There was always a real risk that ditching the commitment to achieving a budget surplus this year (don’t you just love the language – we have had to write down tax revenues having ramped them to completely unachievable levels – do they really think we will fall for this?) would create an enviroment in which rent-seekers would be let loose to rob the taxpayer of even more money.
And so it is with the claim for the government to pay an additional $1.4 billion per year (and increasing) to subsidise higher wages for child care workers.
The ‘reforms’ that the government has instituted in respect of child care have basically been a disaster.
- There is little evidence to support the new mandated staff-to-child ratios and the requirement for higher qualifications;
- There is now no effective choice, with home-based carers being driven out of business by the ludicrous regulatory burden;
- The red tape burden is excessive;
- It is not profitable to care for babies (under 2 years) and many centres are vacating this space;
- There is absolutely no evidence that the massive increase in government outlays on childcare has been associated with an increase in the labour force participation of women of child-bearing age – in fact, it has stalled.
- In effect, taxpayers are paying much more to get the same.
- There have been high rates of labour turnover in childcare centres for decades and yet the industry has soldiered on. The idea that there is a crisis now is simply not true.
- This is just a case of the government’s union mates trying to cash in while they can.
- In the meantime, the centres want the subisidies paid to them rather than the parents because parents are often slow to pay up and they can pull their child out at any stage.
- Kate Ellis is a very unimpressive minister who is clearly out of her depth on this relatively simple issue.
The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, faces further pressure to take the budget into deficit, with a group of MPs saying a $1.4 billion injection into childcare to improve workers’ wages is vastly overdue.
The MPs say the government has required the industry to hire more staff with better qualifications but has failed to help by boosting wages, resulting in a crisis in the industry.
”The workers are leaving in droves,” West Australian MP Melissa Parke said. ”Childcare workers earn $18 an hour, $10 less an hour than the average wage. A lot of people are saying they can earn more money elsewhere. They are required to have diplomas and do courses and yet they aren’t paid properly and are leaving.”
Ms Parke is one of the conveners of an internal Labor Party group formed 18 months ago to push within the Labor caucus for support for better wages for childcare workers.
Parke will meet Ms Gillard, and the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, when Parliament returns next week to ask for the money for pay increases to be included in the budget.Since Mr Swan announced late last year he would not be delivering a surplus, MPs have become increasingly outspoken about items they want in the budget.
Tasmanian senator Lisa Singh said the wage increase needed to be included in the budget and not left as a possible election sweetener later in the year.
”If you want to raise the standards [of the industry] surely part of that is paying people accordingly,” Senator Singh said. ”We’re not following it through with adequate wages.”
The industry broadly supports the government’s push to improve qualifications and introduce higher ratios of staff to children but is struggling.
Sue Lines, the assistant national secretary of United Voice, the child care workers’ union, said it was ”stunningly obvious” that childcare workers needed to be paid more.
The only part of this post that makes any sense…….
1735099
28 Jan 13 at 6:02 pm
We need cheap childcare. Four kids to a carer, each carer with a degree, is incompatible with cheap childcare. It more describes an ideal home environment.
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 6:09 pm
And what next from this congress of cretins?
The 852 quadrillion dollars estimated cost of a death star requested of the US govt gave even the looney half-american O’Bama pause.
Expect Swan to announce one or two now that the last thread between him and economic reality has been severed.
WhaleHunt Fun
28 Jan 13 at 6:12 pm
What’s with the Greek flag used by numbers?
As an economic basket case, the Greeks are an unusual choice for an emblem.
WhaleHunt Fun
28 Jan 13 at 6:17 pm
It looks like child care workers aka rent seekers (its true – many childcare workers do face a constant struggle to pay the rent) are joining cleaners as the occupations libertarians despise.
Grey
28 Jan 13 at 6:28 pm
Child care in 2008 – $65 / day. Childcare in 2013 $90 / day…
ar
28 Jan 13 at 6:32 pm
You stupid dickhead Grey.
The cost of taxes on building a new house in NSW can easily exceed 80% AFTER you’ve paid income tax and your boss has paid payroll, superannuation and other on costs.
Childcare workers don’t get paid anymore because their productivity is low, even prohibitively so.
.
28 Jan 13 at 6:32 pm
Sorry, the tax RATE – the proportion can exceed 45%.
.
28 Jan 13 at 6:34 pm
Whalehunt – that is the Eureka flag – flown by morons who believe myths.
Judith – we have had children in different types of care – home care, play group informal care, mum swap care, local kindy run for profit but by a sole trader, a C + K non-profit kindy and grannies.
By far the best has been granny at home, followed by mum swap care (kid goes over to friend for day, then vice versa – their kid comes to you).
The C + K has been the biggest disappointment – they are so swamped by regulations they employ an extra person just to do paperwork, and they don’t have much by way of things to do for kids.
The sole trader kindy has the most caring staff we’ve met anywhere, and as local kids go there, it has a stronger community feel than the C + K. (it draws people from wider geographic due to its reputation). It is also cheaper than the C + K …
I’m all for paying a fair fee for this care, but Aust is already at top of living expense in world due in part to our high wages for basic jobs.
Numbers of course just thinks the govt can pay for everything.
pete m
28 Jan 13 at 6:41 pm
It’s the Eureka flag, WhaleHunt, which says numbers has gone completely off the map. The DVA musn’t be providing enough Aropax.
As for childcare. That’s a situation that won’t be fixed until it’s funded on a basis other than battery farms with feminists in charge.
I may say more about this later.
mareeS
28 Jan 13 at 6:42 pm
Grey, why is it you trolls are so vapid you have to fall back to emotive absolute statements filled with strawmen?
Token
28 Jan 13 at 6:51 pm
In fact, I may say more about it now, while dinner is on the stove, after reading pete m’s comment at 6.41pm.
I went freelance after my maternity leave ran out, joined my husband in business and also worked for some of his friends. Some of my husband’s staff also did the same over time when babies were young, and we mums all managed the childminding hours, plus sisters and mothers and MILs. We managed early childhood and primary school years. This was in the 1980s.
It’s a real pity that childminding is now an industrial activity, interfered with by people who don’t have a clue.
mareeS
28 Jan 13 at 6:53 pm
Aren’t they just pathetic?
JC
28 Jan 13 at 6:53 pm
I am sorry, I was just taken with the idea of child care workers being rent seekers for seeking an increase in their award rates.
Are the police rent seekers? The ADF?
Grey
28 Jan 13 at 7:12 pm
Greys, shouldn’t you be giving us the lowdown on how LBJ and the Chicago mob have already stitched up the 2013 election for Gillard?
Fisky
28 Jan 13 at 7:16 pm
Fisky I am afraid that horse has bolted. You are going to have to endure 3 more years with gritted teeth while childcare workers drive around in Mercs and BMWs, using rolled up banknotes to light their cannabis joints.
But 2016 shall be your year – provided you agree to keep the carbon tax. It is such a little tax – isn’t Paris worth a mass?
Grey
28 Jan 13 at 7:23 pm
will there be another flood levy. whatever happened to tax smoothing.
Jim Rose
28 Jan 13 at 7:24 pm
So the government should subsidise them then? Not like it should be up to each individual business to pay workers and try and keep good ones or anything, the government should take taxpayer money from one group and simply give it to another? My wife is about to start a job in child care and I find this move insulting and idiotic.
What a stupid stupid policy. Typical socialist nonsense, regulate an industry until it’s not viable then spend everything you can to ‘save’ it. This government simply make me sick to my stomach.
MattR
28 Jan 13 at 7:28 pm
Where are they getting the increased money from? Are you simply unable to read or are you being deliberately stupid? Here, I’ll quote it for you again so you have no excuse:
This is a call for the GOVERNMENT to take TAXPAYER money and give it to the childcare industry simply for more wages. This is rent seeking at it’s most blatant. Or do you not know what rent-seeking is?
MattR
28 Jan 13 at 7:31 pm
Probably the dumbest question imaginable on this issue. Child-care isn’t a public service or a public good you dimwit. It’s paid for directly by parents for individual care of their children. It has subsidies, yes, but only because idiotic government intervention has made it so damn expensive to run.
I’ll ask again, do you really not know what rent-seeking is, or are you being deliberately dishonest?
MattR
28 Jan 13 at 7:35 pm
Grey, it is fine for workers to negotiate with their employer for more pay, they will quickly learn where the line is which means more pay = higher costs = less customers = less work = NO PAY. The rent seekers in the question are those that believe the government (that is every taxpayer, whether they choose to use childcare or not) should be stumping up to pay their increased wages.
(and to preempt, my wife and I chose a smaller house to buy, while I reduced my hours to raise our 4yo twins without the need to use childcare – so No I don’t feel I should have to support a family where they need 2 f/t wages to support too big a mortgage).
ArgyBargy
28 Jan 13 at 7:35 pm
Anecdotal evidence to the contrary:
My daughter and my niece are both properly diploma qualified, have experience, demonstrate ability and empathy, but struggle to get enough steady work to fill their week.
What does the MP’s comment mean by expecting the government to lift the wage rate? That should be a function of supply and demand.
John A
28 Jan 13 at 7:37 pm
You may as well be speaking a foreign language to the ALP. To them “demand” means government money being spend and “supply” means tax revenue.
MattR
28 Jan 13 at 7:39 pm
Childcare looks like joining the home insulation and live cattle industries under the benevolent incompetence of Gillard and her ship of fools. That Kate Ellis is a minister in this government gives you some idea of exactly how far backwards Australia has gone.
H B Bear
28 Jan 13 at 7:44 pm
Very few wage rates are set as a result of supply and demand. Even if you ignore the floor of the minimum wage – which I assume you want to see go.
Teachers, ADF, nurses, police – if we wanted to we could drop the wages of all of them and we would still be able to recruit enough people.
Why not ask ADF recruits what is the lowest rate they are willing to work during the recruiting process and, having set an acceptable standard of candidate, take the ones that put in the lowest bid?
Grey
28 Jan 13 at 7:48 pm
Quite so, MattR
Just as “child care” equates to “baby farming” in Laborspeak.
Why bother, if you’re only going to see them at bathtime and breakfast? Apologies to all hard-working mums and dads, but why bother to do it when it gets this difficult and this expensive, and when the government/public service/teachers federation can dictate the principles and conditions under which your children are raised and educated?
I just looked over that last para, and realised I’m now a revolutionary.
mareeS
28 Jan 13 at 7:58 pm
If you have kids, that’s your choice, and your responsibility, including paying for child care.
e-girl
28 Jan 13 at 8:05 pm
From what I understand, the changes in childcare were originally thought up as a way to impede the growth of the ABC Learning childcare centres as they were outcompeting the govt/non-profit by dint of some genuine innovation. Of course Eddy Groves got a bit ahead of himself and ran his business into the ground, but by then it was too late, all the early childhood ‘academics’ and public servants were all geared up to tell the public that their children were getting sub-standard care and that only these new ratios could fix that.
The big problem of course is that the unions/politicians completely fail to understand where wage growth comes from. Wages increase when the productivity of workers increases. But tighter ratios work in completely the opposite direction. By reducing the number of children an individual childcare worker can supervise, they cut that workers productivity and therefore put downward pressure on wages.
Even worse, they reduce any incentive that a centre operator has to pay their good staff more. If my best staff member is only allowed by law to look after the same number of children as my worst staff member, then what incentive do I have to pay them more if they can’t bring in more business to my centre or reduce the number of other staff I need to hire?
So who are the staff that have been leaving childcare? Of course they are the best, smartest and nicest staff because they have the most chance of getting a job elsewhere. Meanwhile, only the dropkicks remain, who are only employed by dint of the fact that they managed to score the necessary Certificate from some 2nd rate training institute that printed them out a qualification as soon as the cheque was cut.
If I was kind, I’d say that this outcome is unintended and the politicians will try to fix it. But I suspect most of them just don’t care.
rebel with cause
28 Jan 13 at 8:07 pm
Bullshit. How many people would be willing to get shot up in Afghanistan for a dollar an hour? How many nurses do you know that would work a night shift for a few bucks? You reduce wages enough and even the ones that can’t get a job elsewhere will find the dole preferable.
You do understand that is basically what happens in childcare now? The minimum wage is set by law and the acceptable standard of candidate is one with the qualification the regulations require. There is no point in paying anyone more than the minimum wage as they cannot be any more productive than what the law allows them to be, which is set by the staff/child ratio.
rebel with cause
28 Jan 13 at 8:19 pm
rebel with cause said it quite well about why not to leave children in institutional child care.
Basically, if you don’t care to pay the carers enough, they don’t give a flying eff about your child, apart from changing nappies and providing food.
There are better jobs for childminders, including the big money they earn in remote locations as nannies. Almost as much as mining jobs.
mareeS
28 Jan 13 at 8:30 pm
Nonsense, all private sector wages are set by supply and demand and all that the minimum wage does is lock out workers who’s labour is worth less than it.
Even in the public sector the best any brightest will simply leave if wages aren’t high enough, which is a major reason reason the public sector is so wasteful and inefficient.
Honestly, you don’t even understand the difference between a public and a private good, why are you commenting on economics at all? Do some reading for goodness sake.
MattR
28 Jan 13 at 8:32 pm
Pay rates in the fast food industry aren’t real flash. Why doesn’t the government subsidise Maccas, KFC etc?
Steve of Ferny Hills
28 Jan 13 at 8:38 pm
Step 1: new industry starts up.
Step 2: Trade Unions promise higher wages if workers join union,
Step 3: TUP forces customers to pay more and/or force taxpayers to subsidise workers,
Step 3: Alternatives are regulated out of business (watch out home schoolers!),
Step 4: Entrepreneurs find something else to invest in,
Step 5: Black market starts up,
Step 6: TUP gets voted out but Liberals (sic) don’t change anything,
Step 7: Academics and ALPBC blame collapse of industry on Liberals,
Step 8: Go back to Step 1:
Forester
28 Jan 13 at 8:41 pm
To my mind, wages are satisfactory in Australia but rent and houses are very expensive so mothers have to work even if they prefer to be at home with their babies.
candy
28 Jan 13 at 8:46 pm
Thanks for bringing attention to this issue Judith, please keep it up. Government incompetence is always undesirable, but I think particularly so when it affects children’s education and increases the cost of having kids. I don’t want to live in a society where only the rich and the unemployed, by dint of subsidy, can afford to have kids.
rebel with cause
28 Jan 13 at 8:47 pm
The real reason for all this regulation in the first place was the government wanted higher pay for child care workers. child care is a minimum wage job, like taxi driving, any competent person can do it, and it requires nothing special, just a house.
it was inevitable that it would be regulated to the point of rediculouness.
what i find disgusting is that a single mum who DOESNT work is subsidised almost 100% for child care. the single mums collect the parent pension then put the kids into care for less than $5 a day so they can spend they day shopping.
mundi
28 Jan 13 at 9:29 pm
Not according to Sportsbet – Labor on $3.00 to win. I’m shocked that these appalling odds have escaped the attention of George Soros, Jacques Delors, and everyone else who apparently has a stake in this election.
Fisky
28 Jan 13 at 10:11 pm
Also many people don’t realise that the current system is easily abused. For example the “Grandparent Child Care Rebate”. A mother can be on the parent pension, yet the grand parent can be the person who is a “major provider of care” for the child. This means the grand parent can pay for child care and get it 100% rebate, while the mother is on the parent pension doing nothing!
Also any parent who separates from their partner they can simply apply for the ‘special child care’ rebate, which gets them 100% subsidized care for a year because their household income has unexpectedly decreased…
We aren’t that far away from the government just paying for everyone to have ‘free’ care. Infact this is probably the end goal – extend the public education / baby sitting system down to 0 years of age.
mundi
28 Jan 13 at 10:14 pm
Mundi
says
“the single mums collect the parent pension then put the kids into care for less than $5 a day so they can spend they day shopping.”
Get real – shopping with what?
Aliice
28 Jan 13 at 10:18 pm
Governments’ role in child care should be limited to checking for pedophiles. Qualifications and wages should be left to individual centers. Thirty years ago, much childcare was done by teenage high school girls – nothing wrong with that If people want PhDs taking care of their kids, they can pay for it.
Sleetmute
28 Jan 13 at 10:22 pm
Shopping with the $600+ per week they get for parent pension ($330), FTBA ($85), FTBB ($75), rent assistance (~$120).
Single mums are some of the biggest shopping centre attendies. They are the MOST likly group of people to visit cinimas and purchase lunch at a shopping centre.
mundi
28 Jan 13 at 10:24 pm
Sleetmate, if all these qualifications are needed to look after children, why don’t people need these qualifications to be allowed to breed?
mundi
28 Jan 13 at 10:26 pm
Fair point mundi. Unfortunately, the dumber you are, the more you are subsidised to produce children.
Sleetmute
28 Jan 13 at 10:35 pm
Mundi there is no way its $600 a week
no way
Aliice
28 Jan 13 at 10:50 pm
There is a third option.
1. ignorant.
2. dishonest
3. ignorant AND dishonest.
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 11:13 pm
Ah, no, we wouldn’t, actually. Last I heard there was a teacher shortage. Nurse shortages are severe and ongoing. And of course in all cases there is a government monopoly or near monopoly… and very often, roughly equivalent private-sector workers, without dear Government nearly so involved in ensuring their welfare, are better paid, with better conditions, and more productive.
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 11:17 pm
What labor doesn’t understand is that they have made child care useless for a huge portion of the population.
For example if a father of two earns $100k and the mother wants to go back to work earning say $35k, the family is almost certain to be worse off.
Child care will be upto $800 per week for both kids to get 5 days of care. The rebate and benefit is about $400. The mother will earn $670, but pay $150 in tax, and the family would lose $120ish in family tax benefits. Plus add on any costs of travel to work and child care (Say $50 per week for fuel) and the whole situation doesn’t work out. The mother may end up bringing home about $50 a week if they are lucky.
mundi
28 Jan 13 at 11:17 pm
To get rent assistance of $120 you’d need to be paying $200 in rent. Rent assistance is always less than rent paid.
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 11:19 pm
Child care is about physical care, kindliness, listening, paying attention and joining in. The rest is added frills. Frills should be a parental choice, not a government provision.
It wasn’t broken, so why try to ‘fix’ it? All sense of proportion has been lost.
Home care, shared care, family care etc is the best sort of care for the under threes. After that, a bit of organised learning a few hours a day can be valuable too, but in kindergarten class sizes.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
28 Jan 13 at 11:20 pm
Yeah there’s a major problem here. Society “wants” successful, stable people to breed AND be productive AND produce scads of tax cash to throw around. Really, “pick two” is probably optimistic.
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 11:21 pm
Three year olds don’t need love and lots of engaging play! They need a CURRICULUM! Hell, that’s not even a frill, it’s a detriment. Where did they even find anyone to recommend such an idiotic, counter-scientific load of bollox?
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 11:23 pm
Alice: there is a very real problem with welfare in that if a father decides to stick around but can’t get work, his family is much, much worse off.
wreckage
28 Jan 13 at 11:25 pm
Lizzie B, that’s how things used to be informally organised not so long ago, and it shouldn’t be any more difficult now.
The difference is, organisers have intervened in order to control another part of private life.
mareeS
29 Jan 13 at 12:58 am
Grey,
actually being a 24 year vet with SAPOL and knowing the issues we are having with recruiting suitable people. Reducing the salary available for police would do two things, firstly drop the standard of entry recruits to a level unsatisfactory to both the service and the public and secondly, cause a mass exodus of experienced police to the private sector. It has been difficult to attract the right sort of recruit to policing over the last 8 years with SAPOL having to recruit experienced members from the UK to make up the short fall. It also has had issues retaining staff in specialist areas such as detectives, prosecution and STAR tactical and special ops and the last couple of years have thrown huge amounts of cash for very remote stations like in the APY landsm just to get people to go there.
Tator
29 Jan 13 at 6:02 am
I am afraid you are incorrect, my wife could easily clear $600/wk if we were t seperate (not divorce) and thats before I start paying childcare. If it interest you enough I can get her to check it out and post a breakdown of it later.
Adam Diver
29 Jan 13 at 6:42 am
All kids need this, and it is all that the under threes require, in my experience. My list of qualities referred to the carers, not the kids.
Once three and above, many kids do well with a bit of structured learning in their day as well as lots of love and play. Not all though, and not too much ‘educational theory’ about it.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
29 Jan 13 at 8:35 am
wreckage – I would believe that re fathers sticking around unable to get work and the family worse off than if they separated..
That is a stupid situation isnt it? That alone gives incentives to separate and that in turn creates more welfare dependancy.
Aliice
29 Jan 13 at 8:52 am
Grey is very ignorant
A BMW M3 in Australia costs about 210k.
A BMW M3 in America costs about 63k.
The way to make things more affordable is to cut taxes.
If you want the less wel off to have luxury items – then stop slapping a luxury tax, tariff and so forth on those items.
You don’t understand what supply and demand are.
Not everyone will take the highest paying jobs – mining construction, medicine, prostitution or drug dealing.
All wages are determined by supply and demand. You’ve also demonstrated that immigration and wage deregulation will not reduce wages of anyone – but simply allow people to have a job who never could have one before.
Learn about elasticity before you pontificate about supply and demand, Davos Dweller.
The price of fuel can rise considerably but the quantity demanded doesn’t change much – if at all – at least in the short run.
Grey would conclude that a lot of markets for fuel are not determined by supply and demand.
.
29 Jan 13 at 9:39 am
Frankly, Tator, I am hardly going to accept anything a rent-seeker says at face value, am I?
Grey
29 Jan 13 at 10:39 am
Mine aren’t. I would do my job for less pay (assuming I couldn’t get another job – a safe assumption based on past experience), but I have an award that states how much I am to paid. I have done the same job outside the Australian state sector for 50% of the pay I get now.
Grey
29 Jan 13 at 10:42 am
You don’t even understand what you’re talking about.
.
29 Jan 13 at 10:56 am
Dot discussions with you take on an eery surreal feel.
Remember how Figure 4 of a certain US treasury report which proved that cutting taxes increased revenue suddenly morphed into a completely hopeless figure that only a leftard lying moron like myself could possible use to prove anything in the twinkling of an eye?
I assume your contentless insult is Dot-code for “whoops, I made a prat of myself again. Please forgive me Milton Friedman, I will try harder next time.”
Grey
29 Jan 13 at 12:13 pm
Remember how YOU got the growth rate of Reagan’s tax revenue wrong, too?
You said…”anyone with a brain can see that Reagan’s tax cuts saw a decrease in revenue” or something very similar.
That is and was demonstrably false.
I was too lazy to go out and do the easy work of proving your assertion wrong. I just grabbed the nearest thing I could.
It is best we both leave it at that.
However, you still really don’t understand economics.
Supply and demand determine wages. Get over it.
Please tell us how wages are “really” determined otherwise.
.
29 Jan 13 at 1:48 pm
Greys says… Da gobermint.
JC
29 Jan 13 at 1:50 pm
So JC you reckon Grey thinks the Government can mandate full employment and a minimum wage of $300 an hour with no adverse effects?
This makes the Davos, “saving Europe” and “I know what really happened at Chappaquiddick and at the JFK assassination” stuff seem less unhinged.
.
29 Jan 13 at 1:57 pm