With parents, providers and the family day care sector caught in the middle to be impacted differently.

The Early Childhood Education and Care Relief Package was sold to the public as being another lifeline, lasting six months to help families amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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But, comments from the Prime Minister and the Education Minister Dan Tehan have indicated its June 28 review date could in fact be the end of it.

The automatic payment, which was based on enrolment figures from a two-week period in early 2020, provided 50 per cent of fee revenue.

Other than ensuring centres remained open to essential workers and vulnerable children, the guidelines left open many loop holes for people to fall through the cracks including new enrolments, and temporary visa and casual workers locked out.

Georgie Pearson was due to return to work on June 1, with her bub enrolled since March for the same start date.

In an email seen by the Bulletin, she’s since been told the position is no longer available and wouldn’t be until the free childcare scheme has ended.

Ms Pearson said she wasn’t mad at the centre and just wished she could pay the fees instead of her partner now having to take leave from work to care for their son.

“We have even offered to pay a donation towards the centre each week for the amount of care and they said they can’t accept,” she said.

Ms Pearson’s case wasn’t isolated. The Townsville Bulletin has seen a number of emails sent to parents from different centres highlighting the financial decisions they’ve made to stay afloat.

One centre, believed to have taken on an influx of new enrolments asked families to respond to a survey indicating whether or not they’d stay on after June 28, claiming it was the confirmed end date.

With eight centres across Townsville, Milestones Early Learning Area Manager Miranda Mason said they were aware of families being turned away but it wasn’t the case for them.

“Operating hours and inclusions such as nappies, food and other provisions are completely unchanged,” she said.

Released on Monday, the highly anticipated report into the Government’s scheme was informed by departmental data and a survey of more than 7,000 child care providers.

Despite reporting 86 per cent of services saying it helped them stay open, it concluded the scheme fulfilled its aim of rescuing the sector.

Parenthood, Australia’s leading parenting advocacy organisation has urged the federal government to continue the payment until at least September, as initially promised.

National Campaign Manager Georgie Dent said the package was far from perfect but ending it prematurely would result in the complete destruction of the industry and see unemployment skyrocket.

“Childcare is legitimately very expensive for Australians. On average, out of pocket costs sit around a quarter of household incomes,” she said.

“It was very close to being unaffordable for families pre-COVID and that was with almost full employment.

“What we can expect a number of closures in the sector, we know across the board attendance is sitting at around 60 per cent of where they were pre-COVID yet they’d really need to be at around 90 per cent to remain viable.”

A spokesman from the Department of Education, Skills and Employment said it was is looking closely at the interplay between increased attendance and the relief package.

For home day cares, the end of this imperfect relief package could be their only chance at continuing operations.

Ingham-based provider Kirstin Tamburin said the funding arrangement completely overlooked her sector of the industry.

“We had four days’ notice of all the changes occurring, which isn’t even enough time to budget for anything as you can imagine,” Ms Tamburin said.

“We’re not allowed to minimise the paperwork that we do and are still expected to do everything as per usual, with the exception of more cleaning while taking a 50 per cent pay cut.”

Ms Tamburin said she scrambled to try and come up with a plan to protect her business, sending emails to all levels of government including her state representative, Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto, pleading for them to address the issue.

“Nick advised me that Bob (Katter) would be making direct contact with the Prime Minister on this issue,” she said.

“I also had a phone call from someone from the Education Minister’s office.

“They didn’t really help much, just advised me that they had received my letters along with hundreds of other letters and to reassure me that they were all being read.”