Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Family day care centres in Tassie are at risk of shutting down because of silly government rules. I've said this needs to be changed, and now the Productivity Commission has backed me up. The report into universal childhood education and care was released today. It has 56 recommendations on how to fix the tangled web of yarn that is our early childcare system. One of them says that the government should let two family day care services be run in a single venue in regional and remote Australia. Right now the government rules say that you can only have one family day care centre per property title. If two centres share a property, whether it's to keep their rent costs down or to be more efficient in how they provide services, they're breaking the rules, and that means shutting them down. It makes no sense.

Two amazing family day care centres in Tassie have run into this problem, and if they're shut down it will have a devastating effect on almost 100 families. Labor are trying to pass the buck. They say it's just a problem with these two centres and that it's for the Tasmanian government to fix it all. It looks like the Productivity Commission disagrees. What works in cities doesn't work in regional areas. Maybe the government hasn't figured that out yet.

I've lived in regional Tassie almost all my life and I can tell you that accessing essential services when you need them can be tough. Addisons and Abracadabra family day care centres in Tas are doing something a bit different that works. It works for them and it works for the families that need them. Just because it doesn't fit the government mould of how they think child care should look doesn't mean it's not right for the community. The government should be looking to these centres for answers instead of threatening to shut them down. Now that the Productivity Commission has echoed what I've been saying, maybe there will finally be some action.