Labor plan to provide preschool places to all young children

Bill Shorten’s preschool policy was released ahead of the PM’s own plans to extend the current arrangements for four-year-olds.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews with Bill Shorten at a preschool in Melbourne yesterday. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten has outflanked the Coalition on preschool access for young children, announcing a $10 billion, 10-year plan to subsidise universal access for all three and four-year-olds that would make it free for many families.

Any future Labor government will need to convince the states to sign on and bear even more of the cost if the program does what it is designed to do and reaches every child for 15 hours a week.

All the Labor states have backed the federal Opposition Leader’s plan but the South Australian and NSW Liberal governments called for more information.

“South Australia has not been consulted regarding how such a proposal would be delivered, nor whether (Labor’s) commitment would come close to meeting the cost, either in operational expenses or in required new capital builds,” state Education Minister John Gardner told The Australian.

The Labor policy, which will be paid for by Mr Shorten’s tax grabs, was released ahead of the Morrison government’s own plans to extend the current arrangements for four-year-olds beyond next year.

Under the current national partnership system, states pay about 10 to 12 hours a week for each four-year-old with the commonwealth topping up that figure by three to five hours a week.

But Labor expects to make this arrangement permanent and, from 2021, wants it to include three-year-olds, which will require a schools-funding type deal with all the states and territories.

There are about 343,000 four-year-olds in a preschool program currently and a similar number of eligible three-year-olds, but only 15 per cent are attending a preschool program and fewer than 60 per cent are enrolled in any form of early childhood education such as a long day care centre.

Mr Shorten said the announcement is “one of the biggest changes to Australia’s education system in a decade … so if you’ve just had a baby, or you’re expecting one soon, you’re fortunate that your daughter or son will be part of a new generation of Australian ­education”.

Standing alongside Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who announced a 10-year plan to provide kindergarten to all three-year-olds in the state, Mr Shorten said he wanted to be an “enabler” for other jurisdictions. “What state premier would want to stand in the way of making sure three and four-year-olds get universal access? So what I see, the role of the federal government is not to be at war with the states but to be an enabler,” he said.

Scott Morrison said the announcement was another example of “Labor wanting to spend your money with higher taxes, with detail all over the place”.

The government questioned some of the assumptions in the costings, provided by the Parliamentary Budget Office, especially the half-year figure of $132 million for four-year-olds when current funding is $440m a year.

“We have supported every single year until the end of 2019, the universal access funding, done in partnership with the states … and we are working with the states and territories as to how we might take that program forward,” the Prime Minister said.

“What we want to see from the states is with the money we’ve already invested, you know, $440m a year, we want to see the take-up rates and participation rates in early childhood education, particularly for pre-school, increase.”

Although enrolments for four-year-olds under the current scheme are between 93 and 97 per cent, attendance for the full 600 hours every year is at 77 per cent, rising from 12.5 per cent in 2009.

The Labor plan would fund preschool for both age groups — about 700,000 children by 2023.

NSW Early Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said a long-term funding agreement was vital but “Funding for early childhood education is complex and there was little detail from Labor about how the commitment will be implemented.” Queensland Education Minister Grace Grace said the federal policy “fits perfectly” with the state’s own plans. “I look forward to working with them to make this a reality,” she said.

Additional reporting: Brad Norington, Jared Owens, Paige Taylor, Matthew Denholm