Childcare fees up 3% in last quarter and 34% since Coalition took power in 2013
Dan Tehan has defended the Coalition’s record on childcare after revelations that fees have increased by 3% in the last quarter and by more than 34% since the Coalition was elected in 2013.
The education minister said on Sunday that since the Coalition restructured childcare subsidies in 2017, cost increases had been below the 10-year average. He urged families to shop around to punish providers increasing costs faster than recommended.
According to September quarter data, published by the education department, fees have increased by 5.1% in the past year.
Long daycare now costs an average of $14,832 a year, up $3,816 since the election of the Coalition government.
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Taxpayers subsidise up to 85% of childcare costs for low-income families, which tapers to 20% for families earning up to $351,000 a year. The government subsidises care in childcare centres up to $11.98 an hour, with parents forced to pay costs above that cap.
According to the data, more than 1,000 of 8,056 daycare centres in Australia have an average hourly fee above the government’s cap.
The education department said fees were highest in parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Canberra, while the largest growth in fees occurred in regional areas, particularly regional Queensland.
Areas with already high fees “changed very little compared to the previous year” while “the highest rates of growth are associated with the areas with lower fees”, it said.
Tehan said the government provided $10bn in childcare subsidies and 72% of families still paid less than $5 an hour per child in out-of-pocket costs
“We will continue to work with the sector to ensure we continue to put downward pressure on costs,” Tehan told reporters in Sydney, citing a review of subsidies in 2020.
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“What we want to see is childcare providers operating within the government’s cap but, obviously, this is a private sector market and some operators will operate above the cap. What I would say to Australian families is to make sure you shop around and find a childcare provider that is providing value for money when it comes to early childhood education.”
Labor’s early childhood education spokeswoman, Amanda Rishworth, said the government “continues to pretend there is ‘nothing to see here’, while Australian families are being crippled under soaring child care fees”.
“The government has broken its promise to families that the new system would bring fees down, and they have absolutely no plan to control skyrocketing fees,” she said in a statement.
Before the 2019 election, Labor promised to pay 100% of childcare fees up to the recommended cap to provide childcare free or at negligible cost for 372,000 families earning up to $69,000.
