Revealed: NSW’s most affordable suburbs for childcare

Young families are fleeing to cheaper suburbs that offer more affordable childcare due to rising house prices and rents. See where you can save.

Exclusive: Childcare centres in some of the country’s wealthiest areas are seeing a drop in enrolments, as young families flee to cheaper suburbs due to rising house prices and rents.

New data shows almost every single long day care provider saw a lower number of children enrolled, or fewer days being taken per child, in the first four months of 2024.

A decline in numbers is the opposite of what Labor hoped would happen following last year’s subsidy changes, designed to ease the financial burden for parents.

Benjamin Balk, founder of KindiCare, a childcare comparison app, which provided the data said parents “simply can’t afford childcare anymore”.

“This is the canary in the coalmine for the childcare system,” Mr Balk said.

“I think fees have hit such a point that they can’t go up anymore.”

KindiCare’s latest data release reveals the most expensive – and the cheapest – suburbs for long day care fees, as well as tips on how to snag cheaper childcare.

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Mr Balk said his data showed there was a softening in demand in centres on the lower to upper north shore of Sydney, where childcare fees are high and young families are being priced out of the area by increasing property prices.

The most expensive long day care fees in NSW was Only About Children in Coogee, in Sydney where fees for children under 12 months old are as high as $219.50 a day before subsidies.

KindiCare founder Benjamin Balk. Picture: Supplied

The most expensive suburb overall was in Barangaroo, Sydney, where the average daily fee for children of all ages combined was $210.42. In July last year it was $192.25.

The cheapest suburb in Sydney was Fairfield West where the average fee for all ages was $86.33. The cheapest in NSW was Lightning Ridge at $78.75.

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The KindiCare data also revealed that there were 481 suburbs across Australia where at least one centre was charging at or above the hourly rate cap of $13.73 for a 12 hour session ($164.76 per day), up from 222 in July last year.

In those suburbs parents are more at risk of higher out-of-pocket costs.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s final report out earlier this year found fees had “grown faster than inflation and wages since the introduction of the Child Care Subsidy”.

Mr Balk said the subsidy increases “have been completely eroded by one or two fee increases”.

The Parenthood chief executive Georgie Dent. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Georgie Dent from campaign group The Parenthood said it was frustrating to see parents priced out of educational options for their child.

“Accessing early childhood education should not be a matter of income status or postcode, but seen as a basic right – just like primary or secondary school,” Ms Dent said.

“The Government urgently needs to implement price control measures for providers, to ensure that every child can access early learning, if that’s what their family wishes for them.”

Jay Weatherill from Thrive by Five, a group campaigning for cheaper childcare, said the current system was “broken and expensive” and he wanted to see the activity test abolished in the Budget, as well as an increase in wages for childcare workers.

Minister for Early Childhood Education Dr Anne Aly. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Minister for Early Childhood Education Dr Anne Aly said helping Australians with the cost of living was the Government’s number one priority.

“Our Cheaper Child Care reforms have made early childhood education more affordable for more than one million families right across Australia,” Minister Aly said.

“The final ACCC report into early learning costs, along with the Productivity Commission inquiry into the sector, will help us chart the course to universal access to quality, inclusive and affordable early childhood education and care.

‘CHILDCARE COST ALMOST HALF MY WAGE’

Natalie Flores, with her three-year-old son Rafael, elected to care for her own children due to the costs of childcare. Picture: Andrew Tauber

Exorbitant childcare costs were the reason Natalie Flores reluctantly put her career on hold for four years.

The communications adviser said when she looked at the out-of-pocket costs of two kids in childcare, she realised it would take away up almost half her wage.

So, she made the decision to wait until her children, Selina, 5, and Rafael, 3, were old enough to claim free kinder hours via the state, to reduce costs.

The 41-year-old said despite some free hours, her out of pocket costs for childcare last year, for three days for one child and two days for another, was $350 a week.

That’s now reduced to $300 thanks to her eldest Selina, 5, starting school.

Ms Flores, who works two and a half days a week, said her decision had impacted her career and she had also found there were less opportunities for part-timers.

“I think I’ve gone backwards in my career by 10 years,” Ms Flores said.

“I’m also earning less money pro rata than before I was pregnant.

“I’ve missed out on four years of Super and the compound interest that would have accumulated.”

She said the free hours of kinder was wonderful and had made a difference.

But she said the Government’s commitment to supporting women getting back into the workforce felt like “lip-service”.

“I thought I would benefit from the subsidy changes last July, but then both childcare fees increased by $10 a day which ate up everything the Government was going to save us,” Ms Flores said.

Originally published as Revealed: NSW’s most affordable suburbs for childcare