Childcare changes will make availability even tougher

A MOTHER’S Day gift? You must be joking. The childcare policy announced yesterday was more like a slap in the face.

OPINION

THE government’s attempt at a Mother’s Day gift yesterday has missed the mark.

Promising generous support to help pay for childcare while ripping away paid parental leave is a slap in the face, and it won’t help working families.

The biggest problem with this scheme is it will force many women back to work earlier than they had planned — but there are no additional childcare places opening as part of the package.

How are women supposed to return to their jobs if there is no one to care for their baby?

I, like many women, spent a lot of time during my pregnancy focused on looking for a childcare place when I would eventually return to work.

Living in one of the world’s most expensive cities, we need two incomes to make ends meet, so I knew I had to find a childcare place as soon as my (modest) employer-provided parental leave — plus the 18 weeks government-funded minimum wage — had run out.

As soon as I passed the so-called ‘safe’ level of my pregnancy at 12 weeks, I hit the phones and started putting our name down at childcare centres near our home. In total, I put my name down at 15 centres. This was February 2013, and I was hoping to return to work in May 2014.

Not one of those centres offered us a place. In the end, I was lucky that a new centre opened in a nearby suburb, and I put our name down as it was being built. Other women I know have resorted to begging, calling every few days, and just popping by childcare centres regularly in an effort to ‘jump the queue’.

Ripping away paid parental leave in order to help families pay for childcare is going to make this situation worse — families are going to need a place earlier, making it even harder to find childcare.

While increasing subsidies might help some families who are already in the childcare system, thousands of women who will have babies in coming years will be hit hard.

What is particularly offensive is the way the government has announced this. Joe Hockey repeatedly used the phrase ‘double dipping’ yesterday, making families who have claimed both an employer and government paid parental leave sound like they’ve been rorting the system. No. We’ve been working in a system that has been fought for over many years. The modest government supported paid parental leave was introduced in 2011. While it doesn’t match the so called ‘Rolls Royce’ schemes on offer in other countries, it was something the country needed to do to help families.

Back in 2013, then opposition leader Tony Abbott thought 18 weeks maternity leave at minimum wage wasn’t enough. One of his ‘signature policies’ going into the election was a generous paid parental leave scheme designed to pay women their full wage for six months while they were on maternity leave. Arguably, the scheme was too generous. It was expensive and the main families who would benefit would already be well off.

But the Abbott government has not only backflipped on this idea — with the announcement yesterday they’re actively kicking women who voted for them in 2013 based on increased PPL. With the language being used, they’re accusing mums of being welfare cheats, and as an added kick in the teeth, they’ve made the announcement on Mother’s Day.

And it’s not just working women who are being hit. Another part of the childcare package announced yesterday was removing the childcare subsidy for families with a stay-at-home parent. The government’s point here was that childcare places are for parents who work, but childcare (especially for older children) is beneficial to the child too. Not to mention hard working stay at home parents who might need a few hours a week to get things done without their kids clinging onto their legs.

Of course all these announcements have to pass through both houses of parliament before they are implemented. And with even the National Party voicing their opposition to some parts of the announcement, that day could be a long time coming.

Twitter: @katecalacouras

Originally published as Childcare changes will make availability even tougher