Fee hike stokes political battle on childcare costs

Labor has seized on government figures showing average childcare hourly fees increased 4.4 per cent over the year to March.

Opposition early childhood education spokeswoman Amanda Rishworth. Picture: Morgan Sette

Labor has seized on government figures showing average childcare hourly fees increased by 4.4 per cent over the year to March, before the height of the pandemic, claiming the government’s policy had “failed to keep a lid on out-of-pocket costs”.

Data published by the ­Department of Education, Skills and Employment reveals the hourly fee for all care types, ­excluding home care, was $10 in the March quarter, while the government paid $1.94bn for the childcare subsidy.

Children were attending childcare for an average of 25.2 hours a week, or 30 hours for centre-based daycare.

There was a similar annual increase in fee costs in the September and December quarters — 4.6 per cent and 4.3 per cent respectively.

Setting up an election battle after unveiling a $6.2bn childcare plan that aims to introduce a 90 per cent subsidy for all families, opposition early childhood education spokeswoman Amanda Rishworth accused Scott Morrison of not supporting parents to work full-time or increase their hours.

“We know high childcare fees are not only a hit to household budgets, but can act as a barrier for parents, especially women, to go back to work,” she said.

“This is why an Albanese Labor government will cut childcare costs straight away for 97 per cent of families, and also task the ACCC to look at how we can keep fees down in the long run.”

Education Minister Dan Tehan said the government’s childcare subsidy meant out-of-pocket costs were less than $5 an hour for 71 per cent of parents, with taxpayers already contributing $9bn a year.

“When Labor was last in government childcare fees increased by 53 per cent and now they want to bake additional, permanent expenditure of $6bn into the budget over four years,” he said.

“Families pay taxes and under Labor’s plan a family in Townsville earning $80,000 a year will be subsidising the childcare fees of a family in Sydney earning $360,000 a year.

“When you hear that Labor want to spend more, always know that they want to tax you more. When this data was published last month, it showed the fee change was lower than the long-term, 10-year average of 5.3 per cent.”

There were 986,000 Australian families and 1.4 million children who attended a childcare subsidy approved childcare centre in the March quarter, with the highest average hourly fee in the ACT at $11.75.

The lowest hourly fee was in the Northern Territory at $9.40.

Family day care was most expensive at an average of $10.55 an hour compared to outside school hours care at $7.45.