Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have been reluctantly dragged to announce a child care policy, after leaving Australian women behind since they were elected.
\nDisappointingly, the Treasurer has yet again missed an opportunity to fundamentally and permanently reform child care, provide a significant boost to women\u2019s workforce participation and a boost to the economy.
\nUnder Scott Morrison\u2019s proposal, hundreds of thousands of families will miss out on relief compared to Labor\u2019s Cheaper Child Care Plan.
\nThe Government\u2019s child care proposal will only lift the child care subsidy rate for families who have a second or subsequent child under five years old in the system.
\nBy only providing increased\u00a0subsidies for a second or subsequent child in the system, the announcement will make an already complicated system more complicated, and will cause confusion for families as to whether this reform will leave them any better off.
\nIn comparison, Labor\u2019s Cheaper Child Care Plan lifts the subsidy and smooths the taper rate across the board, regardless of how many children the family has or how old they are \u2013 leaving \u00a097 per cent of families \u2013 or more than one million families – better off. By assisting 1 million families instead of 250,000, Labor\u2019s child care plan would provide a bigger boost to the economy.
\nThree quarters of the families benefiting from Labor\u2019s Cheaper Child Care Plan will miss out on any increase in their child care subsidy under the Liberals\u2019 plan.
\nIn addition, the many Australian families struggling under the cost of out of school hours and vacation care will not benefit at all \u00a0from the Morrison Government\u2019s lift in subsidy.
\nFamilies desperately need immediate relief from soaring child care costs, yet these changes are not even set to come in for over a year.
\nThis is a Government that has been dragged kicking and screaming to any child care reform, after years of calls from Labor, Australian women and families, business leaders, economists and the early learning sector.
\nLess than a year ago Scott Morrison denied that child care costs were a barrier to workforce participation and boosting the economy.
\nThe Government has failed to recognise families are struggling with the cost of child care now under the system that Scott Morrison designed has completely failed families in less than three years.
\nABS data released last week showed out of pocket child care costs are at record highs and are now higher than they were under the previous system
\nIn addition, the Treasurer\u2019s announcement today does nothing to guarantee costs will remain low for families into the future.
\nThe proposal misses an integral part of Labor\u2019s plan, which is for the ACCC to investigate price regulation to ensure all benefit goes into the pockets of families.
\nToday\u2019s announcement also neglects Labor\u2019s clear ambition to move to a universal 90 percent subsidy, which would deliver long-term, meaningful reform.
\nLabor\u2019s Cheaper Child Care Plan is a carefully considered, researched and widely endorsed policy that will benefit almost 100 per cent of Australian families in the system.
\nEven the Business Council of Australia proposed a policy almost identical to Labor\u2019s last week due to the anticipated benefit for our economy.
\nThe Morrison Government should have set their pride aside and adopted Labor\u2019s policy, rather than this rushed and half-hearted attempt at child care reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have been reluctantly dragged to announce a child care policy, after leaving Australian women behind since they were elected. Disappointingly, the Treasurer has yet again missed an opportunity to fundamentally and permanently reform child care, provide a significant boost to women\u2019s workforce participation and a boost to the economy. Under … Continue reading “Morrison Leaves Hundreds of Thousands of Families Behind”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}