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Childcare

This Month

Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese

Albanese and Dutton lay down the battle lines for the election race

The Coalition is taking a gamble on nuclear while Albanese is trying to convince voters to back his childcare plan.

  • Andrew Tillett
What election campaign? Prime Minister Anthony Albanese holding Maisie, three months, after announcing details of Labor’s childcare policy in Brisbane.

Opposition sets up election row on childcare

The Coalition has indicated it will not support Anthony Albanese’s plan to abolish the activity test for childcare eligibility.

  • Phillip Coorey
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Manuka Childcare Centre in Canberra on Thursday.

PM to scrap childcare activity test, fund centres in ‘deserts’

Anthony Albanese has unveiled the first big steps towards delivering universal and affordable childcare.

  • Phillip Coorey
Green Leaves is based in Queensland and has more than 52 childcare centres including clusters in Brisbane and Melbourne, and sites in regional Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Crescent Capital mulls exit for Green Leaves Early Learning

Street Talk understands the Sydney-based buyout firm is gearing up to add the Queensland-based childcare group to deal sheets.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

November

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday.

Albanese dangles childcare package in pitch to voters

Labor’s new childcare policy will not be legislated until after the election, making its delivery contingent on re-electing the government.

  • Phillip Coorey
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is requiring providers to have a workplace agreement before receiving grants for wage rises.

Union demands could delay pay rise for childcare workers

Childcare providers are scrambling to meet a government funding condition to have a workplace agreement in place, warning a push to have a union deal could delay pay rises for months.

  • David Marin-Guzman
Marita Tilleras, with daughters Naomi and Chloe, says childcare fees eat up 40 per cent of her family income.

Why families feel like they can never get on top of childcare fees

Marita Tilleraas has experienced childcare systems in Norway and Australia, and says the latter is impossible to understand. Economist Angela Jackson agrees.

  • Julie Hare
Colette and Charles Assaf have built a network of childcare centres based on the Montessori method.

Montessori Academy childcare founders reclaim control

Street Talk wouldn’t be surprised to see bankers add Montessori Academy to their list of IPO prospects as 95 per cent of the business transfers to the founders.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

October

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his fiancee Jodie Haydon have paid $4.3 million to buy a house on the NSW Central Coast.

In politics, there’s nothing wrong with aspiration, until there is

The PM can hardly complain when the politics of envy rears its head, as it has after he was revealed as the buyer of a $4.3 million beach house.

  • Phillip Coorey
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is banking on a childcare-led recovery at the next election

Flat-fee childcare to spearhead PM’s second-term agenda

The government is working on plans to phase in a flat daily fee for childcare as it seeks a breakout issue to help secure a second term.

  • Phillip Coorey
Desperate colleges are also stacking multiple courses into packages to ensure students can stay longer in Australia, shoring up their cash flows.

Desperate colleges shore up numbers before student caps kick in

Parliament is yet to pass a bill allowing the government to limit overseas student places, but there is a lot of manoeuvring on the assumption it will go ahead.

  • Julie Hare

September

Peter Dutton is still to unveil the cost of his nuclear plans.

Dutton loose with the truth on benefits of nuclear energy

Readers’ letters on the opposition leader’s nuclear push; international student caps; the Victorian Liberal Party; childcare costs; and the Greens.

Pre-school children at Goodstart Early Learning in North Sydney.

Childcare must be made universal

The Productivity Commission’s review of early childcare and education is welcome. Australia needs to follow others and make childcare accessible for all.

  • Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz

Why do I have to pay more for others’ free childcare?

Readers’ letters on who bears the cost of childcare subsidies; bitcoin going mainstream; the BCA and populism; the cost of nuclear energy; CFMEU members’ fears; and the benefits of hip replacement.

For many women who return to work, it is almost not worth their while because they are losing out via the tax system, and also through the loss of other government benefits, such as family payments.

Tax, not childcare fees, keeps women at home

The Productivity Commission and economists agree that fiddling with childcare subsidies will not increase women’s workforce participation.

  • Julie Hare
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Childcare fees are outstripping inflation and wages growth.

Why ‘free’ childcare is bad for working parents

Further childcare subsidies will likely require an explicit new tax rise to fund it. Billions of dollars of more debt can’t be added to the national credit card.

  • John Kehoe
Michelle Ananda-Rajah won the seat of Higgins in Victoria in 2022.

‘Propping up a failed system’: Labor looks beyond PC on childcare

The Productivity Commission’s childcare proposal has raised questions of affordability, the removal of the activity test, and adding more subsidies onto a failed model.

  • Phillip Coorey and Julie Hare
Time may have arrived to consider alternative ways to increase supply and meet demand.

The economic case for higher childcare spending should stack up

Simply throwing more money at the system doesn’t seem to be the answer for cheaper childcare or increasing women’s participation in the workforce.

  • The AFR View
Like the NDIS, universal childcare is a noble idea, but it has to be paid for.

Universal childcare? Remember what the PC said about the NDIS

It is well worth remembering how spectacularly wrong the Productivity Commission was in 2017 when it gave the green light to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

  • Phillip Coorey
Access to childcare for all families would increase under recommendations from the Productivity Commission.

Review urges free childcare for some at $5b-a-year cost

The Productivity Commission has rejected Labor’s goal of universal childcare, but still wants the country’s poorest families to get three days a week for free.

  • Julie Hare

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/childcare-5vp