2 weeks Ago By Jessica Wang
Anthony Albanese will unveil an election promise designed to woo parents, promising households three days of subsidised childcare provided they earn less than $530,000 a year. The Prime Minister will make the major policy announcement on Wednesday in the Brisbane electorate of Griffith, which Labor is aiming to regain from Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather. Mr Albanese’s proposed Three Day Guarantee will allow all families earning up to $530,000-a-year to access three days of subsidised care at the current rates which are determined by household income.
This will replace the Coalition government’s activity test, which calculates the maximum hours of subsidised care based on the fortnightly working hours of the parent with the lesser number of hours. For example, a parent logging up to 48 hours per fortnight can access up to 100 hours of subsidised care. A parent with 16 to 48 activity hours can access 72 hours of care.
Mr Albanese will say current measures placed an “extra weight” on parents looking for work, and locked children out of early education programs which is critical for developing social and learning skills before primary school. “Too often, the children missing out on early education are the ones for whom it would make the biggest difference,” he is expected to say. “Instead by the time they start school, they’re already on the back foot.
“I know this for certain: parents do not need to work a certain number of hours a week to want the best possible education for their child.” Mr Albanese will also reinstate Labor’s ambitions to “build a universal childcare system,” while stating parents should be able to choose whether they want to partake in schemes. Wednesday’s announcement follows a Productivity Commission report which charted a path to universal early childhood education, which said the activity test did little to increase workforce participation.
It also called for all households to get at least three days of early childhood education and care regardless of their parents’ income. While it only recommended a 100 per cent subsidy for households with an annual income less than $80,000 (currently at 90 per cent), and for subsidies to increase for households with incomes between $80,000 to $580,000. Separately, Labor has passed laws which will boost the wages of early childhood education and care workers by 15 per cent over two years, in attempts to boost workforce numbers.
The $3.6bn policy will increase wages in two stages, with a 10 per cent bump from December 2024 and a further 5 per cent uptick in December 2025. For centres to access the wage rise funding, they must commit to not increasing their fees by more than 4.
4 per cent between now and August 8, 2025, and cannot increase costs to parents by 4.2 per cent in the following 12 months..
