Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (1) to (8) on sheet 1720.

(1) Schedule 2, item 6, page 12 (lines 7 to 9), omit the item, substitute:

6 Division 4 of Part 8A (heading)

Omit " relating to large centre-based day care", substitute "in relation to financial information etc".

(2) Schedule 2, item 10, page 12 (line 21), omit "large child care".

(3) Schedule 2, item 10, page 12 (lines 23 and 24), omit subsection 203BA(1), substitute:

(1) A provider that is an approved provider at any time in a financial year must give the Secretary a report in accordance with subsection (2).

(4) Schedule 2, item 10, page 13 (after line 2), after paragraph 203BA(2)(b), insert:

(ba) if the provider carries on a business for profit—include the financial information set out in subsection (2A) in relation to the period that applies under paragraph (b) of this subsection; and

(5) Schedule 2, item 10, page 13 (after line 7), after subsection 203BA(2), insert:

For-profit providers required to provide additional financial information

(2A) For the purposes of paragraph (2)(ba), the financial information is the following:

(a) the total amount of the provider's profits or losses;

(b) the total amount of any dividends paid by the provider;

(c) details of expenditure attributable to staffing costs, including:

(i) remuneration of executives; and

(ii) salaries of staff employed, contracted or otherwise engaged by the provider; and

(iii) any other compensation paid to staff; and

(iii) training and development of staff; and

(d) the amount of expenditure attributable to investment in quality and inclusion for child care services provided by the provider;

(e) the amount of expenditure attributable to rental costs for premises used by the provider to provide child care services;

(f) details of any increases to fees charged by the provider for child care services;

(g) any additional information of a kind prescribed by the Minister's rules for the purposes of this paragraph.

(2B) The Minister's rules may prescribe methods for the purposes of calculating amounts mentioned in subsection (2A).

(6) Schedule 2, item 10, page 13 (lines 13 to 17), omit "large child care" (wherever occurring).

(7) Schedule 2, item 14, page 14 (lines 26 and 27), omit "if the approved provider is a large child care provider covered by paragraph 4A(1)(a) or (b)—".

(8) Schedule 2, item 14, page 14 (after line 30), after subsection 162B(1), insert:

(1A) The Secretary must, under subsection (1), publish information mentioned in paragraph (1)(d) (together with any related information mentioned in paragraph (1)(e)), or information included in a report mentioned in paragraph (1)(f), as soon as practicable after the information or report is given to the Secretary, together with information mentioned in paragraphs (1)(a), (b) and (c).

These amendments are to ensure that early childhood education and care providers are subject to a strong transparency regime that families can have confidence in. We heard during the inquiry to this bill that stakeholders supported a need for greater transparency in the early childhood education and care sector. The bill makes a start on that, definitely, by introducing new reporting requirements for large early childhood education and care providers and allowing the secretary of the department to publish the information. But there is no reason that these requirements should be arbitrarily limited to large providers.

As the Centre for Policy Development argued in their submission, they should apply to all early childhood education and care providers. This amendment that I am moving will extend the reporting requirements to all early childhood education and care providers and will require the secretary to publish the information reported to them. It shouldn't be left up to their discretion whether they publish the information or not.

Though education—this is what the Greens believe—should never be for profit, the unfortunate reality is that there has been a proliferation of for-profit early childhood education and care providers in recent years. These providers receive substantial public money, and there is so little visibility and accountability as to how they spend that money. There is a compelling need for them to be subject to stricter disclosure requirements than those which apply to community and not-for-profit early childhood education and care providers.

We are therefore moving amendments which respond to recommendations from the Centre for Future Work and the United Workers Union to require for-profit early childhood education and care providers to report their full finances, including profits, dividend payments, other disbursements to shareholders, executive compensation, wages expenditure, rental costs and fee increases. I think this is absolutely necessary, when huge amounts of public money are now being used for profit. Again, the secretary will be required to publish this information to contribute to this greater public awareness of how for-profit providers are using public money.