Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. In the budget the government allocated $81.9 million to implement the new quality standards for early childhood education and child care. Part of that, we are told, was for the first national ratings system for childhood education services, we presume; early childhood education was included. Given childcare centres and preschools are already accredited for subsidy purposes, how will this new rating system differ? How are providers being consulted on this? How often will the rating system be updated? What criteria will be used to rank the services? Will there be any appeal mechanisms? Where a service is ranked as poor will they be assisted in that service with extra finances or other support to improve their service standards? How much of the $81.9 million is to be spent on the new rating system—in other words, the new My School for preschools and child care—and when will this new rating system commence?

In Budget Paper No. 2 under the ‘National quality agenda for early childhood education and care’ national partnership implementation, we are told the government will provide $130.4 million over four years to help support parents with the introduction of the new National Quality Agenda. We all know that the new National Quality Agenda is going to increase staff numbers in comparison with numbers of those in their care. It will require higher qualifications and smaller groups, and the estimations of increases in costs are up to $20 per day, particularly for the younger children. You have said in the budget you are going to spend $130.4 million over four years, in particular to help support parents. You go on to say in the budget:

The introduction of new national standards, which include improving child care ratios, will lead to increased Government assistance through the Child Care Rebate.

Given that statement, I would like you to explain why we were told very recently that the cap for the childcare rebate is being reduced. In fact, it has now been reduced to $7,500 and will no longer be indexed, for a period of four years. That seems to be in direct contradiction to your statement in the budget. We also want to know why, given you have said you are going to help parents with the increased costs of child care, you have abolished the start-up grants of $1,500 for family day care and the $5,000 start-up grants for family day care in the rural and regional sector.

We also want to know why through your minister, Minister Ellis, you have started to accredit part-time family day care for periods of only six months. These part-time long day care centres particularly exist in rural and remote areas. As you can understand, the six-months accreditation quite clearly means these centres are having difficulty attracting staff. They have a great deal of difficulty even with a start-up if they are going to get only six months accreditation at a time. In relation to early childhood education—I might have to continue this later—you made the statement that your government would provide universal access to early childhood education for every child of up to 15 hours in an accredited centre with a qualified person in the year before they start school.

Minister, I want to know: what does that really mean? Does it mean free? Does it mean for everyone in that category? Does it mean that for a place like Koondrook preschool centre, which closed the other day, you are going to rush out and reopen it? What does this ‘universal access to early childhood education’ mean? Out there in real constituent land they are confused because, with the stresses of the fees in early childhood education in some states and the drought and other difficulties, preschool centres are no longer able to afford to stay open, but you have claimed universal access is your commitment.

I am also very concerned about your commitment to how these centres are going to operate in the future and when the support for upgrades of qualifications is going to flow through. Quite obviously, in the area of early childhood education, there are centres that were previously child care providers wanting to move into early childhood education. When are these centres going to be able to access support for upgrading qualifications of their staff?

Let me also say that we are concerned with your data. It is very confusing. Can you give me a breakdown of exactly what you are going to spend category by category in the new quality standards support? I mentioned the amount of $81.9 million. That was to be spent, we are told, on helping with implementation of the new quality standards, but then we have a separate budget item of $130.4 million and it comes under implementation. Can we have a breakdown, please, of exactly what is included in those amounts? Quite clearly the childcare sector and early childhood education depends on adequate support—(Time expired)

See this speech in context