Subsidy masked as early learning

Anthony Albanese is using a pretence of policy to explain his latest election giveaway. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced that if re-elected, his government would provide three days of subsidised childcare for parents who met a not especially onerous family income means test of $530,000. That is all parents, not just those who meet the present requirement that they are working or studying. It is part of Mr Albanese’s $1bn Building Early Education Fund, which includes new childcare centres, with the government “exploring” owning and leasing them out.

In explaining the three-day subsidy promise, Mr Albanese is selling childcare as a way to improve family incomes by giving families access to “affordable early education”. The Productivity Commission provides credence for that case, arguing that three days a week of quality care should ensure a 5 per cent improvement in children being “developmentally on track” when they start school, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The $1.47bn for the “universal early education system” is similar to the government’s recent commitment to another target group of voters, university graduates. If Labor is re-elected, it will waive 20 per cent of HELP scheme study debt regardless of individuals’ incomes. Outgoing NDIS Minister Bill Shorten calls it help with the “cost-of-living crisis” – a euphemism for a pre-poll gladhanding giveaway. The same applies to the expansion of early childhood care. The Productivity Commission states it will be most help to low-income families. At present, the more hours parents work, the fewer subsidised hours they receive. Yet the policy also applies to higher-income families who need it less. There is also as much ideology as early education in the plan. Labor believes that whatever families can do for themselves, the state can do better.

Institutional services, badged as early education, may be great for three to five-year-olds and especially children from dysfunctional families but there is mixed evidence about the impact of educational settings for babies. And is it fair to deny “cost-of-living relief” to parents who choose not to outsource the care of their young children? The policy also assumes the bigger the public sector, the better. While NDIS providers and childcare workers are not on the government payroll, Canberra funds them. On the principle of keeping politically active comrades in the tent, the bigger the unionised public sector workforce, the better. Mr Albanese has opened another lesson in his social-engineering primer.