Comments from people who neither use nor work in education and care services

Productivity Commission

Inquiry into Childcare and Early Childhood Learning

Comments from people who neither use nor work in education and care services

Included are only those comments received by 5 September 2014, for which the submitted gave their approval for use of their comment by the Commission. Some comments have been edited to remove information which the Commission considered could enable identification of the submitter.

1. The very first issue with childcare services is the availability of places. We have a 2y/o son that is currently on an endless number of waiting lists (public and private centers) and the only two options that were not suitable because of the long distance we had to drive to reach them. The centers should give priority to parents that don't have any extended family around to help them out. The second issue is the affordability of childcare services.

2. I will soon have no choice but to use early learning childcare centres for my 2 youngest children. Thanks to the ridiculous school intake changes my 3.5 year old cannot start school for another year. This will naturally drive the cost up of childcare with me being a shift worker. I want my kids in there for some social interaction as playgroup attendance can be erratic due to work commitments. I honestly don't know how I am going to afford the costs though with mortgage, living expenses, bills, car payments and a shift working husband working 260km away.

3. I have recently returned to full-time work and have a 7 month old child. I can only do this because my partner has taken leave without pay from his job for 5 months in the hope that we can find a childcare place soon. We are on waiting lists for about 15 childcare centres and have been told that our chances of getting a place anywhere before January 2015 are slim. This is going to have a significant impact on our family as it means that my partner and I will have to either take more leave without pay or change to part-time work in order to care for our child. It will impact on both of our career advancement opportunities as well as our combined family income.

All of the friends that I have spoken to with young children in Melbourne have had similar difficulty in finding childcare places. I don't know if it is a simple matter of not enough child care places to meet the demand, but it seems to be a widespread issue that has significant impacts on families as well as businesses. I know that the childcare rebates were introduced to increase the affordability of childcare so that more people would return to work, but this was done without ensuring there were sufficient childcare centres to support the increasing demand for places as a result of the rebate. More government investment / subsidies are urgently needed to encourage more child care centres to open / more people to get the appropriate training to address the shortage in childcare places.

I am lucky enough that I can afford to consider getting a private nanny to look after my child in the short-term if required, however I am concerned about the lack of regulation / information on these services, eg regarding contracts, insurance, education standards etc.

Overall, I think that something needs to be done urgently to address the lack of adequate childcare places and I hope that this inquiry is able to make some sensible recommendations about how best to do this.

4. I am considering a job that involves shift work and potentially working away from home for short periods. because my children are 12 and 14 they are technically invisible for this commission. I will still need to access care for evening and o/night when they are alone but will be forced to pay for a nanny (which will cost excessive amounts of money). My children are independent before and after school (quite responsibly) but I do not plan on leaving them alone once dark falls at night. I would love to see childcare in any form to be tax deductable or a set amount paid per child (after providing receipts to ATO). Regardless of how much income you earn, a minimum amount should be available to families to make their own decisions. I can choose to take a job earning twice as much and pay more tax to the Gov, or elect to remain in the job I am in and pay less tax......

I love the idea of an au pair or nanny from o/seas who can provide some care - maybe an overseas student who comes with a working arrangement that benefits both myself, the Gov and them???

5. My wife works full time in child care in Brisbane. She had 10 years experience in ESF kindergartens in Hong Kong and after 2 years here she has Cert 3 and is currently doing her diploma. Her C&K centre has just promoted her to a Group Leader position due to her very good performance in her work. My wife is 45 years old and her hourly rate is around $21 per hour. And by the way she is fluent in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and speaks a little Japanese, these language skills are very helpful in her job. Our 18 year old daughter has just finished Year 12 and does some casual work at KFC and her rate is around $15 per hour! This comparison of rates is really an insult to the experience, qualifications and dedicated hard work that my wife brings to her work at the C&K Centre. Child care won't be able to attract and retain enough high quality staff with these appalling rates of pay!

6. I would like to discuss current HOME DAY CARE System. This HOME DAY CARE system is very easy to corrupt and exploit by Care workers and child owner (family).

Childcare Certificate III is available to buy without study a single word or sentence for some caregiver who doesn't read or write or speak English. Parents just bought this Childcare Certificate III and exchange or swap their children each other. While some parents I know have a job other than childcare, they still can claim tax payer money as home daycare worker every two weeks. This is the fact that going on with this home daycare system. I have witness who fraudulently exploit public money. This liberal government must have away to find a solution to this. Some childcare agencies and enterprises give them a tips when the council inspector will inspect them at their home so they can ready and pretend like childcare worker.

When some parents know other parents are making a lot of money with their children, they take away their children from caregiver to exchange with other parent who got similar number of children and will to swap with their children. When the caregivers don't want to transfer the children , some parent (children owner) get angry, and had badly argument with them. This Home Daycare system is causing problem, corruption and exploitation and fraudulent dealing with childcare agency and Childcare Training provider without proper oversight system in place by former Labor government.

This problem is very common in Somalia, Sudan and other small ethnic communities in Northern and Eastern , Western Melbourne.

This is a serious problem the government must find a way to solve this wasteful and corrupted spend of tax payer money.

I even want police would investigate this corruption and fraudulents.

When parents can buy their Childcare Certificate III and exchange their children with other, they tell Centrelink, buy some safety gear for their plugs at their home , this system become Open season for this parents. I can identify more than 50 families are doing this Home Daycare business, just to get public money without proper qualification for children.

The way public money spend on this way is absurd, where is accountability , who oversight this system, Are they actually working? How can they buy Certificate III in childcare and First Aid Certificate? This Childcare Agencies I know are run by African Australian. There must be away to solve this problem.

7. Accessibility and affordability seem to be the biggest issues for the clients I work with. Even with subsidies child care can be a burden on people living on limited incomes. In the regional area that I work within there are limited options for childcare in some of the towns and what is available is only between 9 - 5 which is not useful for clients working outside of these times.

8. I work two days and would like to work an extra day per week but am finding it hard to find a spot in a child care centre or find a nanny to look after my child 1 or 2 days per week. I rely on family help on the days that I work but thats not always very flexible. Both family members are seniors with health issues and have other activities which sometimes fall on the days that I work, financial assistance for seniors would also help greatly. Because I live in an area close to the city centre there are very few childcare spots as most people that work in the city take up any places that are available. Priority should be given to people who live in the local area. It would also help if employers accommodated child minding facilities into their planning. I would also like to see better community links to families in the local area willing to assist with child care.

9. Childcare and after school care are just not affordable for us and i have heard many other professional women complain about how much of their salaries are spent on expensive childcare and after school care. I dont believe the current costs encourage professionals to return to work however when i was a single parent it was affordable. This isnt right. I think it should be affordable for all families so that every parent can afford to return to work, either full time or part time. Stop penalising parents for being professionals as we worked very hard to get our qualifications and its a shame