MINISTER CONFIRMS ANOTHER LABOR BROKEN PROMISE

17-August-2009

Statements made by Kate Ellis, Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth today have just confirmed to Australian parents that Labor’s promises are not worth the paper they are written on, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare Sophie Mirabella said today.

More affordable childcare was a central promise of Labor’s policy at the last election.  Labor’s Affordable Child Care Plan, released in October 2007 stated that Labor would, “ensure our early childhood services are affordable, high quality and accessible for working families”.

As Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd stated on the Today Show on 1 February 2007 that, “the objective is to make sure that we do get that extra qualified early childhood education teacher in place and at no extra cost to parents”.

Now Kate Ellis has confirmed that, Australia could not successfully reform the industry without some out of pocket expenses for families.

“This broken promise now joins a long list in the area of early childhood education, Mrs Mirabella said.

1.    Labor promised to build 260 childcare centres but Julia Gillard’s Portfolio Budget Statement shows that the 222 remaining childcare centres have now been put on hold indefinitely.

2.    Labor promised universal access to preschool and that all four years olds would receive 15 hours of Government-funded early learning programs per week, for a minimum of 40 weeks per year.  However both the Government’s website and Kate Ellis have stated that “universal access” and “Government funded” does not mean it will be free.

3.    Labor promised an A to E Quality Rating System for childcare but on 12 June 2009 Kate Ellis, confirmed that Labor would dump its election promise to score childcare centres from A to E, conceding the system was unpopular”  She said, “The ALP policy stated that the new standards and the A to E rating system was to be progressively implemented  from last July.  Now we will look at other possible ways forward.”

4.    Labor promised on 18 July 2007 to, “publish local childcare fees, vacancy data and parental reviews so parents are better informed about quality and price” in relation to childcare centres.  But after more than 18 months in Government no vacancy data has been released.  The last time such data was released was in April 2007 when the Coalition was in Government.

Promises………promises.