Childcare centres would be able to sack employees more easily if they were suspected of posing a danger to children, under a Coalition plan to win back families’ votes.
A Senate inquiry into the embattled childcare sector, driven by a Coalition-dominated committee and released this week, also called for harsher penalties for paedophiles.
Allegations of childcare workers sexually abusing children in their care in the past year have rattled parental confidence in the system, and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor singled out childcare as a key issue after deposing Sussan Ley in February.
Opposition childcare spokesman Matt O’Sullivan is canvassing alternatives to Labor’s universal childcare ambitions, including vouchers that could be used for nannies or family members instead of the standardised centre-based subsidy. Income splitting, extending paid parental leave, and tax breaks are also on the table.
“We know that just one system doesn’t suit everyone,” O’Sullivan said this week. “We want to make sure … our system is able to provide that flexibility and choice for parents.”
The report signals how the Coalition will attempt to distinguish itself in an area that is one of the fastest-growing imposts on the budget – nearly $4 billion in the December quarter of 2025. Labor is working to boost accessibility and affordability through subsidies for centre-based care. It removed the activity test for the subsidy earlier this year, so all parents could access three days of subsidised care, even if they were not studying or working.
O’Sullivan said on Wednesday that the subsidy model was increasingly constrained, with more than two out of five centres charging more than the subsidised cap.
“Paedophiles are actively co-ordinating to target early education and childcare settings,” committee chair and Liberal senator Maria Kovacic said. “Law enforcement and employers need the powers to adequately deal with this significant problem and protect our children.”
Dentons partner Paul O’Halloran, an employment law expert, said workplace laws were designed to protect adult employees and could be better at protecting children.
“The Fair Work Act is used as a shield by these perpetrators and not a sword by employers,” he said.
O’Halloran said that unfair dismissal cases were clogging up the Fair Work Commission’s dramatically increasing workload of more than 40,000 dismissal-related filings each year.
“I don’t think procedural fairness and natural justice should trump child safety.”
Government committee members rejected the final report, arguing the Coalition ignored the urgent action already taken to shore up safety in the sector. Labor senators said sweeping reforms – a $226 million package which includes a new national worker register and compulsory child safety training – were the most significant in the modern early learning system’s 15-year history.
Minister for Early Childhood Education Jess Walsh said in a statement: “Our $1 billion Building Early Education Fund is delivering more quality centres where Australian families need them most, and every child now has the right to three days of child care subsidy.”
Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May also criticised the final report, arguing it did not adequately interrogate the profit-based childcare model and failed to recommend establishing an independent national commission to boost quality and safety.
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Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.