Labor ready to fix the early childhood education and care crisis.

BY JENNY WILLS, KINDICARE

MAY 18, 2022

Days out from the Federal Election, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth, Amanda Rishworth, speaks to KindiCare about the urgent need to deliver Labor’s reforms to assist families, educators and business.

For five years Amanda Rishworth has been a Minister in Waiting. Waiting for the day when Labor forms government and she can begin the early education and care reforms that are so urgently needed to ease the burden on family finances, give children the best possible start in life and remove the barriers to women’s full participation in the workforce.

Amanda Rishworth, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth. Source: Supplied

With the Federal Election just days away Amanda’s vision is to transition away from thinking of early childcare education subsidies as a means tested welfare payment to a government funded essential service. While not reading too much into early favourable polling, she has about her an air of impatience, champing at the bit to get started on a job where urgency not complacency is what’s needed.

Faced with a multiplicity of areas in need of attention she is clear about the priorities should Labor win the election.

“Our first priority will be to lift the subsidy as we have outlined, from the maximum 85 per cent to 90 per cent to ease the cost of living pressures on families,” says Amanda, sparing a precious few minutes to speak to KindiCare in the final days of the election campaign.

“We have said we will do that no later than 1 July 2023, to allow time to implement software and legislative changes. If we can do it earlier, we will.”

Her second priority, and no less urgent, is to deal with the workforce shortages that are hurting both families and early learning providers.

“We will sit down to really look at the National Children’s Education and Care Workforce Strategy that has been gathering dust in the minister’s office since October.”

Her frustration, that a plan to tackle a critical shortage of educators and teachers has been ignored, is shared by the sector and broader business community as they struggle to find the skilled workers essential to economic recovery.

“If you speak to business they are crying out for skilled workers and this is why Labor’s plan has been backed by business groups,” says Amanda.

“Cheaper child care means they might get their skilled workers back for more days which will be good for the business, good for the economy and good for families and children.”

With a commitment to increase the child care subsidy rates for every family in care earning less than $530,000, Amanda rejects suggestions that Labor is offering welfare for millionaires.

“This is the type of thinking that needs to change,” she says. “We have to look at early childhood education and care as an economic reform, an essential service to grow the economy and provide quality education at a critical stage in a child’s development. We don’t means test public school education after all.

Comparison Table of the Childcare Policies of The Major Parties and Advocacy Groups. Source: KindiCare

“Economists purely looking at the numbers say it makes sense. But we ignore the economic potential and celebrate roads instead. It’s seen as a women’s issue so it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.”

Amanda is even more concerned at the Coalition’s lack of attention to early childhood education which she says was made apparent during the pandemic and became even more pronounced when Education Minister Alan Tudge was stood aside pending an investigation into abuse allegations arising from his affair with a parliamentary staffer.

“The current Minister for Education has been stood down and there is an acting minister,” says Amanda. “I have found the lack of attention in this space very frustrating.

“When I raised some of the issues about what would happen during the pandemic (with Minister Tudge) he was very dismissive.

“During Covid it became clear that the Commonwealth were not taking responsibility and the States and Territories were focused on schools. Early childhood education and care was falling through the cracks.

“The attitude has been, we pay the subsidy and that’s it. They are not interested in anything else.

“There needs to be clear ownership of early childhood education and it has to be about more than the subsidy. There is a role for the Commonwealth in driving quality and driving costs down. We have a role to play in making sure there are enough educators and making early learning and care an attractive occupation.

“We have announced an expert panel to look into wages across the care sector. There are a lot of things that need to be urgently dealt with. It has been neglected for too long.”

There is no doubt that Amanda Rishworth wants to be the Minister who delivers the reforms that families, children, educators, teachers and early education providers so desperately need.

Curiously, she has been Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education since 2017 with no equivalent minister on the opposite side of the House to shadow.

Amanda Rishworth, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth. Source: Supplied

“Labor under Anthony Albanese and before then Bill Shorten, identified early childhood education as a responsibility that sits with the Commonwealth as the funder and regulator.

“There was a desire within Labor to make sure the importance of this issue was brought to the fore and seen as a key role of the Commonwealth.”

Labor’s determination to deliver affordable quality early childhood education and care can be traced back to 2007 when Julia Gillard was Education Minister in the newly elected Rudd Government. Given a long history of driving reform in the sector, Labor’s pledge to make child care cheaper suggests it is much more than an electioneering slogan but a core belief.

The year 2007 was also when Amanda first won the South Australian seat of Kingston. This Saturday will be her sixth on the hustings and a very different experience to the 2019 election when she campaigned while heavily pregnant with her second son, Oscar.

Her firstborn, Percy, is now at school and attends after school care two to three days a week while Oscar is in long daycare also two to three days a week. Her husband Tim Walker is the primary carer while working fulltime four days a week and they are fortunate to have grandparents able to step in to plug the gaps.

It’s a juggle that is all too familiar to the many parents and carers trying to balance family and work. And it gives Amanda a unique insight into the issues facing every modern family.

“I have a much better understanding of the issues facing families because we use long daycare and before and after school care,” says Amanda.

“I know how cumbersome the system is. You think it is going to be easy to just sign up through Centrelink but it’s not. It’s complex and very easy to get caught out with debts.

“Being in parents’ groups with other mums and dads has given me insight into the areas where the current system falls down.

“There are some good parts though. We have a high quality of early childhood education compared with OECD countries. But what we don’t have is transparency, especially around where costs are. We would like the Productivity Commission to review the sector so that we can deliver our goal of a universal 90 per cent subsidy.

“That is going to assist 96 per cent of families but it is also going to provide a boost to business and the Australian economy.”

Often new governments start out with a Cabinet full of ministers on training wheels. Amanda has been in training for the role of Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth for five years. Her knowledge of the sector is abundant, and her grasp of the issues faced by families, providers, educators and teachers, informed by the experience of being a working mum, juggling family and a high-pressure job.

She credits her husband and extended family for making it possible to manage it all – and the support of a child care centre she counts as her second family.

To find out more about Labor's Cheaper Child Care plan, visit Labor's website.

To see how the childcare policies of the major parties will affect your subsidy and out of pocket childcare costs, use the KindiCare Childcare Subsidy Calulator - Federal Election Edition.