Page 735 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 2010
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For example, take a childcare centre that has 10 children under the age of two. Currently, two staff are required to look after those children. Under the new arrangements, two staff would only be allowed to look after eight children. In these circumstances so many questions arise. Does the childcare centre tell two families that they are no longer welcome? Does the childcare centre tell the remaining eight families that they will have to pay more because the same costs are being spread over fewer children? Does the childcare centre seek to increase its licence to 12 children? Will the centre be able to get the extra staff member it would need? Does it have the space? Does it need to extend its building? How long will it take to get the necessary building design and approvals? Will the land accommodate the extension? Can it afford the extension? What disruptions will an extension cause to the existing operations? If it does not have enough room on its block, will it be able to get more land and does getting more land mean a change to the territory plan?
Mr Speaker, these are the kinds of questions that childcare centres are facing right now. These are the kinds of questions that this government and this minister do not seem to care about. This government and this minister try to wash their hands of any responsibility for childcare fees. This government say that fees are a matter for childcare centres alone. Yet this government is preparing to put childcare centres through this kind of uncertainty, the kind of uncertainty that I have outlined above. This uncertainty has already begun right now with childcare centres across the territory, especially community-based childcare centres. So it would come as no surprise at all that the flexibility that this legislation contemplates for licence exemptions may be very well tested in 18 months.
The same applies to the qualification rules. The childcare sector is already under pressure in terms of being able to recruit staff. New rules will turn up that pressure. It will be harder for childcare centres to get new staff; it will be harder for childcare centres to meet the new requirements. Add to this the child-to-staff ratio requirements, and it is no wonder that the childcare sector is worried about its future and its viability.
There may well be a run on licence exemption requests as we approach 2012. Still the government claims that childcare fees are a matter for the childcare centre and the government has no influence over them. While the changes may be good policy, in early childhood terms the implementation will be everything. There is no point in the government turning a blind eye to the impact that they will have on childcare centres and our young families. The government needs to show more interest in these issues. The government needs to show that it simply cares.
Then there is the government’s head-in-the-sand approach to portable long service leave. Need I say more than to restate that this short-sighted, ad hoc policy puts even more pressure on the viability of our community sector, including the childcare sector. The second element that this bill amends relates to the information sharing provisions in the act. Two amendments are proposed: the first expands the definition of sensitive information which forms part of protected information under the act. The definition is expanded to include all the information gathered following the receipt of a report that falls into the ambit of the definition of sensitive information. The effect is that reporters, in the information gathering process, will be protected.
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