Page 99 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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recognition of their value. Workforce participation is increasing. The scholarships that I have put in place have seen an increasing number of workers having a cert III.
Is there anything wrong with expecting high quality care for our children? They are the investment of our future. They are our most precious possession. To think that I would not want them to be exposed to quality education and care is just nonsense. If that is what they have got on offer—to go to the community sector and say, “You are overcharging for your service; you are providing a quality service that is not necessary.”—it is just anathema in relation to what we should be doing for Canberra families.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.44): I welcome this matter being brought on as a matter of public importance this afternoon, because it is a significant issue for a range of Canberra families, who do need access to high quality, affordable child care in a range of flexible formats.
I think that for this debate there are three main issues: the cost to families; access to good quality care; and proper remuneration for staff.
When it comes to the cost to families, a recent report from the federal department of education did identify that ACT families are spending a higher percentage of their income on childcare costs than others around the country. It is a couple of per cent above the national average. That is something that we need to have a think about. I am interested to have a discussion about the answers to that. I think I heard Mr Hanson summarise it by saying that the answer was to simply cut the red tape.
I want to talk on the other two issues, which are about the quality of child care and about the remuneration of staff.
A key criticism that has at least been implied in the discussion in this place in recent years has been about the new quality standards that have been implemented for child care. I think that is a very serious discussion to have. Parents do want good quality child care. However, it is also a question of access. One of the challenges faced by families is the flexibility of child care. It is sometimes hard to get the care you need where you need it and on the right day. Recently I saw a new initiative at a federal level to provide childcare centres on weekends for people who increasingly work on weekends. This is the sort of thing we need to be looking at in the future, although obviously the costs of that will need to be considered.
Parents have to put their names on waiting lists as soon as they find they are expecting a child, sometimes at a number of different places. I think that reflects the question of access and the question of demand. There are also questions of flexibility. Families lock in their plans for the year when they sign up at the start of the year; any change to working hours for parents can lead to some real complications in organising child care, with the whole family schedule getting thrown out of order.
I also mention the proper remuneration of staff. The Greens support people working in the childcare sector being fairly paid for the work they do. The Australian Greens have consistently called for an increase in the pay rate for childcare workers and the
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