Cheaper childcare on the way for Aussie families after Labor’s central campaign promise passes parliament

Parents of more than 117,000 WA children will benefit from cheaper and more accessible childcare after Labor’s central campaign promise passed into law. Subsidies on childcare will increase to a maximum of 90 per cent for parents falling into the lowest-income bracket and extend support to families earning up to $530,000. The new arrangements begin in July. The $4.7 billion overhaul also evens out the way subsidies reduce as incomes rise, eliminating the “cliffs” that led to sharp drops in support if parents earned more or took on extra hours. In WA, it’s expected to help 86,200 families and more than 1.2 million nationally. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the changes as a practical move to help parents. The next step is a Productivity Commission inquiry examining whether it’s possible to move to universally subsidised care. The test now will be whether the sector can stem its workforce crisis and meet the anticipated increased demand for childcare once fees are cheaper for parents. Early Childhood Education Minister Anne Aly says workforce retention is improving and the Government is working on the staffing side of the equation. “The key thing in the short term is the retention of the current workforce, to stop the bleeding out,” she told The West Australian. The Government is also spending $92 million on more than 3000 extra university places in WA and offering free and subsidised TAFE, partly to train more teachers including for early childhood. Dr Aly said the discussion over recent months about the value of childcare in unlocking women’s workforce potential and expanding the economy had shone a spotlight on the work of early childhood educators and acknowledged the importance of their work. “What I’m hearing from the sector is a huge sigh of relief and a lot of gratitude that we are finally talking about them as professionals, that we are finally recognising they are not child-minders, this is not outsourcing parenting, that they are professionals in what they do,” she said. “You watch these children – they are learning to talk, they are learning to walk, they are learning to share. They are learning to play, they are learning to interact, they are learning to express their emotions, they are learning to ask when they need something. “That’s education. That’s learning.” Professional recognition was a key plank of the children’s education and care workforce strategy proposed by the sector’s regulator, which governments around the country committed to in September. Government modelling forecasts the increase in childcare subsidies combined with longer and more shared paid parental leave will lead to the equivalent of 37,000 more full-time employees joining the workforce, largely women. Georgie Dent from advocacy group The Parenthood said the increase to subsidies was an excellent step to reducing the disincentives to parents working as much as they would like. But she estimated there would need to be 9650 educators working in the system by the middle of 2023. “To realise the full benefits of increased productivity the workforce challenges in early education must be addressed. Without early educators, there is no early education,” she said. Dr Aly also said childcare workers would be significant beneficiaries of the industrial relations changes the Government is battling to pass before Christmas, because it would even the playing field in terms of seeking larger pay increase without having to compare the value of their work to that done in male-dominated industries like welding. “They are incredibly supportive of the [workplace relations] bill, not just incredibly supportive – they need it, it is absolutely essential for them,” she said.