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 Is childcare or early learning unaffordable or inaccessible for your family?
Do you know anyone who has left the workforce after having kids because “after the cost of childcare it wasn't worthwhile to continue to work”? Or because they couldn’t find affordable quality care?
The cost of quality childcare – home care, day care, after school care and vacation care – is a key issue for Australia’s working families and for working women in particular.
And of course it's a big issue for our kids.
Please sign our online petition here - and share this site with all your friends and colleagues. And you can follow us on facebook and twitter for updates on this critical issue for families and employers.
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To: The Hon Kate Ellis MP, Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care
The Hon Julie Collins, Minister for the Status of Women
Th Hon Jenny Macklin MP, Minister for Families and Community Services
Dear Ministers
The cost and availability of childcare and early learning is a big issue for Australian families and is having a
serious, enduring and cumulative impact on family budgets, the careers of Australian
women and the development and wellbeing of our children.
I’m asking
you to:
- expand existing childcare rebates and support to include not only day care centres but also in-home care and out-of-school hours care, providing greater support and choice for Australian families
- increase the level of childcare support by Governments, recognising the real cost of care has risen significantly and needs to be addressed to give parents the financial incentive to return to work
- simplify the processes for parents to find quality childcare and receive childcare benefits, including exploration of potential benefits of tax deductibility of childcare.
This will legitimize the cost of care for working families and carers in
Australia, providing true choice to families on childcare options, and remove a significant structural barrier to full workforce participation for all Australians.
“Changing this legislation will see an improvement in women in leadership positions in the work place. It will improve equality in every aspect.” - Alexandra
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“Dear Ministers We continually hear of the shortages of many skills required to drive not only our commercial pursuits, but our ancilliary services such as health and education. How many new mothers or mothers of children under school age have left just these two vital areas of our society due to the costs of child care for working mothers? Some form of support for child care such as a tax deductable child care policy will enable many hundreds of women to return to these key positions thereby easing the current burdens being experienced. The tax deductability will be more than offset by the extra PAYG payments collected by government. Please use your positions as our parliamentary representatives to take a leadership role on this most serious question.” - Doug
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