaker 1: was just twelve weeks long in her pregnancy because she

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Speaker 1: knew it might take some time. She finally managed to

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Speaker 1: secure a spot when her little one was six months old,

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Speaker 1: but she wasn't ready to go back to work then.

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Speaker 1: She says she had to because if she didn't, they

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Speaker 1: would lose the spot for when she did want to return.

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Speaker 1: She says her back to work one to two days

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Speaker 1: a week, only just paid to cover it. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, Nicole let us know that she had friends

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Speaker 1: and family members working in childcare who helped her secure

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Speaker 1: a spot close to home. She says without that flexibility,

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Speaker 1: she wouldn't have been able to come back to work

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Speaker 1: when she did. A recent Productivity Commission report has shed

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Speaker 1: some light on the extent of the issue, revealing that

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Speaker 1: approximately thirty five percent of Australians or nine million people

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Speaker 1: live in areas classified as childcare deserts. A childcare desert

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Speaker 1: is where there are more than three children competing for

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Speaker 1: each available spot within a twenty minute drive, making it

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Speaker 1: incredibly challenging for families to secure care for their little ones.

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Speaker 1: The situation is particularly dire in regional and remote areas

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Speaker 1: of Australia. In towns like Milton on South Australia's York Peninsula,

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Speaker 1: for example, families have faced severe shortages of childcare options.

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Speaker 1: The opening of the Southern York Peninsula Community Childcare Center

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Speaker 1: in August gave local residents access to one hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty new childcare places per day, where there was previously

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Speaker 1: just fourteen. The impact has been transformative for the community,

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Speaker 1: allowing parents to work more days or return to work

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Speaker 1: in a region desperate to retain young families. The challenges, though,

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Speaker 1: aren't limited to regional areas. In Sydney, for example, childcare

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Speaker 1: accessibility varies greatly depending on location. The city center and

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Speaker 1: more affluent areas in the East inner western North tend

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Speaker 1: to have better access, while suburban and outer suburban regions

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Speaker 1: often struggle with limited availability. These shortages are having real

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Speaker 1: and lasting impacts on families. Some are May Finlay, a

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Speaker 1: Yota Yota woman and academic from the University of Woollongong,

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Speaker 1: found herself living in what she described as a childcare desert.

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Speaker 1: Many parents in her community have had to delay their

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Speaker 1: return to work or reduce their working hours due to

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Speaker 1: the lack of childcare options. To cope with these challenges,

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Speaker 1: families are employing various strategies, including putting their children on

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Speaker 1: multiple wait lists, often before their child is even born,

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Speaker 1: in hopes of securing a spot. Some rely on family

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Speaker 1: members or friends, while others are forced to make career sacrifices,

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Speaker 1: with one parent reducing work hours or leaving the workforce entirely.

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Speaker 1: The financial impact of these shortages is also significant. A

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Speaker 1: survey conducted by doctor Finlay and her colleague Belinda Jackson

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Speaker 1: found that more than thirty percent of respondents had lost

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Speaker 1: over fifty thousand dollars a year due to the lack

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Speaker 1: of accessible childcare, and this not only affects individual families,

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Speaker 1: but has a broader economic implication for communities and the

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Speaker 1: nation as a whole. The Productivity Commission's report, released in

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Speaker 1: September this year, offers several recom mendations to address these issues,

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Speaker 1: and king amongst them is the proposal to make childcare

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Speaker 1: free for families earning under eighty thousand dollars per year

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Speaker 1: starting from twenty twenty six now. This would make childcare

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Speaker 1: more affordable for about thirty percent of families with children

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Speaker 1: aged zero to twelve. The report also recommends raising subsidies

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Speaker 1: to one hundred percent for families with multiple children under

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Speaker 1: five earning under one hundred and forty thousand dollars, up

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Speaker 1: from the current ninety five percent. These changes would be

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Speaker 1: in that half of all families with one child in

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Speaker 1: care would pay less than ten percent of the camp

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Speaker 1: daily cost of care, benefiting four in five families overall.

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Speaker 1: Education Minister Jason Clair has welcomed the report, describing it

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Speaker 1: as a roadmap for universal childcare. However, he acknowledges that

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Speaker 1: implementing these recommendations will require a significant additional investment, increasing

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Speaker 1: the cost of subsidies from about twelve billion dollars to

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Speaker 1: seventeen point four billion every year. Now, while these recommendations

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Speaker 1: offer hope for the future, many families are still struggling

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Speaker 1: in the present. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or

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Speaker 1: a Triple C survey has revealed that the majority of

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Speaker 1: families find their childcare fees somewhat financially burdensome or struggle

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Speaker 1: to pay them at all, with almost all reporting fee

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Speaker 1: increases over the past twelve months too. But while it

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Speaker 1: seems clear that access to good, quality, affordable childcare is

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Speaker 1: something all parents require doesn't really impact the decision they

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Speaker 1: make about returning to work, well, the Productivity Commission doesn't

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Speaker 1: think so. Georgie Dent is the CEO of the parenthood

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Speaker 1: and not for profit advocacy organization that represents over eighty

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Speaker 1: thousand parents, cares and allies around Australia. Georgie, when you

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Speaker 1: wrote about the Product Commission's report for Mamma Mia, you

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Speaker 1: pointed out that they didn't believe access to childcare impacts parents'

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Speaker 1: decisions around workforce participation. What do you make of that?

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Speaker 2: Well, it flies in the face of everything that I

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Speaker 2: hear as CEO of the Parenthood which represents about eighty

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Speaker 2: thousand parents in care as nationally, I hear on a

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Speaker 2: daily basis that not being able to either access or

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Speaker 2: afford early childhood education in care has a huge impact

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Speaker 2: on the decisions that parents can make around how and

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Speaker 2: when they work. So I was quite blown away, to

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Speaker 2: be honest, when I read that, because it just doesn't

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Speaker 2: sit with the reality I know that families sit with.

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Speaker 1: Well, can we focus out a little bit and look

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Speaker 1: at it a bit broadly? Why do you think the

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Speaker 1: Commission would come to a conclusion like that? What sort

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Speaker 1: of broader impact does recognizing that connection have.

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Speaker 2: So one of the reasons for a government to invest

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Speaker 2: in high quality, totally affordable early childhood education in care

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Speaker 2: is because if you have that available, parents are able

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Speaker 2: to work more and there is a productivity bump there.

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Speaker 2: And so it's well established around the world that one

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Speaker 2: of the reasons why a government would invest in childcare

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Speaker 2: is because it pays for itself. Now, it actually pays

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Speaker 2: for itself for two reasons. One is, as I said,

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Speaker 2: because it does enable parents to participate in the paid workforce,

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Speaker 2: which increases the sort of tax revenue and lifts productivity.

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Speaker 2: But it also pays for itself because the evidence is

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Speaker 2: very clear that when children have access to high quality

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Speaker 2: early education in those critical early years, they're more likely

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Speaker 2: to arrive at school ready to learn. And children who

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Speaker 2: actually attend high quality early education and care have improved

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Speaker 2: outcomes over their life. And those improved outcomes are health, social, educational,

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Speaker 2: and economic. So one of the things that the US

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Speaker 2: President says a lot is children who go to preschool

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Speaker 2: are twice as likely to go to college. Now, we

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Speaker 2: have a slightly different system here, so we can't say

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Speaker 2: it in exactly the same way, but it's really true.

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Speaker 2: If you get the early years for children right, they

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Speaker 2: are able to thrive the course of their life, and

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Speaker 2: there's an economic benefit that comes from that, aside from

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Speaker 2: the fact that it's good social and educational policy.

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Speaker 1: Do you think, though, this report is actually going to

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Speaker 1: make change, because I mean, I personally had a kid

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Speaker 1: nearly ten years ago, and there were daycare deserts back then.

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Speaker 1: I'm presuming they were in place long before I had

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Speaker 1: a child and they're still happening to people now. So

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Speaker 1: it seems any decisions that have been made between decades

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Speaker 1: worth of governments hasn't fixed this problem. Do you feel

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Speaker 1: like this Productivity Commission report does go some way into

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Speaker 1: trying to fix this issue.

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Speaker 2: I think what is really significant is that the Productivity

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Speaker 2: Commission undertook this inquiry because the Prime Minister Anthony Alberanezi,

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Speaker 2: when he was Opposition leader in October of twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: stood on the floor of Parliament and said if he

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Speaker 2: was to become Prime Minister, the ultimate legacy he would

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Speaker 2: like to leave would be a universal, high quality early

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Speaker 2: childhood education and care system. He said that night that

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Speaker 2: he imagined this reform to be of the scale of

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Speaker 2: Medicare or Superannuation, and these are huge reforms that have

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Speaker 2: fundamentally transformed Australia. Now, we haven't had a Prime minister

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Speaker 2: before who has said that's the legacy they want to leave,

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Speaker 2: and that is really significant because reform of this scale

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Speaker 2: is so big and complex and it does take leadership

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Speaker 2: and commitment to see through. So the Productivity Commission undertook

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Speaker 2: this inquiry at the direction of the Treasurer to look

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Speaker 2: at what would a universal early education and care system

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Speaker 2: look like. They were asked to look at two things, really,

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Speaker 2: how could you lift workforce participation among parents and how

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Speaker 2: could you lift participation of children in early education and care?

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Speaker 2: So they were the sort of two guiding objectives, and

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Speaker 2: they said that a definition of universal access could be

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Speaker 2: every child having access to at least three days a

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Speaker 2: week of high quality early learning when they need it.

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Speaker 2: That in itself is a huge quantum leap from where

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Speaker 2: we've been, and that is a game changer because it

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Speaker 2: puts this policy into a different perspective.

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Speaker 1: What's really interesting is the last time we spoke to

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Speaker 1: the Prime Minister, we talked about this, because that's when

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Speaker 1: he was announcing an increase to the pay packets of

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Speaker 1: early childhood educators and we asked why the Australian government

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Speaker 1: is okay with running childcare and early learning in Australia

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Speaker 1: like private schools and not like the public education system.

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Speaker 1: And his response was that it's too difficult to unscramble

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Speaker 1: the egg. Would you agree with that? Do you think

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Speaker 1: we're too far down the private track here for a

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Speaker 1: public early learning system to be put in.

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Speaker 2: Place at the parenthood We don't believe that the childcare

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Speaker 2: subsidy is an efficient funding mechanism to deliver a universal system.

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Speaker 2: So the Australian comp and Consumer Commission, the a Triple

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Speaker 2: C did a report on early chital education care, again

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Speaker 2: the direction of the government, and in their report, which

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Speaker 2: they handed down at the beginning of the year, they

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Speaker 2: said that the childcare subsidy is ineffective at putting any

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Speaker 2: downward pressure on out of pocket prices for parents. And

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Speaker 2: so what we have seen over the last decade is

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Speaker 2: that every time the government has made an increased investment

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Speaker 2: in the subsidy, fees invariably go up faster than that

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Speaker 2: new investment, and so while parents get some affordability relief

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Speaker 2: in the short term, within a year or two it's

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Speaker 2: basically eaten up by fee increases. So fees have been

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Speaker 2: going up faster than inflation for the last several years,

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Speaker 2: and we know that inflation has been significant, we know

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Speaker 2: the cost of living is increasing. We believe that pouring

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Speaker 2: more money into the childcare subsidy will not actually deliver

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Speaker 2: genuine affordability relief for parents, and it also doesn't give

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Speaker 2: the federal government the opportunity to be directing the investments

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Speaker 2: to be where they need to be in terms of quality,

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Speaker 2: in terms of workforce, and so I think it is

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Speaker 2: possible to have services that are run by private providers,

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Speaker 2: but that they may not have the same capacity to

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Speaker 2: just set fees however they want. It might be that

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Speaker 2: the federal government, if they are looking at a price

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Speaker 2: cap which is being reported today, they're looking at maybe parents'

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Speaker 2: contributions being capped at ten or twenty dollars a day.

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Speaker 2: What that would mean is the federal government is going

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Speaker 2: to look at how they can then fund providers to

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Speaker 2: deliver the early education and care with the contribution from

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Speaker 2: parents being capped.

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Speaker 1: At the end of the day. Though, when it comes

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Speaker 1: to these private childcare centers, which they pretty much all

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Speaker 1: invariably are, there's a shareholder or an owner who needs

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Speaker 1: to get paid at the end of the day, and

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Speaker 1: profit is always going to be part of that equation.

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Speaker 1: There's no way around that. There's no way around these

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Speaker 1: fee increases at this point, even though the government has

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Speaker 1: tried to factor that into the increase in pay for

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Speaker 1: early childhoods. Invariably, as you said, fees will go up

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Speaker 1: and it will continue to do so. So how do

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Speaker 1: we balance that.

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Speaker 2: We have not seen very much growth at all in

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Speaker 2: the not for profit provision of early child education and care.

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Speaker 2: We've seen extraordinary growth in the for profit providers. And

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Speaker 2: one of the reasons for that is for profit providers

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Speaker 2: under the childcare subsidy model, they open up in areas

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Speaker 2: where parents have got the ability to pay really high

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Speaker 2: out of pocket fees. And so what that means is

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Speaker 2: you will have suburbs where there are positions and there

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Speaker 2: is plenty of supply that's only available if parents are

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Speaker 2: able to pay for it. So it means there's a

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Speaker 2: whole lot of children who don't live in those areas,

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Speaker 2: or children who live in those areas but whose parents

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Speaker 2: are not able to pay those prices, they miss out.

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Speaker 2: And what the Productivity Commission report says very clearly is

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Speaker 2: that at the moment in Australia, the children who are

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Speaker 2: most likely to participate in early learning our children from

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Speaker 2: higher income households. So we are compounding advantage, if you like,

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Speaker 2: in our current system. We need to be looking at

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Speaker 2: how do we ensure early childhood education and care is

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Speaker 2: delivered wherever children are. We would not accept that there's

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Speaker 2: not a primary school in every suburb. We don't accept

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Speaker 2: that there would be children who, depending on their postcode

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Speaker 2: or depending on their parents' income, well they don't have

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Speaker 2: a position in the local primary school. We just wouldn't

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Speaker 2: accept that, and we need to start reframing early education

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Speaker 2: and care so that it's the same.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for taking some time to feed your mind with

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Speaker 1: us today. The quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy

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Speaker 1: and our senior producer Taylor Strano, with audio production by

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Speaker 1: Tomline