Pitch to working parents with $450m for after-hours

KEVIN Rudd has moved to woo working parents by channelling $450 million into out-of-school-hours care.

Perri Sparnon with children

KEVIN Rudd has moved to woo working parents by channelling $450 million into out-of-school-hours care to take the pressure off families in the "drop-off and pick-up rush hours".

In his first pitch to families in the campaign, Mr Rudd reprised the politics of his first stint as prime minister when Labor campaigned to end "the double drop-off" burden on busy mothers and fathers.

The new measure includes more flexible opening hours for before and after school care and during school holidays, new places in areas where parents presently have no options, and new activities and programs for children, such as sports, music lessons and homework clubs in 500 schools.

The expanded program was welcomed at Merri Creek Primary School in Melbourne where Perri Sparnon looks after primary school children in the school's after-school care programs. Co-ordinator Maree Dousset said more flexible hours might help parents but she urged caution because young children were becoming exhausted. She said she was pleased there could be new grants to expand her centre's diverse programs.

The opposition attacked the plan, saying Mr Rudd was "all talk and no action" and pointed to his 2007 pledge to "end the double-drop off" which resulted in just 38 of 260 promised centres being built.

The government plan will offer grants of up to $200,000 to each school that applies in a competitive selection process based on applications made by schools and childcare providers. It is estimated that 68,000 children who currently do not participate in any before or after school care will benefit from the move.

Labor says that, subject to demand and its successful implementation in the 2014 school year, the government would then consider rolling out an expanded program to cover all outside school hours care sites across time.

Mr Rudd said 345,000 primary school children at up to 500 schools would benefit from more flexible opening hours, care on school holidays, more places and better quality services.

The money would go to schools where there are currently no services at all, as well as schools where there are existing before and after school services, which could apply to boost what they already offered, including longer hours and music programs.

About 3500 schools do not have a program to look after children before and after school.

"A kid's development doesn't just begin at 9 and end at 3 - we all know that," Mr Rudd said. "This is designed to help families with cost-of-living pressures and to help deal with the time constraints of daily life."

The Prime Minister said the cost of the measure had been included in the budget update, which had a $500m allowance for policies yet to be announced.

The school care policy took Labor's spending promises to $700m on the first full day of the campaign, as it also announced $200m on car industry aid, $28.6m in separate funding for Toyota and $21m for mental health services.

Tony Abbott made no spending promises yesterday and attacked the new help for the car industry as a "band-aid on a bullet-wound" after the government's $1.8bn increase in fringe benefits taxes on cars last month.

Mr Rudd spent much of his day in Canberra yesterday and announced the new policy there. Mr Abbott spent the day campaigning in Brisbane before heading to Sydney to attend a function marking the end of Ramadan.

Early Childhood Minister Kate Ellis said the program would not affect existing childcare arrangements for parents and the childcare rebate remained.

"The point of this arrangement is trying to ensure we have more places, more parents being able to use those places," Ms Ellis said.

The number of children in before and after-school childcare has surged in the past three years, increasing faster than all other options.

National Out of School Hours Services Association spokeswoman Robyn Monro Miller said the program had been starved of funds and was not well targeted.

"We will be able to better target our services, and look at how we can help children with additional needs," she said. "In rural and remote areas we've got a situation where there are no services in existence. They will be offering grants up to $200,000 and we will be working with the government to ensure this money is well spent.

"We think the government has actually been conservative in its estimates with how many services can be helped with that $450m.

"We believe a lot more services can actually be assisted."

She described the funding as the largest investment in school-aged care in Australia. But she said the government's guidelines were very "ambiguous" and it wasn't clear how it would work.

Mr Rudd said the funds would encourage more women to stay in the workforce after having children. The Coalition has promised to tackle childcare availability and costs by launching a Productivity Commission inquiry.