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A broken promise everyone should welcome

Tory Shepherd

by Tory Shepherd

30 Apr 05:45am

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Filed under: Childcare, Election 2010, Families, Maternity Leave

55 comments

Yep, everyone should have access to childcare. It should be affordable, accessible, high-quality. But there’s a limit to what society should pay.

Just think of the bottom line, kids. Photo: AAP

People are outraged that the Federal Government has decided not to build more than 200 childcare centres. Yeah, they broke an election promise. They did it because they need to claw back a whole lot of cash for a bunch of other stuff – health reform and such.

They say they also worked out that there are already too many childcare centres. According to their statistics, there are thousands upon thousands of spare places. If that’s right, then they shouldn’t spend precious taxpayer dollars on more places.

If it is all about helping people get back in the workforce, about facilitating childbirth to boost the population, about giving freedom and choice to parents, then put the money into maternity/paternity/parental leave.

Force workplaces to be more flexible. Get a broadband network that allows remote work (without adding a censorship filter).

Bump up the quality so it’s not a matter of the same old disadvantaged areas getting the same old inferior treatment.

There’s all sorts of things they can do, but they should leave it to market forces to sort out the childcare side of things. As a journalist, it makes the stomach clench to pay any sort of compliment to politicians, but in this particular case I think they did the right thing.

It’s a waste to soak the market.


Childcare places are an easy vote-grabber. Cancelling places – even unneeded ones - is a tough decision. Rudd knew it was going to be unpopular, that’s why he sent a junior minister out to make the announcement.

But it was the right move.

Child care is not perfect. Sure, there may be more than enough places, but they’re in the wrong spots or they’re set up for the wrong ages.  There are empty spots for two-year-olds in the boondocks, and no spots for babies near where the majority of people actually work.

The private operators can sort that out. It’s supply and demand.

Don’t spend my money overstocking the nation with childcare centres. Don’t play the easy political card.

There may be a lack of quality care. There may be a lack of baby care. There may be a lack of care in some places. So there should be a reshuffle.

But it’s refreshing, for once, to see common sense override the emotional drawcard of treating “working families” as a sacred cow.

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55 comments

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    • Amused says:

      06:46am | 30/04/10

      “They say they also worked out that there are already too many childcare centres.”

      They should have known that BEFORE they made the decision to start building 260 centres! How did they get to building almost 30 new centres if gross incompetence was not involved in their decision making process?

      Reply

    • David Johnson says:

      08:56am | 30/04/10

      Couldn’t have worded it better. They claim that the sole reason for cancelling the building of the remaining centres was because of the already available numbers of places (something like 65,000).

      This figure would have been pretty similar a few years ago (when they announced the policy) ... so essentially they were lying!!!

    • WayneT says:

      09:50am | 30/04/10

      Too true.  In their haste to get into government and their ‘Me Too’ policy strategy, they won with no actual idea of how to implement these policies.  They seem to think, like past Labor Governments and current State Governments, that they can just spend their way out of piss poor planning.  When the money runs out, as it has federally, they start making excuses to back away from all their election promises, raising revenue through indirect taxes to pay for their mistakes.  There was a good ad run last state election in WA where they asked you to list 3 things the Carpenter government has achieved – nobody could!, I think the same applies here.  And I wouldn’t list the Cash bribe handout, Kyoto signing or saying sorry to our indigenous brothers as major achievements.  They are for the most part simply words on paper, which haven’t been followed up with any real funding increases, like most of the so called policy achievements of this government.

    • Scot says:

      10:08am | 30/04/10

      Desperate spending by Rudd is not working, here’s a tally of his failures with our taxes to date in case you missed it:
      - BER value rorted $6,000,000,000
      - ETS 18,000,000
      - School Halls over budget $1,700,000,000
      - School Computers over budget $1,200,000,000
      - Medicare overspend $1,400,000,000
      - Pharmaceutical overspend $1,800,000,000
      - Solar Panel Overspend $850,000,000
      - NBN Tender failure $17,000,000
      - Insulation $1,400,000,000
      - Stimulus Cheques wasted $40,000,000
      - TV Station handout $250,000,000
      - Grocery Watch $10,000,000
      - NT Housing program $45,000,000
      - 2020 summit? $10,000,000
      - Copenhagen $1,500,000
      - Whaling Envoy $1,000,000
      - 418 media advisor $50,000,000
      - Ambassador to Holy See $10,000,000
      - Fuel Watch $8,500,000
      - Economic refugees $1,200,000,000
      - Foreign Aid $4,000,000,000
      - Childcare 220 centres
      - Cost of living
      - More taxes

    • Anti Major Mistake Man. says:

      04:53pm | 30/04/10

      @ Amused, David Johnson, WayneT, Scot, Spot on, all of you, but i think it was even worse than that. There never was a recession. The Chinese continuing to buy our minerals saw to that & our banks not going broke.

      The real reason/excuse for all those building industry projects are 2 fold.

      1, the industry is heavily unionised & they, artificially support unions by pouring government money into any industry which is well unionised.

      2, they knew from focus groups, that fe"man"ism has put working men, trades"men” off side & they have been desperate to buy back their votes.

      Regards the former snag & swinging voter.

    • Mmmm says:

      07:54pm | 30/04/10

      A bit disingenuous Amused. The other factor that wasn’t catered for in the childcare equation was the financial collapse of the ABC childcare centres. And the government is right to ask why Liberal members who sat on the board did not make it known that the corporation was in a rapid descent to bankruptcy??  It was the government who during the GFC had to back the ABC childcare centres to keep them open so that thousands of parents still had somewhere to leave their children.

    • Paul says:

      06:51am | 30/04/10

      As someone who just got their last kid off the childcare Titanic, I now agree with you.  Last year I would have burned your building down.

      Reply

    • Paul says:

      07:03am | 30/04/10

      Sorry Tory, bit intemperate there and hit the wrong button.  Not sure I ever thought the building of centres was necessarily such a great idea - although it did appeal in a visceral way - and leaving it to the market does make some theoretical sense - and the whole childcare period does end (as it has for me) so it’s not as chronic as it would be if the same issue applied to schools - but what it is is sclerotic, expensive, poorly co-ordinated, stifling and stressful.  we changed centres 3 times, got lucky, paid out a fortune, got unlucky, and generally wore what came at us - as you need to and nobody’s saying we were special - but there just seems to be something not working properly somewhere in there.  middle class whining disease? maybe, but now it’s all over I can’t help but think it could have been less painful (even if it couldn’t have been less expensive…given what the employees get it should have been MORE expensive).  Still, look at the health system…human services are never perfect, I suppose.  Oh well, now for 14 years of school fees.

      Reply

    • Bitten says:

      09:52am | 30/04/10

      Middle class whining disease? Yes, you seem to have a terminal case, combined with ‘don’t-want-to-accept -responsibility-for-my-actions’ syndrome.

    • stevie says:

      07:06am | 30/04/10

      So instead of child care centres in the right places we have thousands of school halls without air conditioning and dis-functional canteens without windows and hot plates in the wrong places. What sort of twisted logic is this? This sort of logic makes my “stomach clench.”

      Reply

    • Christian Real says:

      07:52am | 01/05/10

      Stevie,
      Please forward the proof of you claims about the “thousands of school halls without air conditioning and dis-functional canteens without windows and hot plates in the wrong places”, unless of cause you cannot back up your claims because you are just echoing the diatribe that you are hearing from Tony abbott.
      This is from a story which I perused on the internet this morning.
      “Primary Schools give gov program a tick”
      AAP May 1,2010, 12.03am.
      “Ninety percent of primary school principals are happy with the handouts they’re received through the federal government’s school building program, a survey has found.”
      “But the opposition has seized on the one principal out of 10 who is not pleased,saying it equates to 1.6 billion in wasted stimulus funds.”
      “The online survey,commissioned by the Australian Primary Principals Association, received a whooping 2,438 replies in just five days - the association’s biggest ever response.”
      Some 89.9 per cent said they received projects they wanted, but the remaining 10.01 per cent,0r 243 principals,complained about budget blowouts and poor communications’
      This story was found at: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-latest/7141564/primary-schools-give-govt-program-a-tick/

    • a ex-labor voter says:

      07:26am | 30/04/10

      There is a difference between having a physical child care place in a child care centre and having actual staff to look after these kids. Just as when we talk about hospital beds it isn’t the physical bed but the staff to manage the patient in the bed. Rudd is saying there is enough private child care places and they will give an increased rebate. Still works out cheaper for the government and more expensive for the rest of us. This is a broken election promise, you can coat it however you like but working families do not have access to affordable child care. And having wasted billions in tax payer monies, this government gets no pity when they cry poor.

      ps: Rudd says the cig tax if for our health and not really about raising funds. Really? Look at the stats on predicted rates of obesity and their health costs, look at the lack of drug and alcohol abuse medical support and their cost to the system. If he really wanted to affect health he should apply the same to these products.

      PPS: The very ‘sudden’ tax hike is a dangerous precedent and for that act alone his government should be thrown out at the next election.

      Reply

    • Markus says:

      09:51am | 30/04/10

      There is also a difference between having a space available for a day (because another fulltime child is home sick) and having a fulltime place open up at a service.
      Having worked in child care policy within the Australian Government, getting statistics for the former is simple, but I know of no way that existed of accurately calculating the latter.
      Which makes me wonder which type of spare place he is claiming exists?

    • Christian Real says:

      08:34am | 01/05/10

      a ex-labor voter,
      If you look at the never ending rising costs that tobbacco related diseases place on the Health and hospital system then this is a move in the right direction by the Prime Minister.
      Tobbacco is a drug, and the damage that it is doing to the organs of people that smoke indicates that it is a dangerous drug that should be outlawed and banned, why should other people that don’t smoke have to put up and be subjected to the smoke from cigarettes and tobbacco from people that do smoke.
      My late mother who never ever smoked cigarettes in her life and yet she got cancer in the oesophagus from other people’s smoking around her.
      People who don’t smoke should be able to go shopping, walk around the streets or go where ever they like and enjoy being out and about, without being subjected to people who chose to smoke and destroy their own health,and who in the long run place extra burdens on the Health and Hospital system..
      If people did not smoke, taxpayer’s dollars would be saved by not having these people filling up the hospital system with their lung and other related diseases that smoking causes.

    • Christian Real says:

      08:38am | 01/05/10

      a ex-labor voter,
      Does that mean that you won’t vote for the Liberal or National party either, because Tony Abbott appears to have supported the “sudden tax hike” and he is not opposing it.

    • Joe says:

      08:06am | 30/04/10

      Why didn’t journalists point this out when Rudd announced the policy how stupid it was, instead of doing it now and almost patting him on the back for making this right decision now?

      Please tell us at the time of the announcement how wrong Rudd is, not when he next backflips.

      Reply

    • WayneT says:

      10:09am | 30/04/10

      The art of journalism is dead in this country.  It’s all about who can get the headline out first.  News organisations just take the government’s press release and with a quick change here or there they publish it as fact.  No one actually investigates the information because news organisations are driven by profits from advertisers, and if you aren’t selling copy then you won’t sell advertising space.  Why do you think Rudd had such a golden run for office with no scrutiny of any of his policy announcements?  The press had gotten tired of Howard because they had said all there was to say about him and his government (no big headlines).  The press wield some major influence in this country, and in some part are our voices.  They are suppose to be the ones asking the tough questions we want to know, instead of being frightened of scaring off politicians from talking to them again.  The politicians need the press to get their message out, so use that!  But I guess if they did their job then there wouldn’t be any Four Corners, ACA, TT, Lateline, 60min and simular shows to produce exposes and report the failings in the Government.  Journalism is now just a business.  It’s left to late night comedians and shows like The Colbert Report or the Daily Show to pose the big questions and comment on what is really going on at the top (at least in America anyway).

    • Bruce says:

      10:30am | 30/04/10

      Sorry Joe, The written and visual media have already been bought off. Rudd will get a soft ride to the next election. Notice the lack of scrutiny about the proposed health regime.

    • Mmmm says:

      08:04pm | 30/04/10

      WaynT
      Even the good ole ABC has become a slave to opinionate reporting without much investigative journalistc professionalism.
      I see this has opened a sore hot topic on the Pollbludger.
      It appears that the ABC has become another victim of speculative journalism. They don’t even do proper analytical exposes anymore.
      Look at the insulation. We now have the mother of the teenager who died of heat exhaustion state that a receipt for staples was still in her sons pocket. Mmm..after being banned? What about the fire brigade?
      They have been reporting statistics for years on insulation related housefires, many resulting in death. Average of 80-85 per year.
      None of this was investigated or reported.  But ah, why let the facts get in the way of a beat up?

    • Mark says:

      08:14am | 30/04/10

      In other words the only policies this government had was to

      1. Say an empty sorry for something that did not relate to us in this time
      2. Sign a treaty to which we were already meeting the provisions we signed for
      3. Toss a few dodgy batts in some roofs then double pay to fix it all up while killing and maiming and destroying a perfectly good industry
      4. Build overpriced school buildings, wanted or not, suitable or not, allow said scheme to be rorted all the while ensuring brass plaques and other forms of subtle political advertising are front and centre.
      5. Have a tough immigration policy that fills Christmas Isd and necessitates the opening of facilities mothballed on shore.

      I love it. A government bereft of ideas apart from throw cash around and raise taxes. What would Whitlam think? Nod in grave approval me thinks lol.

      Reply

    • Stephanie says:

      11:44am | 30/04/10

      Well said! Totally Agree!

    • James Darby says:

      08:33am | 30/04/10

      BROKEN PROMISES WRONGLY ATTACKED

      Advertising is about product awareness and achieving contact from the prospect. Product awareness is about achieving a light on in the mind of the recipient for the exposure to promote examination of the product. In the good old days salesmen were used to close the prospect. Now with massive advertising and floor display and financial assistance for ease of purchase, the salesman is largely replaced. Order takers have become the go.
      The inquiry switch in the head of the prospective prospects still has to stimulated for movement. 
      With a positive message that hits the sub-conscious with programming that buzzs the conscious to act.

      All public announcements are selling (advertising) statements. Care has to be given that credibility is not given to ‘promises’ on the basis that one is screaming that those promises have been broken.
      I cannot image many promises that would come from Rudd and team that I would want kept. Now sure, even though I am on the far side, I would enjoy Mr Rudd keeping a promise like “I am not going to continue my (Rudd’s) plan to enjoin Australia with Asia from 2020”.
      Mr Rudd has promised that the debt will be reduced. Is that so Australians don’t have to worry about the debt rising at 180m a day?
      Mr Rudd promised The Australian people that GFC was to blame for difficult economic times in Aust and promised Australians that the ‘Stimulus’ would fix it. Rudd has broken his promise on fixing the Australian economy. The market place cannot be interfered with without disastrous long term effects on supply and demand. You should not complain about pigs wallowing in a trough when you have a constant flow pouring into that trough - benefiting some disadvantaging others - all at the price of future generations.
      Instead of an attack on the ‘broken promise’ more attention should be placed on the nonsense of the promise and (the) thank goodness the Australia people can see the ridiculousness of Rudd’s promises.
      Dwell for a while on the point that I am making. The more a promise is attacked for not completing the more credibility is given to that promise.

      Tony Abbott’s latest attack on Rudd’s broken promises is over the discarding of the construction of some 260 Child Card Centers.

      The choices are simple here Tony take your pick.

      1/  Give the contract to Mrs Rein, she sorted out the Employment issues and paid plenty of income tax. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=269014

      2/  Open all the recently built auxiliary school buildings as Child Care Centers.

      3/  “Thank you Kevin Rudd for breaking that votebuy promise. Why you are at it break the promise to buy every kid a computer as well.”

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      12:16pm | 30/04/10

      Or call a spade a spade and show the coward up for what he is.

      He is a quick list from Piers Ackerman

      Keeping up with the Government’s growing list of broken promises is difficult because the ALP has removed from its website all the promises made before the 2007 election. They are still available through the Parliamentary Library, however. It appears that about 40 election promises have now been tossed out.

      Included in those are the promised Commonwealth takeover of public hospitals, GroceryChoice, FuelWatch, the delivery of the ETS, prudent government spending, uncapped IVF treatment, no Budget deficits, simplified GST paperwork for small business, GP Super Clinics, health services for military families, providing for the homeless, taking a hard line on terrorism, taking a hard line on immigration, ensuring private health insurance rebates remain unchanged, reining in corporate salaries, the bank deposit guarantee, responding to the 2020 summit, ensuring no worker will be worse off, building a broadband network, restricting employee share schemes, living in Kirribilli House, appointment of a Special Envoy on Whaling, being an economic conservative, taking Japan to the International Court of Justice over whaling, reining in the costs of consultancies, promising the ASC it would build submarines in South Australia, keeping detention centres in the hands of private operators, increasing indexation of public service and defence personnel pensions, funding to the Exclusive Brethren, establishing a Department of Homeland Security, means testing the Baby Bonus, introducing a compulsory student union fee, ISP filtering, flow-through share schemes, reducing energy and water consumption by Commonwealth Departments, reporting to Parliament on Closing the Gap measures, building indigenous housing, no changes to superannuation, providing computers to school pupils, building 260 childcare centres to end the “double drop-off” and permitting an Independent Election Debate Commission.

      So we should just thank him for talking it up before the last election and not delivering because that is in the national interest.

      Why was he elected then? See my post above for the only things I can see he has done while in power.

      James it is perfectly right for the Libs to attack the coward on his record.

      How much are you going to believe he will do in term 2 going on his recent antics?

    • Nigel Catchlove says:

      08:44am | 30/04/10

      The ALP – a potted history
      Firstly manufacture a problem in the eyes of the public – childcare places, inflation genie, grocery prices, fuel prices, greatest moral challenge of our time, hospital take-over etc
      Secondly; once elected and having convinced the electorate that there are real problems that need to be fixed and only you can do that. Create a solution. 260 childcare centres, tighten monetary and fiscal policy, grocery watch, fuel watch, ETS.
      Thirdly realise that governing is difficult and policy development in government involves more than knee-jerk half-arsed statement made while in Opposition.
      Fourthly; quietly distance yourself from those disastrous policies in time for the next election. Childcare places – gone. Become the fastest spending government in Australia’s history; quietly bin grocery watch, drop fuel watch and defer the ETS until you have had your snout in the trough for at least one more term.  Oh, and the hospital takeover - just don’t do it - instead bribe the States so you can change the funding mix from a 40/60 split to a 60/40 split for 165 out of over 700 hospitals nation wide.

      Repeat as necessary.
      The usual suspects will of course go into bat to defend their precious ALP but simply pointing out how ‘bad’ the Liberal Party is in comparison isn’t really an argument.  To some extent, all sides of politics do the same thing it’s just that the ALP are bloody good at it.

      Reply

    • notanexpertbut says:

      08:50am | 30/04/10

      Got it Right??? 

      Insullation debarcle, Massive multi generational deficit that my kids will still be paying back, school buidlings that dont actually increase the skill set that will be required in future years, Housing prices and land shortages that will make it impossible for my kids to actaully own a house without paying over $1 million and take 2 hours to get to the city to go to work to earn the wage that will be required to pay back this disgraceful mortgage.

      When you state “It’s a waste to soak the market” - do you acknolwdlege that it was waste to spend billions on a failed schemes?

      when you say “But it’s refreshing, for once, to see common sense override the emotional drawcard of treating “working families” as a sacred cow.” - it was Kevin Rudd and team that made “working families” the cacred cow.  I am not special for having kids, and i work bloody hard to provide for them, and to pay “my” taxes and increased cost of living.  I dont work this hard to pay for foolish, knee jerk, unthought of schemes that eventually cost more to fix than to implement.

      “The private operators can sort that out. It’s supply and demand” - are you forgetting ABC Centres collapse and the resulted “shuffle” required then?

      I dont pretend to sit here and blame government and politicions for everything - however, I do charge them when I vote to be responsible and forward thinking to move the country forward. What this goverment and succesive state governments have done is not this. Providing affordable, reliable, safe childcare in areas that it is required for the generation that will be paying your pension is one of these responsibilities.

      It would be refreshing to see a group of people take the party hats off, talk and discuss how to move the country forward rather than how to win votes and elections.

      Respectufully, I think your peice is disgraceful and out of touch, much like this federal and state govermenent.

      Reply

    • Super D says:

      08:57am | 30/04/10

      Getting the number of childcare places right is no small challenge.  There will always be a conflict between scarcity and wasted resources.  There will always be one or the other at the local level - and this is after all what matters.

      Also its not just location its hours that matter.  Most people are pretty flexible, they want childcare near their home, near their work, or somewhere convenient along the way.  They also need somewhere that will open the hours they need.  Its one thing to pick up a kid by 6 in the city, though if you’ve got to do 45 min commute to get back to your local centre it is a greater challenge - especially if that 45 mins involves public transport.

      Perhaps what we need is more late daycare centres in suburban areas - available specifically to city commuters.  Individual centres can’t be expected to stay open for the 1 or 2 kids out of 30 odd whose parents need a late pickup.

      Reply

    • timbo says:

      08:57am | 30/04/10

      I dont think people would mind so much if the Gov’t had managed to get anything else right during the last 3 years. At least this time they pulled the plug before spending too much money. I would rather some light shone on the childcare changes that are being done “on-the-quiet” with the staff in these centres…and the sneaky way the Gov’t have been pushing these changes through. General meetings held on Melbourne Cup Day, information about the changes not sent out in a timely fashion to either the centres or parents - I wouldn’t have even known about them if the centre hadnt had a meeting of their own for the parents. It looks like the Gov’t have been selectively letting this information out into areas where they know either people wont understand the changes, or people wont kick up a stink about them.

      While its a good thing to insist on a minimun level of qualifications for the staff, I dont think its a good idea to just cut out the non-qualified helpers that helped in the centres - the people who are just generally good with kids, who can handle some of the duties while a qualified staff member can attend to a particular matter with one child. Alot of centres now are just not offering places for certain age ranges because they cannot either staff them appropriately, or they cannot meet the carer ratios. The grading system that they propose for the centres is a major joke - regardless of where a centre is graded now, in the new system, they’ll all go to the bottom until their assesment time comes around so newer centres will get graded “higher” under the new system, even though the older centres have been in operation longer and been graded appropriately over that time.

      How about some light on all stuff hmmm??

      Reply

    • Taxed payer says:

      09:11am | 30/04/10

      Well said.

      Everyone does have access to childcare - it’s called one of the parents that had the kid. If one of them can’t be spared for whatever reason then don’t have children. The world is already overpopulated so you’re doing no-one any favours by adding more kids into the mix.

      The government should focus on more important things that benefit more people (eg roads, public transport and hospitals). It shouldn’t be wasting money on something that should already be provided by the parents.

      Reply

    • Stephanie says:

      12:09pm | 30/04/10

      Agreed, if people want to have children they should take into consideration the full cost of raising a child and the fact they’re not parents, they’re part time parents. The first years of a child’s life is most important, and they learn it from a different stranger every month with the high turn-over rate of staff at Childcare facilities.

      Parents are accustomed in this country to be part time parents and the government just hands out more and more cash to help this happen. Kudos to those who make the sacrifice to raise their children and stay at home with them until school starts and then even work part time to drop them off and pick them up. My mum and dad did it, still bought property, still paid for private school and they earnt not only my respect but also the respect of the parents whom simply could not be bothered to make it work. Just like they can’t be bothered cooking a proper meal for their kids and just drive through whatever’s on their way home. Disgraceful!

      Stop spending my hard earnt tax dollars on people who should be taking responsilibity for their offspring and dump it into what the country needs most!

    • Luke says:

      09:17am | 30/04/10

      you say - “They say they also worked out that there are already too many childcare centres. According to their statistics, there are thousands upon thousands of spare places. If that’s right, then they shouldn’t spend precious taxpayer dollars on more places.”
      Well maybe if they did their homework before they announce policy’s for nothing else but political gain, then they may not have to keep back flipping. It proves that Rudd/Labor say what ever is popular and not what is economically feasible and factual.
      How can anyone believe anything that comes out of Rudds mouth. Remember this is only his first term, we’ve now seen already how hollow his words really are. I don’t trust him with our money.
      ’

      Reply

    • Charles says:

      09:19am | 30/04/10

      So, even though it was the right thing to do not to build these child care centres, then we should forgive Kevin Rudd for his blatant vote buying and elcetioneering, populism and appealing to the lowest common demoninator at all times.

      I don’t think that works for me.

      Reply

    • Randal says:

      09:50am | 30/04/10

      Tory, perhaps if you actually did some research you would be aware that according to the ABS, nearly 200,000 children are unable to find suitable child care with the primary reason given by mother’s who want to return being either a lack of available places in affordable child care.

      The response of the then Opposition Spokesperson on this issue, Tanya Plibersek was :

      “If the Howard Government took child care seriously and ensured there was enough affordable care to go round, the Australian economy could benefit from the participation of another quarter of a million women in the workforce,”

      So what has changed in regards to child care since 2007, very little, and in fact there is even more pressure on the system and literally hundreds of thousands of parents restricted from returning to the workforce, and those ‘working families’ that Rudd likes to babble on about are facing increasing cost of living pressures, forcing them to the brink financially.

      There is not an oversupply of affordable places, there is an under supply, and new regulations being implemented by this government will see the cost of child care go up even further, forcing more parents out of the job market.

      In this era of skills shortages, this is dumb short sighted politics, and the investment in affordable places would have seem many tens of thousands of skilled labour return the workforce, easing the population pressures that we are facing across the nation through the current migration levels, as well as actually assisting those ‘working families’ to maintain their standard of living.

      The decision is a disgrace and poorly researched apologist pieces such as this do little to shine a light on a government which should instead become infamous for what they not done (or stuffed up), as opposed to what they have achieved, and for that you should hang your head in shame.

      Reply

    • zoe klegg says:

      01:03pm | 30/04/10

      Randle, thank god someone knows what’s going on. Tory, despite your attempts to sound like you understand the issue, you clearly haven’t done the reseach. The governemtn sent ourt a junior minister not just to annouce a policy backflip, but because the reasoning was based on fudged figures. This is a total spin peice for the Govt. We know the cost of childcare has increased every year, and the waiting lists for non-profit centres where is it affordable are up to 3 years. Sure if you want to stick your kid in an ABC Learning type centre with no qualified staff, out in the boon-docks even through you work in town, that’s your choice. But most parents want to do the best things for their kids, but sadly the options just aren’t there.  That’s why this is not just a policy backflip but a poor understanding from the Govt to the real problems faced by parents.

    • Freeman says:

      09:51am | 30/04/10

      Tory
      I agree with your article, all of labors stupids schemes should be scrapped,
      But it should be recognised that Rudd won the election on all his proposals
      that he is now backflipping on and the media should really be attacking him
      on this right now

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      12:17pm | 30/04/10

      This.

      It goes to credibility. It goes to conviction. It goes to courage.

      I cannot believe anything he says anymore. Change it all up once in power indeed.

    • Anjuli says:

      09:54am | 30/04/10

      There maybe 1,000’s of places but obviously they are not in the areas where they are needed or there would not be such an out cry at the government;s decision . My daughter has recently returned to the work force as a nurse ,part time the cost of child care is to much to go full time, 3 days for a 3 year old and 1 day after school care for a 7 year old ,this costs nearly over $500 per month .I don’t know what she gets back from tax but I do know because she has gone back to work they have taken some from her .Yet when she was a stay at home mum and did some study she got child care for $40 a week,because of a subsidy from the government.While not paying any tax they can get child care nearly free but when working paying tax you have to pay full amount.
      Hospitals provide no child care facilities to the staff ,one would think this would be an incentive to get staff back into the hospitals as then they would nearer to their children.

      Reply

    • WayneT says:

      10:22am | 30/04/10

      You hit on an interesting point Anjuli.  Why shouldn’t child care be the responsibility of employers?  It would be far more beneficial if the children were at the parents work within easy access, being looked after by a hired carer(s).  The business can then claim it as a tax deduction.  It would provide a better working environment and remove the pressure from parents having to race around or leave early to pick up their kids from child care centres.  There are also so many other social benefits that would flow on from this

    • Jennie says:

      10:23am | 30/04/10

      So Rudd says now,“there are too many child care centres” after less than 3 yrs ago saying he was going to build 222 new child care centres.
      Rudd trumpeted from the roof tops 3 yrs ago that the Christmas Island detention centre was a waste of tax payers dollars. Now he doesn’t even have enough room to house the influx of asylum seekers since he changed the border protection policy in that detention centre.
      He also said climate change was the biggest moral challenge of our time and we need to act “now” Now he has moffed balled his plan.
      Also asylum seekers are coming here because of “push” factors?
      And some of you people still believe Rudds rhetoric and lies and defend him. When Rudd is up on his podium during the election campaign I hope you all remember how this man lies for the sake of his popularity and re-election.

      Reply

    • Markus says:

      10:40am | 30/04/10

      The subidy is means tested, she would (should) only be paying full amount each week if her annual income (or combined income if married) is more than about $130,000.
      And even then she can get a rebate of 50% of all out of pocket expenses up to $7,700 per child per year.
      The subsidies for child care are huge, I have no idea how anyone could claim they can’t afford it.

      Reply

    • Saskia says:

      11:18am | 30/04/10

      The Crud Government is, officially, a Train Wreck.

      All stats and evidence point to this govt being even worse than Whitlam.

      I am still yet to hear from anyone one single coherent reason why they would ever vote for Rudd/ALP again.

      Reply

    • Ras Putin says:

      12:03pm | 30/04/10

      Perhaps the idea of Abbott and his cohorts in power might be enough of a reason Saskia!!  After all,how many countries are doing as well as us…

    • Saskia says:

      12:13pm | 30/04/10

      Ras…. and that is a coherent reason is it?  Predicting the future?  Based on???  Abbott and many of his team were main parts of the Howard government which lead us to great prosperity, good management and not even a hint of the disasters that Rudd has had in just 2 years.

      Still no coherent reason.

    • John A Neve says:

      12:56pm | 30/04/10

      Saskia,

      This government has made mistakes, no argument, but what’s money?

      The previous government took us to “war”, not once but twice, what has that cost this nation in both money and lives?

      Rudd has broken promises, so did Howard, added to which Howard lied.

      To compare the last two years with any period in Howard’s twelve is a joke, one had the boom time, the other has had the bust.

      You ask for “one single coherent reason why they would ever vote Rudd/ALP again”, I give you one. I fail to see a viable alternative.

    • Randal says:

      03:22pm | 30/04/10

      JAN do you really believe that Rudd would not have hitched his little global bandwagon and jumped into both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts??

      Rudd still declares the war in Afghanistan just and I am yet to hear a single word from him criticising the US involvement in Iraq…

      As for lying, well if that’s the basis for your decision then I think Rudd has surpassed Howard in regards to breaking core and non-core promises and he is now clearly on a break all promises roll, and anyone who does not believe that he would fronted the same ‘evidence’ as a reason for war in Iraq is truly naive and fails to adequately understand US and Australian relations - they go to war and we always go with them, regardless of the conflict, consequences or political party in power.

      As for boom and bust, there was no bust in Australia, perhaps a panicked blip by Swan and Rudd and a heap of cash flushed, fortunately for them the resources boom (which never stopped) is in full swing and they will be very fortunate as this will pay off their waste.

      So I suggest as a ‘viable alternative’ an informal vote for you at the next election as the reason you are hanging the Coalition are equally applicable to the current government - right down the treatment of refugees.

    • John A Neve says:

      07:00pm | 30/04/10

      Randal,
      Unlike you, I would have no idea what Rudd might have done. Oh for your abilities.

      Rudd may or may not have broken promises, I don’t really know not having a transcript of what he said. But I do know Howard lied, not once, not twice, but many times.

      If you are also suggesting Australia’s PM’s are subservient to America and you may be right?  Are you proud of that?

      There was a bust in this country and any one with half a brain knows it.

      As to how I vote, frankly that is none of your business.

    • freeman says:

      09:19am | 01/05/10

      John A neve
      Kim Beasley and the Labor party endorsed Howards decisions to support the wars in afganistan and Iraq. From that we can safely suggest that australia would have gone to war under a labor or liberal government. but hey, that won’t stop the labor lovers from painting howard as a war monger. also, income from the resources boom
      peaked from 2004 (after liberals had already paid off labors debt) till 2008 meaning Rudd/Labor got a big chunk of it. and the resources
      boom has picked up once again returning record profit. The Howard
      Goverment inherited a weak economy before the resources boom
      really took effect and turned it around. Looks like they will have to once more.

    • John A Neve says:

      02:18pm | 01/05/10

      Randal,

      I don’t know what Rudd might have done in the same situation and neither do you. But what he might have done matters not, he was not in government.

      If you suggesting that all Australian PM’s are subservient to America it says little for our independence!!

      As to how I vote, that is really none of your business, but I appreciate that you do as you are told.


      Freeman,

      Endorsing a decision that has already been made, is totally different to making it. All Beasley was really doing was showing solidarity to the outside world and in my view that was the right thing to do.

    • KH says:

      11:22am | 30/04/10

      When did the government become responsible for raising people’s children?? I am getting really sick of the abrogation of personal responsibility that seems to exist in every area of life these days.  The government has an obligation to provide education - not child minding! Schools are not supposed to be day care centres.  The childcare industry should remain the domain of private companies - after all, it is your choice to have the children - you figure out how to look after them when they aren’t at school, and you pay for it.  Stop trying to push it onto everyone else.

      Reply

    • Willy K says:

      11:52am | 30/04/10

      Agree.  However this promise was a central core electoral issue and one Labor hammered relentlessly in their bid to be elected by ‘Working Families’.

      To reneg now, just goes to show the contempt that Krudd holds average Australians in, and the utter incompetence of the ALP to manage even a root in a brothel. 

      As many people know -  the public face of Rudd masks an evil,scheming, power drunk, master con-man.  This strange and creepy looking little man also has a vile foul mouth and is a compulsive liar (even about his own life) and has barely disguised issues with younger women, with whom he has bullied in numerous public and private displays of uncontrolled aggression.

      People have been conned.

    • Randal says:

      12:38pm | 30/04/10

      KH the problem with your simplistic view is that you overlook the enormous drain on our economy having a parent at home has.

      We are in the midst of massive skills shortage combined with an ageing population, effectively we need to have high skilled immigration to meet this shortfall which is placing enormous infrastructure pressures upon our major cities who are bursting at the seams attempting to cope.

      Yet at the same time we have hundreds of thousands of skilled workers wanting to return to the workforce but are unable to due to a lack of affordable childcare places.

      Economically it should be a no brainer for government to invest in additional child minding places to free up this potential workforce, and they will recoup whatever monies are outlaid through the increase in taxation that working people give to the nation, as well as reducing the need for such a high migration intake, in turn easing the pressure on our nation which is struggling to cope with such an influx.

      This is not about subsidising parenting, it is about the government making smart policy decisions that are good for the country and also good for the ‘working families’ they like to bang on about, something this government is failing to do on almost a daily in the running of this nation.

    • Andrew says:

      12:23pm | 30/04/10

      All this “clearing the decks” exposing the lies, backflips and failures before he announces the election will not be forgotten as easily as they seem to predict. And if the 4 letters Rudd is hiding in regard to the insulation fiasco surface and prove Rudd was aware of the warnings before hand, (which he denies), then I feel safe to predict that ths could be the end of Kevin Rudd. The media and opposition need to put more presure on Rudd to release them, if he has nothing to hide then why hide them.

      Reply

    • David C says:

      01:10pm | 30/04/10

      I think the reason the govt is frantically cutting spending and shelving expenditure is because they panicked and blew it all the cash during the GFC that never was. 
      Its the price we are paying for voting in greenhorns just before the economic tsunami that Costello warned us about.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      02:20pm | 30/04/10

      I agree with the tone of this article. In a situation where the budget is under strain, governments should do some triage on spending initiatives. In my view, parents of young children need to remember that it is they who are responsible for the care of their children, not the state. If governments provide subsidies to them, for policy reasons, to pay for outsourced child care, that is one thing, but it is not the government’s responsibility to operate the child care industry to make it perfect all the time. Especially not if surplus places are available.

      Incidentally, remember another case of spending triage, when the new Howard government had to jettison some ‘non-core’ promises? Remember all the haters who vilified ‘Honest’ John for that (while seemingly absolving Keating for misrepresenting the budget position before the election)? I guess that same criticism can’t be applied to St Kevin given that he has dumped the whole agenda, not just the non-core aspects. Is that the logic?

      Reply

    • Christian Real says:

      08:04am | 01/05/10

      People that have children, should not expect this government or any government to use taxpayer dollars to fund childcare centres to look after their children for them.
      Nor should people expect a taxpayers handout for having children, the baby bonus that John Howard brought in should be scrapped also.
      It is the people’s own responsibility to take care and look after their own children, they could get a baby sitter to come in and look after their children if they are working,and they should pay for their own children to attend child minding centres also, and all child minding centres should be built and run by the private sector, not the government, using taxpayer’s funds.
      Hiring baby sitters or paying for child care while the parents are at work should be automatically tax deductable .

      Reply

    • JJJ says:

      12:57pm | 02/05/10

      Completely agree Christian. Having children should be an honour that you work for, not a right.

 
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