Australia’s current childcare funding model risks failing our most precious people | Zoe Daniel

The government’s childcare priority should be on safety and wellbeing, not profit

When you attach profit to caring, you create a problem.

We don’t need yet another series of reviews and reports to tell us that when you rely on the blunt-force of the market, you will see profiteering from government subsidies, lack of quality in service delivery dressed up as “efficiency” to maximise profits, and next to no services in areas where there’s little money to be made.

Australia’s current funding model, the childcare subsidy (CCS), has facilitated the rapid expansion of for-profit providers, who now operate nearly 75% of all childcare services across the country.

Research shows that for-profit providers typically deliver lower quality care while charging higher fees than not-for-profit services.

Individual providers who are failing in their care for our most precious people should be held to account, but this is a systemic failure, and the broader fix will be a big, complicated job.

Many of those who work in the early childhood education sector will tell you that they struggle to provide quality education to our children and to keep them safe amid sometimes shocking lack of oversight and adherence to existing rules.

In a recent national survey of 2,000 members from the AWU, conducted before charges were laid against a worker in Victoria, one staff member from that state said “I can’t even guarantee the safety of the children and myself”. Of the educators surveyed, 77% said they were operating below minimum staffing requirements at least weekly, and 42% said it was happening daily.

The early childhood educators who I have met have been hard-working, kind, mostly women, who work for low pay to do incredibly important work. Some private centres are exceeding requirements and standards. But most are not, and the system is failing not only children and families, but the staff and organisations who are doing the right thing.

The ABC’s Four Corners report in March revealed that one in 10 childcare centres in Australia have never been rated by regulators and pointed out that only 14% of for-profit centres meet national standards.

Those standards are set by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), but it has no power to enforce them across a system which is managed by states and territories.

So how do we fix it?

This question needs to be tackled now, especially if the government is serious about implementing a universal early childhood education and care system, which it should be.

Evidence shows that children do most of their formative development under age five, and that quality early childhood education enables them to reach their full potential. That opportunity must be offered to all children in an equitable society.

Quality, accessible, affordable care also enables women to work. It begins to remove the innate disadvantages for women who begin a lifelong slide into lower wages, less superannuation and higher financial risk almost as soon as they walk out of school or tertiary education.

For those reading along who will now default to the simplistic just stay home with the kids position, get a grip. Single parents don’t have a choice. Nor do couples who are struggling with the price of housing. This generation of parents may not have the option of one parent staying at home. Do not blame families for this.

Safe, quality, accessible, affordable care for our children is essential for families, women, children and the economy. But protecting profit for private providers should not be guiding policy.

What we need is better oversight and better regulation. Governments like being presented with solutions, so here are two.

First, as the National children’s commissioner, Anne Hollonds, says, “National cabinet must make ‘child safety and wellbeing’ a key priority.”

“Currently the word ‘children’ is entirely missing from the list of priorities for National Cabinet.”

We need a cabinet minister for Children. A minister would prioritise the litany of issues afflicting our kids, from the transformative opportunity to implement a universal early childhood education system, to youth safety and mental health, to the impact of social media and so on.

Secondly, we need an Early Childhood Commission to set a national approach to regulatory standards, so that everyone is meeting them, including the for-profit providers.

Earlier this year I joined The Parenthood, Goodstart Early Learning, Early Childhood Australia and Royal Far West calling for a national commission to set a national standard and weed out unscrupulous operators. It would also oversee the rolling out of a universal early childhood education system, a policy shift that could be as transformative as the introduction of Medicare for families, children and the nation.

Labor has the numbers and the mandate to leave this legacy.

Never waste a crisis.

• Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and former independent member for Goldstein