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Election 2025: Coalition’s commitment to activity test will ‘hurt parents’

Peter Dutton’s refusal to continue Labor’s policy of scrapping the activity test for three days of subsidised childcare a week has been met with alarm by advocates, who warn it will ‘hurt parents’.

Advocates and peak bodies say reinstating the activity test for three days of subsidised childcare will ‘restrict early learning access for some of Australia’s most vulnerable children’. Picture: Getty Images
Advocates and peak bodies say reinstating the activity test for three days of subsidised childcare will ‘restrict early learning access for some of Australia’s most vulnerable children’. Picture: Getty Images

Peter Dutton’s refusal to continue Labor’s policy of scrapping the activity test for three days of subsidised childcare a week has been met with alarm by unions and peak bodies, who warn the move will “hurt parents” by reinstating the need for them to complete four hours a week of work, study or jobseeking to access the taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The Australian revealed on Wednesday that the Coalition would reverse Labor’s decision to ditch the activity test for three days of care but match the $1bn in extra funding for the childcare sector announced by Anthony Albanese under the Building Early Education Fund in 2024.

While welcoming the opposition’s move to match the $1bn funding package, advocates and peak bodies said reinstating the test would “restrict early learning access for some of Australia’s most vulnerable children”.

“We implore the Liberal-National Coalition to reconsider their position and support the abolition of this punitive, obsolete measure that has held Australian families back for far too long,” said The Parenthood campaign director Maddy Butler.

“The activity test is an obsolete policy that has long prevented tens of thousands of children, especially those from vulnerable backgrounds, from accessing early learning.”

Labor said scrapping the activity test for three days a week would cost less than $500,000 across the forward estimates and benefit 60,000 families.

The ACTU said: “The Coalition’s only real policy for women so far is to take away guaranteed subsidised childcare from them.”

“Bringing back the activity test for parents is poor policy and will hurt parents by cutting this important cost-of-living relief measure,” ACTU secretary Sally McManus said.

The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care also warned the measure would disproportionately affect Indigenous children, whose parents were likelier to be barred from accessing care because of the activity test.

“Reinstatement is a damaging move that will ultimately set back Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children,” SNAICC chief executive Catherine Liddle said.

However, The Parenthood and other peak bodies said the Coalition’s $100m grant program to encourage more innovative forms of childcare to be set up was a positive step.

“A proposed $100m grant program for ‘flexible and innovative’ early learning models will also support rural and remote communities where a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate,” Ms Butler said.

Labor has made clear scrapping the activity test is part of a long-term ambition to achieve a universal childcare system, along with landing universal healthcare and superannuation.

Read related topics:Peter Dutton

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/election-2025-coalitions-commitment-to-activity-test-will-hurt-parents/news-story/e1c9c5ed374f9e0053a94906b454a191