Australia’s current childcare funding model risks failing our most precious people

‘Safe, quality, accessible, affordable care for our children is essential for families, women, children and the economy,’ writes Zoe Daniel, ‘but protecting profit for private providers should not be guiding policy.’ Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

When you attach profit to caring, you create a problem.

We don’t need yet another series of reviews and reports to tell us that when you rely on the blunt-force of the market, you will see profiteering from government subsidies, lack of quality in service delivery dressed up as “efficiency” to maximise profits, and next to no services in areas where there’s little money to be made.