Susie O’Brien: Childcare permit mess is kindergarten stuff
Parents with kids in Melbourne childcare centres wanted clear decisions with fair outcomes, but what they got was a debacle. So if this is how the government handles something as important as childcare, what hope do we have of ever getting this pandemic under control, asks Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
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Hey kids, I want to read you a book. It’s called Daniel Andrews and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Childcare Policy. It’s a horror story.
The chaos in childcare this week reveals the dangerous vacuum inside the state government.
Premier Daniel Andrews wears his North Face jacket on weekends probably to remind us he’s a family man at heart. But he should apologise to every parent affected by his childcare stuff-ups.
Victorian parents with kids in Melbourne childcare centres wanted clear decisions with fair outcomes that were effectively communicated.
What they got was a debacle.
At the start of lockdown, childcare was restricted to only vulnerable kids and essential workers, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying it was important that centres were kept open for those who needed them.
More than 150,000 children who were usually in childcare for an average of 25 hours a week stayed home, cared for by parents who were working as well. It was chaos.
Don’t the policy makers know that “I’ve got work to do” is not a line that works on anyone under the age of five?
Working parents were reduced to trying to teach classes, or hold client meetings or negotiate with their boss with two-year-olds standing in their laps blowing everyone kisses and demanding more snacks.
Many centres were down to just a handful of kids and feared they wouldn’t survive the six-week lockdown. They started laying off staff. It was an industry on the brink of collapse.
Then last Wednesday federal Education Minister Dan Tehan gave centres generous subsidies and parents more fee-free days.
Even Tehan didn’t know at that point who might be able to attend childcare under the new state permitted workers system, with permission forms not going live until midnight and centre guidelines only released late on Thursday.
Parents were told two-parent families needed two permitted workers to be able to send their kids. The rules were so strict that some centres didn’t have one child who could attend.
Then 24 hours later, the guidelines changed again late on Friday, when it was decided only one parent needed a worker’s permit. And families were told they could keep nannies and babysitters — but only those they were already using.
The backflip was so sudden even childcare operators heard about it from journalists.
It’s all been such a disaster even now parents don’t know if they can do something as basic as put their kid in care so they can get a day’s work done.
Many are still trying to work which category do they come under on the worker’s permit.
What happens if their employer doesn’t want to sign the form? Can they afford to use childcare? Can they afford not to? Is it safe?
There’s a lot of talk about mental health and the need to look after each other, but bad decisions and policy backflips add immeasurable stress to working parents.
There are some basic questions no one seems to be able to answer.
Why do we have a system where federal funds pay the wages of childcare workers to do nothing in empty centres, while desperate parents at home juggle work and caring for young kids?
Why are two permits needed for schools, but not childcare?
Why do we have rules for babysitting that says existing arrangements can continue, but new ones may not start? There’s no medical reason for that, and it’s completely nonsensical.
Why are some of our country’s lowest-paid workers denied the same JobKeeper safety net as everyone else?
Why are parents — often mums — at home with young kids given no choice but to stop working? Doesn’t our ailing economy need every single one of us to keep working?
Daniel Andrews and his crew have had months to work this out, and it’s appalling this was the best they could up with.
As Kate Griffiths of the Grattan Institute argues: “Governments and employers should embrace policies that allow families to make their own choices about how they want to balance work and care.”
She’s right. Parents should be given credit for making good, sensible, safe choices — unlike the government.
If this is how the government is making decisions about something as important as childcare, what hope do we have of ever getting this pandemic under control?
Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist