The Greens have welcomed the government finally moving to \u201cconsult\u201d on a national early childhood education and care commission, but say families will be let down yet again if next week\u2019s budget fails to deliver meaningful investment to establish it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australian Greens spokesperson for early childhood education and care, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, announced a plan for an early childhood commission more than a year ago ahead of the 2025 federal election, backed by experts across the sector. The proposal was again recommended by the Greens in their dissenting report to the Senate inquiry into the quality and safety of ECEC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Labor has now announced it will begin \u201cconsultation\u201d on a commission, but has not committed funding in next week\u2019s budget to establish it. Reporting also suggests <\/a>the Treasurer has poured cold water on progress toward universal childcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Steph Hodgins-May:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOnce again, Labor is all talk and no action. The Prime Minister cannot keep calling early learning his legacy while offering crumbs when families are crying out for real reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cConsultation is fine, but families and educators already know what\u2019s needed. The Greens have put forward a serious plan for an independent national regulator with teeth to crack down on unsafe centres, lift standards, and drive the transition to universal early education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFamilies are struggling right now with skyrocketing childcare fees, concerns about quality, and an increasingly privatised system that treats children like profit margins, and this is if they can even find a place in a centre at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve spent more than a year pushing the Minister to act on a national commission, only to hear the same excuses over and over: not now, maybe later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow we\u2019ve got another vague, non-committal announcement that kicks the can further down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen is the right time? Parents are at breaking point. They cannot wait any longer for a properly funded, affordable, high-quality universal early learning system that works just like primary and secondary school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf Labor was willing to stand up to the gas cartel and introduce a minimum 25 per cent tax on gas exports, we\u2019d have the revenue not just to consult on reform, but to actually build the universal early learning system families deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf next week\u2019s budget fails to deliver that investment, Labor will have let families down once again.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Greens have welcomed the government finally moving to \u201cconsult\u201d on a national early childhood education and care commission, but say families will be let down yet again if next week\u2019s budget fails to deliver meaningful investment to establish it. Australian Greens spokesperson for early childhood education and care, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, announced a plan … Continue reading “Labor finally adopts Greens-driven early childhood commission proposal but stalls on real reform”<\/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-38822","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\/38822","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=38822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38823,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38822\/revisions\/38823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}