This post is a copy of a media release from the Hon Kate Ellis MP; Minister for Employment Participation and Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care, on 31 March this year.
Why am I posting it here?
Simple. Media releases about the achievements of the Australian Government are ignored by the mainstream media. This release has. The media have had two days to promote this yet they have been more interested in promoting Tony Abbott and his daughters’ virginity.
If the mainstream media wish to ignore the achievements of the Government then perhaps the social media can fill the hole.
Here is Minister Ellis’s media release:
Latest statistics show a record number of families accessing child care courtesy of the Australian Government’s measures to increase affordability and availability.
Early Childhood and Child Care Minister Kate Ellis said the report released today revealed an extra 22,400 children were receiving child care over 12 months.
In addition, the number of child care services across Australia increased by more than 500.
“We’re a government that puts modern families first and there’s no greater way of helping those with small children than making child care more accessible and affordable,” Ms Ellis said.
“The latest Child Care Update shows our measures are working.
“We’re creating a more flexible, affordable, accessible child care system with higher quality standards and families around Australia are rightly taking advantage.”
The latest Update contains a snapshot of the sector taken at the end of June 2012 which shows there were 986,000 children in approved child care and 15,000 child care centres across Australia. More than 700,000 families were using child care.
These categories continued a long trend of strong growth over previous quarters.
More than a quarter of all children aged up to 12 years were now receiving child care.
“What we’re seeing is more children accessing child care in more services than ever before in our nation’s history,” Ms Ellis said.
“Couples with children who both want to work should be able to do so without having to worry about finding a place for their kids or being priced out of the system.
“The report shows families continue to feel confident sending their children to quality care facilities and the sector is feeling confident about delivering more services to families.”
Ms Ellis said the Government had paved the way through a range of measures, particularly the major increase in the Child Care Rebate.
“Our Government is investing a record $20.6 billion in direct child care assistance to parents over the next four years, more than triple that of the former Coalition Government,” she said.
“Our decision to increase the Child Care Rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of out-of-pocket costs, and increase the cap on the rebate from $4354 to $7500 per child per year, continues to reduce the cost to families.
“We’ve also moved to increase quality care standards so parents can have peace of mind knowing their child is receiving the best care and attention.”
Ms Ellis said despite the encouraging news, a lot of work was still required to address the availability of child care, which required all levels of government to act.
“We know there are still many families who can afford child care but simply cannot find any centres that can take their children,” she said.
“The Australian Government has done a lot of work in this area but it also needs attention from other levels of government.
“For instance there continues to be huge barriers to child care services establishing new sites, particularly planning restrictions, and I’m very keen to work on this as a matter or priority with all tiers of government to make more child care places available where they are needed.”
The Child Care Update (June Quarter 2012) can be found at:
http://mychild.gov.au/pages/ResourcesReports.aspx
Photo credit: theage.com.au
Café Whispers 
Thanks for promoting this issue Michael. Also of interest is the government’s announcement on 19 March about new funding of $300+ m to subsidise wages of workers I. The Early Chilhood Education and Care sector. This is vital to address the high staff turnover resulting from low wages for educators who are using the same curriculum as primary teachers to yr 3. National Quality Framework guidelines in the process of being implemented require a minimum Cert III qualification yet educators are on minimum wage of just over $18 p/h at that level. The combination of the affordability and wage subsidy measures will provide stable, and sustainable services for families. The wage subset is linked to an effective cap on fees, so that employees cannot increase fees for families but still pay a (semi)professional wage. In the past any increase in minimum wage fro FWA has resulted in fee hikes well over the increased cost to providers. Nb: to properly fund profession wages for this sector required $1.4bn, so we’re a long way short of addressing the most pressing problem – high turnover disrupts education and care and the well sing of educators and children. Thank you for shedding some light on what the government is doing in the sector. MSM reporting of the wages funding was quite misleading re: impact on affordability of higher wages.
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Migs, looks like sites like CW & other social media will be the conduit for spreading the good government news.
Thanks Migs for continuing to do the work the MSM should be doing if they weren’t so lazy & complicit with the LNP. Word may get out there amongst the public.
What I find strange is that the hundreds of thousands of people who are the recipients of such Federal government programs still seem unaware of them as the MSM hadn’t mentioned them.
This is precisely the “why” for blogs such as this. How can people make informed choices if they are deliberately kept in the dark? Have a read of a government program..pick holes in it, declare where it’s failings lie..but heaven help us, at least give us information.
This is a prime example of why the criticism, including criticism from the left makes one feel so despondent at times as even the left asks *why* can’t the government get it’s message out there! And the answer is that the MSM chooses not to publish government press releases. On the other hand when it’s LNP press releases we can expect those stalwarts of the press publishing these via “cut and paste” into their own so-called Opinion Pieces.
Well, we know why the government can’t get their messages out, so it is up to all of us here on the 5th Estate to do whatever it takes to help deliver messages & dissect what it truth & what isn’t.
Thanks Migs for getting this started, it will be a pleasure to forward it on.
Well done Migs when the fourth fails the fifth rallies the troops. The only other way the Gov can get the message out is via press releases or via dorothy dixers which unfortunately very few people hear and even fewer get reported .
Perhaps Julia should do a weekly addresses to the nation general in nature but outlining policy and adding a rider to the effect that she is doing this because the msm is failing to keep the public aware of what is taking place.
Bilko, I fear that the situation is so diabolical that after an address to the nation all that the MSM would be talking about is how the PM’s stockings didn’t match her earrings…