Child care is not a luxury but for many Australian families, the high fees may make it feel like one.
The Greens want child care to be viewed as an essential public service that is free and accessible for all families irrespective of where they live and how much parents earn.
The party will today unveil a multi-billion-dollar plan for free and universal early childhood education and care, which the Greens hope to push the major parties on should they hold the balance of power in the next parliament.
Both Labor and the Coalition have already put forward their policies to make child care cheaper and encourage greater workforce participation, but neither has gone this far.
With the expected May election fast approaching and the cost of living increasing, child care will likely feature as a major theme in the upcoming election campaign.
Income tests and fee caps scrapped under Greens plan
Under the Greens plan, the Child Care Subsidy activity test, income test and annual fee cap would be removed and all families would have access to 100 hours per fortnight of fully subsidised child care up to the existing hourly fee cap.
The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates it would cost $19 billion over four years.
Greens education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi said universal early learning has major social and economic benefits for communities, families and children.
"We will push the next government to make sure that this happens," Senator Faruqi said.
"Too often, women have to give up work and career opportunities because childcare is too expensive or not available."
The Greens intend to pay for the changes by "making billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax and winding back handouts to big polluters".
"Fee-free childcare and early learning can't just be a short-term bandaid at the time of crisis," Senator Faruqi said.
"Our broken, underfunded system with rising out-of-pocket expenses for families must be fixed once and for all."
The plan would also give three and four-year-olds access to 24 hours a week of subsidised preschool, up from the current 15 hours.
To reduce child care waiting lists, community, non-profit and local government-run centres would get access to $200 million of grant funding to put towards expanding or renovating their facilities or growing their workforce.
Other elements of the plan include:
- Developing a workforce strategy with the early learning sector and unions to increase pay and improve conditions
- Increased support for First Nations Community-Controlled Early Childhood Education and Care
- Phasing out for-profit early learning centres
Labor and Coalition eye cheaper child care ahead of election
While neither of the major parties plans to make child care free, they both believe the costs are prohibitive and the existing system discourages women from taking up a fourth or fifth day of work.
Last year, the Coalition announced in the budget an extra $1.7 billion would be spent over four years to make child care more affordable.
From early March 2022, the annual cap on the Child Care Subsidy of $10,560 will be removed, bringing relief for families earning more than $189,390, who are currently expected to pay full fees once they exceed the cap.
Families with multiple children in child care will also feel relief, with the government boosting the subsidy for the second child in care (and subsequent children after that) by up to 30 per cent.
Like the Coalition, Labor's child care plan also scraps the annual cap and is scheduled to begin from July 2022 if it wins the election, but the Opposition's policy goes further by increasing the maximum subsidy rate to 90 per cent up from 85 per cent.
It means households earning up to $80,000 a year would only pay 10 per cent of their child care costs, with the rate of the subsidy reduced the more a household earns.
Subsidies under the current system drop away for families earning more than $354,305, however, Labor would continue to subsidise care for high-income families with incomes up to $530,000.
Labor's long-term goal is to move towards a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families and it has pledged to task the Productivity Commission with investigating how to make that work.
Analysts from the Grattan Institute argue families with only one child under the age of six in care would be "unambiguously better off" under Labor's broader policy, while the Coalition's favours families with three children under the age of six in care.
They also suggest Labor's plan, which costs roughly three times that of the government's, would deliver economic growth three times greater.
While the Coalition sought to attack Labor's policy as too generous for wealthier families, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese stressed the plan is not a welfare policy but one of economic reform.
