Women could be forced out of work by the rising cost of childcare in order to care for their own children, according to Laverton Community Children’s Centre manager Kate Kirner.
Ms Kirner said childcare workers supported improvements to regulations and national quality standards, but the federal government had failed to look at ways and means to support the rising costs.
She said changes to professional qualifications in 2014 meant higher remuneration, and child-staff ratios had increased so more workers had to be employed.
“All I keep hearing is the cost of childcare, families can’t afford it, or the cost of childcare has become so expensive,” Ms Kirner said.
“In the last eight years, our fees have gone from $65 to $92.”
Council budget papers reveal funding for the universal access program that provides an additional five hours of four-year-old preschool education is only guaranteed up to December.
More than 50 family day carers in Hobsons Bay, who provide an in-home alternative to centres, are concerned about how they will make up $230,000 in lost federal funding from next July.
Hobsons Bay council this month resolved to write to assistant Education Minister Sussan Ley expressing concerns about the funding withdrawal to family day care, and a review of the new eligibility criteria which deemed a suburb like Laverton was not disadvantaged enough to receive funding.
An officer’s report states the changes may leave carers, mainly women, out of work.
Ms Kirner supported the council’s call for a review of eligibility criteria, saying a suburb like Laverton was most vulnerable.
“We actively support families who have the postcode of 3028 because those families, in my professional opinion, require additional support and measures that they may or may not get somewhere else.”
She said women, primarily, may consider leaving work to look after their children.
“What I worry about is if you remove funding for family day care and a percentage of kindergarten funding and then you don’t re-look at the model of childcare benefit which is Commmonwealth-specific, we run the risk of creating this tier-based system where people who can afford things like nannies, for example, receive benefits for that.
“Families, women in particular, are forced to make those decisions [about whether they can afford to work] because it becomes a cost and access issue.
“We should be better at that by now.”
