Aussie parents have one thing at the top of their wish list

COMMENT: "It felt like Santa had come early when the PM announced the most significant reforms for young kids, ever."

The parents of Australia have a message for Australia’s political leaders this Christmas.

There’s one thing on the top of the wish list; relief from this cost of living crisis. And they’ll vote for it too.

Parents are doing it tougher than most.

New economic modelling from Impact Economics released last week shows that living costs for families with a child under five years have increased by a whopping 27 per cent since 2021. 

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For these families, early education and care is a huge contributor, with the ABS finding the cost of childcare was the third fastest growing good or service, up by 10.7 per cent in the year to September.

Only the prices of tobacco and insurance grew faster.

So, it felt like Santa had come early when the Prime Minister last week announced the most significant reform to our early childhood education and care system to date.

A quick recap.

The PM announced a $1billion investment to build or expand 160 early childhood education services in ‘childcare deserts’ - welcome news for the tens of thousands of families who can’t get early learning for love nor money.

And, he announced the scrapping of the so-called Activity Test, which determines the amount of parents’ subsidy based on the number of hours they work. Scrapping it will predominantly benefit children of single parent families, low-income families and First Nations families.

These are groundbreaking steps in Australian early learning policy.

Image: iStock

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Early childhood education and care is - first and foremost - about supporting the development, wellbeing and education of children. Participating is an opportunity every child - in their own right - deserves. 

Accessible and affordable childcare is also essential infrastructure that allows parents to participate in the paid workforce to the extent their family chooses.      

The Prime Minister acknowledged this isn’t an either or: it’s both critical for children regardless of their parents’ employment status and critical to enable families to make ends meet. 

His package won’t fix every problem but it represents the most substantive policy response on the major barriers to early childhood education and care in Australia’s history and leaves the door open for further reform on funding.

The current funding model, the Child Care Subsidy, has proven ineffective at delivering the affordability relief that parents are desperately seeking. A new model is clearly required.

Parents are looking to all parties for early learning funding reform offerings that would reduce the burden of high childcare costs for parents.

It would have the most profound impact on parents’ cost of living, and as polling shows, will undoubtedly be key to many parents’ - and grandparents’ - votes. 

Few reforms could dream of delivering what universal early childhood education and care can, and along with the 80,000 parents and carers around the country in The Parenthood’s community, we are waiting eagerly to see what the other major parties bring to the table.  

Originally published as Aussie parents have one thing at the top of their wish list