New childcare relief for Melbourne parents with 30 days of absence allowed during stage four lockdown
A further 30 days of absence for childcare services will be provided for Melbourne families during the stage four lockdown — but just what the new measures mean for permitted workers remains unclear.
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A further 30 days of absence for childcare services would be provided for Melbourne families during the stage four lockdown.
Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan urged parents to keep their kids enrolled in childcare centres and use the absence days so they could rejoin the service when they returned to work.
Childcare services will be urged to waive the gap fee so there would be no cost to parents in the scheme, to come in effect on Thursday.
“For all Victorian parents, for all Victorian families, you will be getting an extra 30 days of allowable absences,” Mr Tehan said.
“That means if you’re not in a position to be able to send your child to care, you can use those absences, providers can waive the gap fee so there will be no cost to you for keeping your child enrolled while you can’t access child care for the next 30 days.
“Parents who have to keep their children at home can do so and can do so without cost because we’re asking providers to waive the gap fee.
“And I would say to parents, please, keep your children enrolled. It won’t cost you anything to do so.”
Providers will also be given a 5 per cent top-up payment, on top of 25 per cent centres are already receiving.
Victoria’s biggest childcare operator Goodstart welcomed the childcare rescue package, but warned its success depends on parents keeping their kids enrolled in childcare during lockdown.
John Cherry, Advocacy Manager of Goodstart Early Learning, which operates 180 centres in Victoria, said the additional free 30 days was “crucial as long as parents don’t cancel bookings”.
“If parents stay with us we will be ready on the other side,” he said.
“We welcome this package – it’s good news and should be sufficient funding to keep the sector viable as long as parents continue to use services.”
The government can’t compel centres to waive the out-of-pocket gap fees – on average $40 a day – but Mr Cherry said most centres would do so.
“Some centres might still charge parents but the financial supports will remove the need for them do this,” he said.
He said GoodStart centres would not charge parents gap fees for childcare they are not using. He said centres with high-income parents using a lot of care in inner-city areas may still charge parents some fees.
Mr Cherry said it was possible some centres would be operating with no children at all, but that most would have 10 to 20 per cent attendance over the stage four lockdown.
But Georgie Dent from The Parenthood said the announcement failed to deliver clarity to parents or income security for educators because centres would still be free to charge fees for places not used. “Because it’s up to the discretion of individual providers to determine whether they will waive the gap fee there is still considerable confusion. Asking parents to remain liable for a service they cannot use for six weeks, at a time of unprecedented job and income losses is unreasonable.
“Federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan said this package incentivises providers to waive the gap fee and to keep their staff employed but without enrolment numbers being guaranteed this will be compromised.
“Putting early educators back on JobKeeper and reintroducing the emergency relief payment for services would have delivered the certainty and clarity families and educators desperately need,” Ms Dent said.
“This is the second time in three months that the early childhood education system has fallen over, despite it being an essential service for both children and parents.
“We need Minister Tehan to deliver proper reform and funding to support the best possible early childhood education system,” she said.
Regional and rural Victorian families will have access to the same arrangements currently in place for outside school-hours care made available to Melbourne and the Mitchell shire.
The news follows an expected crash in attendance, and providers demanding urgent support, given they rely on government subsidies per child at their centres, and were recently taken off JobKeeper.
Mr Tehan promised “immediate relief” was on the way on Tuesday once the commonwealth was able to “understand all of the detail of the arrangements” put in place by the state government.
“We want to provide a system that is simple for the sector, which is simple for us to administer and can provide support immediately,” Mr Tehan said.
He said the government wanted to help under its “existing arrangements”, indicating it was unlikely to switch off the normal childcare subsidy system as it did during the first wave of the pandemic.
Permitted workers who have no one else at home to look after their kids can keep their current babysitting or nannying arrangements, the Premier’s office has told the Herald Sun.
Whether the workers are on-site or at home, they can continue to use informal carers for their children, but only while they are working.
However, new arrangements are not permitted. Only one carer – which may be a nanny or babysitter – can be in the house at one time to reduce the chance of the care-giving becoming a social event.
The Premier’s spokeswoman said parents should bear in mind that grandparents over 70 were an at-risk group.
“We strongly advise parents not to use them for care because of the health risks, but it will not be illegal,” she said.
Premier Daniel Andrews said this week that the matter of in-home care was “a really significant and serious issue for so many families right across Victoria”.
“There will be many, many families who will not be able to access childcare as they normally would and that is essential to driving down movement, it is essential to driving down these numbers.”
A recent report from the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows 26 per cent of grandparents provide regular care of their grandchildren, but this has dropped significantly during the coronavirus restrictions.
The national study found one in three families used grandparents and other informal care before the pandemic and only nine per cent during. Similarly, only 8 per cent used nannies or babysitters for childcare before the pandemic and only five per cent during.
Annie Sargood from Melbourne’s Leading Nanny Agency said she was “worried about what would happen if nannies can’t care for children at risk of neglect or family violence”
A key issue in talks between the state and federal governments was whether childcare was available to children with one parent who is a permitted worker, or whether both parents must have permits.
Premier Daniel Andrews said he appreciated there was “significant concern”.
“I don’t want to give people false hope,” he said. “There will be a lot of people who would normally send their kids to childcare that will not be able to. I know that’ll hurt and I know that’ll be really challenging, otherwise we simply won’t drive down these numbers.”
Mr Andrews asked employers to be flexible so parents working from home could look after their children.
Labor and industry bodies have been calling on the federal government to reinstate JobKeeper for childcare workers but Mr Tehan said the government had instead instituted an industry-wide transition payment because nearly a third of childcare workers were not eligible for JobKeeper.
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