The Greens say Labor\u2019s announcement on early childhood education and care falls short of providing genuine reform required to fix the childcare system in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early Childhood Education and Care spokesperson Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cParents woke up today hoping that they could send their kids to childcare without breaking the bank. Instead, they have been left disappointed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor\u2019s announcement will do very little for families. Three days of subsided childcare is still only three days – parents will still be stuck with high fees and long childcare waiting lists and kids will continue to miss out on an education, particularly those most disadvantaged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe know that the activity test unfairly locks families out of getting an early education, and if Labor wanted to they could fully abolish the activity test today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur childcare system is in crisis and the sector is crying out for transformative change. We were hoping for genuine reform, but instead, Labor continues to tinker around the edges and kick the can of universal early childhood education and care to the next election cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we want a universal system, where every kid gets the best start at life – we need to make childcare free and genuinely accessible. Every day that Labor delays action, is a day that our children are denied access to early education and parents are kept out of paid work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhile parents continue to struggle in a cost of living crisis, Labor and the Coalition simply don\u2019t have the courage to take real action. With the Greens in the balance of power, we\u2019ll fight to keep Dutton out of government and push Labor to make childcare universal and free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt MP:<\/strong> \u201cThis won\u2019t make childcare more affordable for parents working part-time and won\u2019t address the cost issues for women wanting to return to work full-time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear the major parties won\u2019t do what\u2019s needed to fix early childhood education, and we can\u2019t keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result. With a minority parliament looming, the Greens in Parliament will keep Peter Dutton out and push Labor to make childcare universal and free.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Greens say Labor\u2019s announcement on early childhood education and care falls short of providing genuine reform required to fix the childcare system in Australia. Early Childhood Education and Care spokesperson Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May: \u201cParents woke up today hoping that they could send their kids to childcare without breaking the bank. Instead, they have been … Continue reading “Parents left disappointed by Labor\u2019s childcare half-measures: Greens”<\/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-30587","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\/30587","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=30587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30588,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30587\/revisions\/30588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cMany parents will be disappointed by these half-measures, which won\u2019t make any difference for full-time working families.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n