{"id":19235,"date":"2022-11-21T22:51:33","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T22:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=19235"},"modified":"2022-11-21T22:51:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T22:51:33","slug":"greens-move-to-improve-early-education-and-care-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2022\/11\/21\/greens-move-to-improve-early-education-and-care-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"GREENS MOVE TO IMPROVE EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE BILL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that the Greens will move amendments to the Government\u2019s Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 today to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Improve access to early education and care by abolishing the Activity Test,<\/li><li>Improve transparency measures within the bill by expanding reporting requirements for providers,<\/li><li>Extend staff discounts for early education and care, and&nbsp;<\/li><li>Rename the bill from \u2018Cheaper Child Care\u2019 to \u2018More Affordable Early Education and Care\u2019.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Senator Faruqi said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Activity Test is cruel, punitive and beyond repair. As the Senate inquiry heard from numerous stakeholders, the activity test has the effect of denying access to early education for the most disadvantaged children and punishing families with insecure, casual work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe welcome new reporting requirements for large providers in the Bill but consider that these requirements should be expanded to cover all providers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Senate inquiry heard that the language of \u201ccheaper childcare\u201d used in the bill could undervalue the role of educators. We agree and will move to rename the bill to refer to \u201cmore affordable early education and care\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Greens believe early childhood education and care is an essential service that should be free and accessible for all.&nbsp; High quality early education can give children the best start in life&nbsp;and is a critical component of lifelong learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile the Government bill does not go nearly far enough to achieve our vision of universal and free early education and care, the Australian Greens support the Bill as it nonetheless represents a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that the Greens will move amendments to the Government\u2019s Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Cheaper Child Care) Bill 2022 today to: Improve access to early education and care by abolishing the Activity Test, Improve transparency measures within the bill by expanding reporting requirements for &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2022\/11\/21\/greens-move-to-improve-early-education-and-care-bill\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;GREENS MOVE TO IMPROVE EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE BILL&#8221;<\/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-19235","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\/19235","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=19235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19236,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19235\/revisions\/19236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}