ACA President’s Report

At the national policy level, our major efforts continue to focus on three major issues –the national workforce crisis, the impact of the new industrial relations landscape on our sector, and affordability of early learning for families.

As all three of these policy items are intrinsically linked, with each impacting the other, the policy settings around them require careful consideration to ensure the best outcomes for families and the sector at large.

Our primary focus remains on ensuring that any changes to government policy bring about positive change and do not result in unexpected outcomes such as increased costs to families, or a destabilisation of the sector.

Development of Federal Government’s Early Years Strategy

We recently submitted ACA National’s recommendations on the direction and content in the Australian Government’s draft whole-of-government Early Years Strategy, which is intended to create a new integrated approach to the policy settings around the early years from birth to five years for education, health and other areas that affect a child’s lifelong outcomes along with a clear and practical program of action.

We look forward to seeing the next phase of the government’s consultation process.

Gender Equality

ACA was asked to comment on amendments to the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gap) Bill 2023. These would compel employers to report on the pay differences across genders in their workplace and make this data transparent and available to the public for greater accountability to close the gender pay gap.

In our response we highlighted the impact of access to affordable early learning services to support women returning to work after having a child and the financial considerations that inform parent’s choices around the child’s early childhood education. The outcome of these decisions directly impacts a woman’s long-term earning capacity, career projection and lifelong superannuation accumulation.

We have also recently completed submissions providing our feedback on the draft national vision for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), ECEC Terminology and the ANZSCO Review.

1 July Child Care Subsidy (CCS) increases for most families

The changes to the CCS in the new financial year will bring about greater affordability for most families, with the maximum Child Care Subsidy (CCS) rate lifting to 90% for families earning $80,000 or less. CCS rates will increase for around 96% of families earning under $530,000.

Our concern is that more affordable early learning services are likely to increase demand for places, which will put pressure on those services already struggling with adequate staff numbers.

New industrial relations laws – introduction of multi-employer bargaining

With significant reforms now in place following the Secure Jobs,

Better Pay Act, the architecture of the bargaining system and the bargaining environment is changing dramatically. We have been working closely with our industrial relations legal experts at Australian Business Lawyers and Advisors (ABLA) to ensure that our members understand the implications of the multi-employer bargaining provisions. Our aim is to make sure our members are well prepared for the decisions they will need to make as employers once the new provisions take effect on 6 June.

ACCC Price Inquiry into the market for the supply of childcare services

Following the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s major consultation with the early learning sector from January to May, their Interim Report is expected to be provided to the Treasurer by 30 June 2023. This will be followed by further consultation with the sector, which will include ACA’s own submission on behalf of our members. Following their industrylevel consultations, the ACCC’s draft recommendations and/or draft findings are expected to be drawn up in September.

Productivity Commission’s comprehensive review of the sector

We have been diligently preparing the content for our submission to the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into the early learning sector, which includes an exploration of how the Australian Government can implement a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families (whether via the existing Child Care Subsidy model or some other mechanism). As this inquiry may well result in a shake-up of the existing subsidy framework, it’s extremely important that we provide meaningful insights and recommendations that bring about the best outcomes for our sector.

We have highlighted core issues around workforce, which is a central theme that underpins the principles of equity, access, affordability and quality that feature in our submission.

In order to ensure that our recommendations to the Productivity Commission align with the needs and views of our members, our work on this submission has included running a series of member focus group discussions. We’re very grateful to those of you who kindly volunteered to participate. The key learnings from these discussions will be included in our detailed submission which is due in June.

As we continue to navigate a year of major reform for our sector, we thank you again for your ongoing support as we continue to advocate on behalf of our members and their families to ensure a sustainable, viable early learning sector.

Paul Mondo ACA President