Time for a big push to birth universal childcare in Australia

As the parent of a student in year 3, it has mercifully been some years now since I’ve had to navigate the confusing and expensive labyrinth that is Australia’s childhood early learning and care system.

But while I’ve moved on personally, as a keen observer of public policymaking in this country, I feel a continuing sense of responsibility to point out a fundamental truth: that Australia’s current system of early learning and care is still utterly failing not only Australian parents and educators, but also, most worryingly, our kids.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Manuka Childcare Centre in Canberra on Thursday.Credit: Rhett Wyman

As an economist, I do also feel a responsibility to push back at the notion that simply throwing taxpayer money at a problem is always the solution.

Although, when you look at the benefits, spending taxpayer money in this area does appear to yield a greater investment return than many other uses to which taxpayer dollars are currently put (hello submarines...).

To that end, the Albanese government deserves credit for its decision to spend more than $5 billion to expand childcare subsidies. Crucially, it is also delivering on an election pledge for a Productivity Commission review of the feasibility and desirability of moving to a system of “universal” care, the terms of reference for which were announced last week.

Top of the agenda for the commission must be to form an opinion on an exact definition of what constitutes “universal” learning and care. Because people seem to mean very different things when they talk about it.

Some take “universal access” to mean zero out-of-pocket cost for all Australian parents, while others take it to mean free care for low-income earners and a drastically reduced cost for everyone else.

Georgie Dent is executive director of The Parenthood and a member of the government’s advisory council on developing a separate ‘Commonwealth Early Years Strategy’.Credit: Steven Siewert

At the other end of the political spectrum, some commentators of a more conservative bent take it to mean the state ripping babies from bosoms for mandatory attendance at long day care centres from 7am to 7pm. The last of which is easiest to dismiss.

“We’re not going to have a mandatory system,” stresses Georgie Dent, executive director of The Parenthood and a member of the government’s advisory council on developing a separate “Commonwealth Early Years Strategy”. Dent, along with dozens of other community and business leaders, will be in Canberra this Friday to discuss development of the strategy.

Dent says “universal access” to quality and affordable early learning and care must be the cornerstone of that strategy. “I think that the starting point has to be a set number of days that every child of every age has access to if they want, with scope for parents who can pay more to pay more for extra care if they want it,” she said.

Dent says parents are currently unable to make a real choice between work and care that suit their family, due to the lack of affordable, available and quality early learning and care spaces.

“People want to say ‘women choose to work less’, or ‘they want to work part-time’. But that’s not a free choice. Look at the context of the decision. The cost of care is so high, and not every family can have access – even if they were willing to pay for it – because we don’t have enough services.”

As every parent knows, such decisions are often fraught, as fragile family units – already operating on minimal sleep – seek to make optimal decisions to balance the paid work and care needs of all family members.

Many decide the returns from having two parents working are minimal in the short term, after tax and childcare are taken into account. Mums who might otherwise prefer to work – if only to protect their future income-earning abilities – make the difficult choice to stay at home to take care of children, with ramifications for their longer-term economic security.

While coming with an upfront cost to taxpayers, cheaper and more accessible care options would no doubt boost the number of women participating in the workforce, boosting revenues to some degree.

Then there are, of course, the well-established benefits for children in accessing some early learning opportunities before they attend school: better grades, better high school completion rates and better incomes later in life.

Although, as every parent knows, the quality of available childcare is key. A child may very well be better off in the care of an attentive parent in a home environment than in an understaffed centre where workers are underpaid and stressed. Conversely, of course, a child may benefit more from the attentive care of a diligent childcare worker that they would be at home with a stressed or dissociated parental figure.

Hopefully, this new inquiry will give us a complete picture of not only the latest research on the economic benefits of widespread access to quality early learning and care, but also the wider social benefits of quality care for educators, parents and children.

As Dent puts it: “Early learning is worth investing in purely for the benefits for children alone, but also we cannot discount the role that having quality early education has for women. A mum’s ability to have choices is inextricably linked to the answer to the question: Is there somewhere safe and appropriate for my child to be cared for?”

As a society, it is our duty to make sure the answer is always an emphatic yes.

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