By Pip Hinman
While the media have made much of federal Labor's child-care cash rebate proposal, child-care workers are not as eager to embrace what they regard as anything but a fairer system.
"To start with, the 30% rebate is not available to people on the lowest fee and those using child-care for non-work-related purposes", a child-care worker who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job told Green Left Weekly. "As the new system is not means tested, those paying more each week for child-care — that is, those in the higher income bracket — stand to get nearly twice the rebate of those on the lower end of the scale."
According to a 1990 Australian Bureau of Statistics survey, out of the 550,000 families who use paid child-care, only 230,000 are expected to qualify for the 30% rebate. The average rebate would be just $12.50 per week, and most families would get less than $10. About 135,000 working parents now receiving fee relief would be eligible to receive only a small additional benefit under the new scheme.
Those parents paying $270 per week will be eligible for a weekly rebate of $61.20 (22.7% of the original fee) if they have more than one child in child-care. In comparison, parents spending $27 per week on child-care will be eligible for a rebate of $3.30 for one or more children (12.2% of the original fee).
The 1990 ABS survey found that only 6.9% of families using child-care spent more than $60 per week. Almost two-thirds had a weekly income of more than $800, putting them in the top third of income-earners. According to the February 11 Age, of families spending more than $100 per week on child-care — the biggest beneficiaries under the government's new scheme — 74% had an income of more than $800 per week.
While the survey found that 90% of the lower-income families using child-care pay less than $20 per week due to the fee relief scheme, this sector is also forced to rely on informal child-care arrangements — parents, relatives and friends.
The other major problem with the new scheme, according to the child-care worker, is that rebates will be offered only for child-care incurred while parents are working, studying or looking for work. "Those parents, mainly mothers at home simply looking for some respite, or those who want to use
child-care for the value and quality it can provide to their children's lives, will be denied access."
The Democratic Socialist candidate for Melbourne, Di Quin, queried the federal government's commitment to an extra 104,500 new child-care places. "The ALP promised 50,000 new places in 1990 and delivered less than half", Quin told Green Left.
"Over 1991-92, 2502 community centre-based places were promised, yet only 770 places actually materialised. Of the 6760 out of school hours places promised, only 4460 were provided. With this record, who can be accused of being cynical when Keating makes promises he obviously doesn't have a commitment to keeping?
"With a growing unmet demand for child-care places, it would be nice to get excited about Keating's talk of thousands of new places. But the reality is that Labor is out for the women's vote — in particular the high-income women's vote."
Indeed, both Labor and Liberals are adopting a user-pays approach to child-care, just like other community services.
"Increasingly women are realising that the two major parties can come up with nothing but a few shonky bribes before elections", says Quin. "With policies which are almost identical, women have to look around for political alternatives; while they may be small at this stage, they can at least articulate the concerns and aspirations of the majority of women, who are now disenfranchised by the no-choice political system. Women need free, quality child-care now."