Australian families to get more affordable early childhood education and care
The Australian Government is introducing cheaper childcare legislation.
On September 27, 2022, Australian lawmakers introduced legislation to reduce the cost of childcare in an effort to ease the cost-of-living pressure on families and enable parents to work and earn more. Over the past eight years, childcare costs have risen by 41%. As a result of government reforms, approximately 1.26 million families will see a reduction in childcare costs.
Despite many Australians wanting to work more, childcare costs absorb so much of their pay working more rarely ends up being worthwhile. These reforms will benefit 96 per cent of families with children in early childhood education and care, and no Australian family will lose out.
“Labor’s plan for Cheaper Child Care is good for kids, good for families and good for the economy. It will give children access to critical early education, and it gives more parents, especially mums, the opportunity to do more paid work if they want to,” said Minister for Education, Jason Clare.
In the first year of these reforms, a family with a median combined income of $120,000 and one child enrolled in early childhood education will save $1,780. The Treasury estimates that the Government’s childcare reforms will create the equivalent of 37,000 additional full-time jobs between 2023 and 2024. “That means thousands more skilled workers for our economy. That’s why this isn’t just a cost-of-living measure—it’s economic reform,” said Clare.
As part of the legislation, all large early childhood education and care providers will have to publicly report their revenue and profits, including commercial leasing information.
There will be no change to the Higher Child Care Subsidy for families with multiple children under five in early childhood education.
As a leading childcare management provider, Xplor Education monitors changes and updates in Australia’s early childhood education and care sector to ensure that our software is always compliant. We’ll continue to carefully monitor this legislation so that our software will continue to support Child Care Subsidy (CCS) submissions once the new legislation goes into effect.
Please get in touch to learn more about how Xplor’s childcare management platform, Office, can help you with CCS.
Patricia Podolig Donaldson
Marketing Content Specialist
