childcare

Yesterday’s $450 million before- and after-school childcare announcement by the government (not by Labor, the caretaker period didn’t commence until 5.30pm yesterday) had, according to Kevin Rudd, a triple benefit. “Better education services for our kids, more flexibility for parents to balance their work and family lives and to help with cost of living pressures and to increase the opportunities for employment participation,” Rudd said.

That’s actually a quadruple benefit, but never mind.

The $450 million spend — nowhere was the point made that this was a four-year figure — will add a total of 68,000 before and after-school places. By way of context, there’s just over 300,000 kids currently in outside school hours care, meaning it’s a 5-6% increase in places a year. It’s not a huge increase, but it’s not small by any means.

As for the “triple benefit”, the pitch of Kevin Rudd and Childcare Minister Kate Ellis yesterday in Canberra, with Education Minister Bill Shorten hovering idly in the background, was that parents would have more flexibility in their working arrangements, while kids would potentially have access to a wider range of outside-school-hours activities. Rudd, the swot that he is, spoke approvingly of “homework clubs”, the sort of after-school activity I suspect I wouldn’t have had much luck trying to get my kids to ever join in.

The real key to the announcement, however, lay about 300kms to the north, in Sydney, and specifically at Fairfax’s HQ. Fairfax has been running hard on the issue of an “after-school care crisis” in Sydney, with articles on years-long waiting lists and families moving across town to get access to places. A month ago, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a long editorial on the issue.

The “crisis” isn’t specifically a western Sydney phenomenon, but more broad. Even so, you can bet it will form a key part of Labor’s pitch to woo back western Sydney.

The Coalition’s childcare pitch has been led by shadow childcare spokeswoman Sussan Ley, and has focused on rising costs driven by the National Quality Framework. Ley and education spokesman Christopher Pyne responded to the government’s announcement by reminding us of Rudd’s 2007 promise to end the “double drop-off” by dramatically expanding childcare availability. In the end, after a small increase in the number of childcare centres, his government settled for the Howard-esque solution of increasing childcare rebates.

But for the moment, the Coalition response is that it “will consult with both the states and the sector on the details of this proposal in order to check that the funding being promised can actually deliver what Labor claims”.

You can bet that by the time Labor finishes mangling that, the good burghers of western Sydney will be hearing that the Coalition won’t do anything for after-school care.