The ASU has told public hearings into child care reform that we oppose any watering down of qualifications or regulations that protect the best interests of children. The hearings are occurring around the country following the publication of the Productivity Commission's Draft Report on Childcare and Early Childhood Learning. The ASU is continuing to survey supporters to feed into our formal written submission, so please complete it if you haven't already.
Although the survey is still in progress, we have had a strong response and preliminary results have assisted us in presenting at the public hearings of the inquiry. There is still time to participate so please follow this link to share your views with us:
>> Complete the ASU survey on the child care sector recommendations
"The strong response to the survey from ASU supporters shows the significance of the issue in the community," said ASU Assistant National Secretary Greg McLean, who appeared for the ASU at the hearings.
"The ASU is participating in the inquiry to stand up not only for our members who work in local government children services, but the families of all our supporters that use child care," he said.
For the ASU, it is not just a matter of ensuring early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are available, but that they are also quality services and quality requires investment. Unfortunately, the Federal Government called for the inquiry at the same time as declaring that any recommendations must be within the existing funding envelope, ie. no more money for the child care sector, regardless of what the Productivity Commission finds out.
We believe this funding freeze is a counterproductive limitation on the inquiry and so we were surprised to hear that despite the freeze, the Productivity Commission has said in its Draft Report that moving money from Abbott's seemingly ill-fated paid parental leave scheme into child care services would be a better expenditure of public money.
The ASU's presentation at the public hearings included the following points:
- Extra funding is needed
- Qualifications required of staff should not be diminished
- Regulations should not be loosened
- Ratios should be maintained
- Assessing needs of families should take all relevant matters into consideration
- There is an unmet need from families for flexibility of care hours
- Regulation and protection of home based ECEC workers is also required
- Roles and funding of family members as carers (eg. grandparents) needs further investigation and raises many issues
- Importance of the role of local government as a provider of services and also as part of regulatory framework
- Career development, skills recognition and educational role of workers
The National Quality Framework introduced by the previous Federal Government ensured that the sector was finally being recognised for the important work it does. We don't want to see this progress undone.
"The ASU will continue to be involved in the child care reform process to raise the voice of our members and to ensure that the children's best interests are foremost in the debate," said Greg McLean.
>> Complete the ASU survey on the child care sector recommendations
Further information
Transcripts from public hearings: http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/childcare/public-hearings (ASU spoke at the Sydney hearing on 14 August 2014 through Assistant National Secretary Greg McLean)
Help make children, families and workers the priority in child care reforms – do the ASU survey, 7 August 2014
Future of child care sector under review, 28 March 2014