Page 2388 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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I know there continues to be great concern in the area of disability education, which my colleague Andrew Wall will further address. The government needs to get the funding, the message and the direction right in education policy. Too much depends on it. At the end of the day, it matters not what school system a child in the ACT is educated in—public, Catholic, independent. What matters is that they have access to quality learning, professional and dedicated teachers, a safe school environment and an engaged parent community. All these are possible for every school in Canberra.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (8.49): I rise to speak to this line item today with respect to early childhood education, and specifically child care. I spoke in this place just last week in response to Ms Berry’s matter of public importance on this topic. We spoke about affordable, available and quality child care. These aspects of child care affect everyone, and everything our families do—whether or not a mother can return to work, where they can work, what hours they can commit to, and worrying about whether their child is in a quality centre under good care. Importantly, it affects the cost of living for our families and affects our economy as a whole.
According to the 2011 census, 45 per cent of women now in the workforce who have young children returned to work before their youngest child turned one. In Canberra, for those families whose mothers or fathers return to work, it is not unusual to find childcare costs in excess of $100 per day per child. While we know that the federal policy in this area has a huge impact on our territory, it is still a big responsibility of our government to help our families in these situations.
We know we have some of the highest childcare costs in the country. Some people who put their children on the waiting list when they first become pregnant find, when their child is 12 or 18 months old and the mother needs to return to work, they still do not have a childcare place for their child to go to. So there is an issue with cost and there is an issue with supply in the ACT, and that is something the government needs to address.
Additionally, it is interesting that the Productivity Commission’s draft report last month stated:
Despite benefits for working families and children, New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory do not fund … universal access preschool programs in long day care settings.
It then goes on to say that the ACT only provides this universal access preschool service as part of the school system. I quote the draft report’s comments:
This reduces options for working families, results in some children missing out on the high-quality UA-preschool service that is delivered elsewhere, and their parents are facing higher out-of-pocket expenses.
In the estimates report recommendation 81 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government undertake an analysis of unmet need for child and family services in the ACT …
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