Page 4071 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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children under five and 18.8 per cent of children aged six to 12. However, this only represents about half of all childcare in the ACT. The Australian Bureau of Statistics data suggest that as many children again are looked after by grandparents, other relatives and friends on an informal basis.
We know that commercial childcare in the ACT is provided by both for-profit private organisations and not-for-profit community organisations. As I have said, around 80 per cent of the childcare is provided by the not-for-profits. In other states, this figure is between 20 and 50 per cent. So the ACT is unique. Families in the ACT are thus more heavily reliant on the not-for-profit community sector to provide their childcare services. These organisations are hardworking organisations which are run for the most part in people’s spare time and with very minimal overheads. It is hard work for the organisations, and they do work hard. I commend them for the work that they do in running high-quality childcare and in keeping their costs down as much as possible.
Canberrans rely more heavily on childcare services than people in other states due to the relatively high workforce participation of both males and females compared to the rest of the Australia. This demand is reflected in childcare fees. According to the report on government services in 2010, the ACT has the highest median cost of centre-based long day care at $315 per week and the highest median cost of family day care at $312 per week. This compares to median costs across Australia of $285 and $267 respectively. It is also worth noting that Ms Burch says that this is not a fair comparison and that we should look at how we compare to places in regional New South Wales. But if you look at the RoGS data and other data, you will see that childcare in the ACT is more expensive than it is in places like Wollongong and Newcastle.
We know that people in the ACT are already facing fees which are at the upper end of the scale. In 2012, the industry will face further regulation. The Canberra Liberals are certainly supportive of any moves to improve the quality of childcare. However, there needs to be a balance in achieving this. The demand for childcare is relatively inelastic. Simply put, for the benefit of Ms Burch, the change in the demand for childcare will be relatively unresponsive to price. So to put it like this: any regulation that imposes a cost to the provision of childcare will be passed on to parents.
Ms Burch may be interested to know that there is also an economic impact due to the opportunity costs. If parents are forced to spend more on childcare, they spend less on other important things that they need for themselves and their children. Perhaps it is apparent that the minister is dictating to parents how they should raise their children, but that is not what the Canberra Liberals think is appropriate.
In 2012, the childcare industry will face further regulations that will add to the cost of childcare for parents. Ms Burch has made a great virtue of the fact that in relation to the over-twos to fives, the ACT is already compliant with the regulations on ratios. That is true, but we have seen from the data provided in the Access Economics report, which Ms Burch is very keen to quote from, and from her answers in question time today, that in relation to the nought to twos we perform very badly compared with the rest of the country. In fact, according to Access Economics, at 28 per cent, we are the worst performer, with Tasmania. If we are to believe Ms Burch today, it is in fact 25 per cent and we perform worse than Tasmania.
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