By Shane Wright
Early education and childcare are as important to Australia’s economic future as the introduction of public schooling and Medicare, one of the nation’s leading businesswomen has declared as pressure mounts on the federal government to sharply reduce the cost for families.
Sam Mostyn, who headed the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce and is the chair of Aware Super, said just as compulsory schooling and a universal health system had transformed the country, the advent of nationwide low-cost and high-quality early education would prove pivotal for the economy’s development.
Leading businesswoman Sam Mostyn says early childhood and education will be as important as public schooling and Medicare.Credit: Oscar Colman
The Productivity Commission will later this year release its report into how the government could chart a course towards universal, affordable early childhood education and care. Its draft report showed about 8 per cent of the country had enough access to centre-based daycare to provide at least three days of care for every child aged zero to five.
It found a fully subsidised system for low-income families would lift the total hours worked across the economy by the equivalent of 207,000 full-time workers, but axing work and study requirements for existing subsidies and covering the hourly cap for them would cost the budget $2.5 billion a year.
Mostyn said the current system was both costly for some parents and overly complex for almost all families.
She said the commission should develop proposals that made childcare and early education attractive to parents and simplify a system that made it difficult for families to balance work and life commitments.
“This is an opportunity to unlock productivity across the workforce, allow more women into the workforce if they want to,” she said.
Mostyn said reform of childcare and early education promised the same sort of economic changes as public schooling – which most economists cite as one of the most important developments in global productivity – and universal healthcare.
“We have to see this model in terms of public schooling and Medicare and superannuation as that important to the economy,” she said.
“This is an investment ensuring there is a strong future workforce to deal with a contemporary, modern economy.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) and Education Minister Jason Clare (right) at a childcare centre last year. Any changes to childcare will put a strain on the federal budget.Credit: Paul Jeffers
The Productivity Commission’s draft report canvassed several scenarios for universal access to childcare, including a flat $10-a-day fee similar to the Canadian model. But issues around the cost of such changes, and the shortage of childcare workers and centres, mean any reforms may have to be staged.
There are concerns among some advocates that the commission’s final report may not go far enough with its proposed changes, partly due to concerns about its costs.
Independent think tank the Centre for Policy Development, in a submission to the commission, urged it to back the creation of a single, legislated national entitlement for all children that includes both childcare and preschool.
Under the centre’s proposal, all young children would be entitled to at least three days of free early childhood education and care a week, with more available at a minimal cost to those who wanted it. This would include two days of free preschool for three- and four-year-olds, with preschool part of a national early childhood education system.
Arguing the childcare subsidy system was too complex, it said the activity test should be abolished and that the commission recommend regulation of care prices.
According to the centre, the commission has to be aggressive in its final report recommendations.
“While the draft report starts us on the journey of tackling many of these issues, the scale of the system challenges requires further bolder reform solutions,” it said.
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