ABC Resolution puts spotlight on Government Childcare Plan

15-April-2009

The Rudd Government should now stop hiding behind failed ABC Learning and reveal their own Childcare plans following the announcement today that 87% of ABC2 Group Centres would remain open, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare Sophie Mirabella said today.

“I am glad that the majority of parents have finally got some certainty for the future. Last September I was calling on the Government to have contingency plans in place for ABC – they had no plans and were embarrassed into lurching from one announcement to another over the last 8 months. The process has been dogged by uncertainty and secrecy. I’m just glad the majority of parents now have some peace of mind.”

“It is long overdue for the Government to answer some hard questions about their long line of childcare bungles and broken promises,” Mrs Mirabella said.

Mrs Mirabella said the Government needed to explain:

• Why they have continually refused to release vacancy data that is collected every week. This data indicates areas of over-supply and demand and gives the industry some planning direction.
• Who will pay for the higher qualified staff and better staff-child ratios that their expert Advisory Panel recommended?
• Why is the Government continuing to push ahead with their plan to build an extra 260 Centres while more than 70 Centres have been forced to close in the past 4 months.
• Only 38 of the Government Centres have been budgeted for – who is going to pay for the other 222 and where will they be located?
• “Of course, this comes on top of the Government’s ridiculously politically-correct National Early Learning Framework. This also comes on top of Labor’s failure to introduce the A-E quality rating system that they promised parents before the last election.”

Mrs Mirabella said that the Government’s handling of the sale of ABC Centres had itself raised many questions, and the Government had pitted the non-profit sector against many small private operators.

“The whole process of the sale of the ABC2 Group of 241 Centres has been shrouded in secrecy, delay and incompetence. Hundreds of potential buyers pulled out at the final offer stage because they weren’t provided with adequate commercial information that was correct.”

“The bottom line is, after months of uncertainty, 19 Centres will close. Yet the Government is still planning to build 260 new Centres around the country while the industry has no clear picture of supply and demand – it’s madness and shows the Government has not thought through their decision.”

“There’s also growing speculation that the Rudd Government will make cuts to family benefits, including childcare, in the upcoming budget. Labor promised to take care of working families – it’s time for the Government to start answering the tough questions about the future of the Childcare industry and their own plans to create a Government-funded childcare empire.”