Page 5785 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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early childhood workforce, and I have touched on some of these. Already in the ACT over 50 per cent of childcare services have moved to one educator in four, and all of our under 2s already meet the new ratio. Also, a centre-by-centre analysis in March this year of the childcare sector shows that centres that already meet the new child-to-staff ratios are on average less expensive than those that do not. It shows that the standards are not a barrier to affordability.
But again, this does not suit the Canberra Liberals. I repeat: families whose children are at centres that already meet the new ratios, irrespective of whether the centre is private or not for profit, in its own accommodation, paying rent or in government accommodation, on average are paying less.
The Productivity Commission quotes that high quality childcare programs have been found to have a positive effect on children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Labor government has demonstrated that it will not be stepping away from the early childhood sector in supporting them to deliver these positive outcomes for children.
It is one piece of work. There is only one piece of modelling that has been done on these reforms and that has looked at the impact of jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and that is work that has been done by Access Economics, which was validated in this year. But the opposition, again, do not like to cite this comprehensive piece of work because it does not suit their fear campaign. The modelling shows additional costs for the ACT to be $2.75 per child, but it shows an increase of $2.39 a day in 2015. The ACT government have always been up-front that we expect to see some increases in cost of around $2.27 a day by 2014 as a result of these reforms.
As I said in question time yesterday, of course there will be a cost for quality. But we will look at the facts and we will listen to the sector. Organisations, including the country’s largest childcare provider, have said publicly that they expect fees at their centres could change but not to the vastly inflated estimates of the Productivity Commission.
I also am surprised to see Mrs Dunne taking an interest in women returning to the workforce, because we know what she thinks about working women. Who could forget Mrs Dunne’s speech on gender pay equity in this chamber in February 2010, when she said:
And it is also that often women have somewhat of a luxury—
Members interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit down for two seconds, please, Ms Burch. Stop the clock, please. I recall that Mrs Dunne was heard in silence. I would ask members to hear Ms Burch in silence as well. Thank you.
MS BURCH: Thank you. Mrs Dunne’s view on working women is this:
And it is also that often women have somewhat of a luxury about whether—
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