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TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH JOANNE DODGSON ABC LOCAL RADIO NORTH COAST

THE HON KATE ELLIS MP
MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT PARTICIPATION
MINISTER FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD AND CHILD CARE

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH JOANNE DODGSON
ABC LOCAL RADIO NORTH COAST

4 January 2012

E and OE transcript.

JOANNE DODGSON: Well, Kate Ellis, the Minister for Early Childhood Education is also on the line. Good morning, Minister.

KATE ELLIS: Good morning, great to be with you.

JOANNE DODGSON: Did anything that you heard then concern you?

KATE ELLIS: Well, no. Look, I'm very proud of the fact that our Government is recognising that, first of all, Australian kids deserve the best start in life, but secondly and very importantly, that Australian parents have repeatedly told us that when they drop their children off at an early childhood centre in the mornings, they want to have peace of mind throughout the day that they're getting a high quality service.

And what these reforms mean is that no matter where you are in the country, no matter what centre you choose, that they will all be judged by exactly the same National Quality Standard and I think that's incredibly important moving forward.

JOANNE DODGSON: It didn't sound like Vicki Skoulogenis had an issue with that, so much as the timing and the lead in to enable their staff to be able to take up or to gain qualifications or to find qualified staff.

KATE ELLIS: Well, I think that Childcare Alliance have recognised that the Government has ensured that changes when it comes to qualifications of staff come in gradually over a number of years so many staff have up to six years, for example, to achieve qualification. We've also made sure that we can recognise prior learning, that we give more assistance to enable more people to go on and train.

But one of the things that's really important to recognise here is that one of the reasons why it is important that we concentrate on building up this important workforce is because we now have more children attending childcare than ever before in this nation's history. We have more families relying on these services and indeed, we have more tax payer funds going into supporting the affordability of childcare than ever before, with $21 billion over the next four years.

So it's important to all of these people that we ensure that that money is being well spent and that children are indeed getting the best levels of supervision, but also, trained and qualified staff to get the best out of them in these critical early years.

JOANNE DODGSON: One of the other bug bears, I suppose, has been the inevitable fee rises that will result. 25 per cent of those surveyed said that their fees would rise between $30 and $50 a week. Are you concerned that that might be unaffordable for a lot of parents?

KATE ELLIS: Look, I'm concerned that we ensure that any fee rises are moderate. When we went through this system - and this isn't something that we've just dreamed up overnight. This is something that has been announced and we've been working on for a number of years that we've sat down, we've consulted, we've sought agreement from every state and territory government. They've all agreed that this is in the best interests of the centres in their state, but we've also been upfront about the fact that we got independent economic modelling to look at any cost increases.

We saw that yes, there will be a moderate cost increase over a number of years that will be gradual and that that cost increase has been estimated, and by the experts, at a national average of around $8.67 a week, after the childcare rebate is taken into consideration.

So that is an increase, but at the same time we've also massively increased the funding to Australian families to help support them with affordable childcare through increasing the Childcare Rebate from 30 to 50 per cent, through massively increasing the cap at which they can continue to claim that rebate.

We're ensuring that Australian families are getting more support than they've ever had before with their childcare fees because we know that, of course, it can be hard to make the family budgets meet. It can be hard to find those extra funds. That's why the Government is making sure that we're providing record levels of funding.

JOANNE DODGSON: The Opposition says that qualified staff, even if you can conjure them up from thin air, as Sussan Ley says, that they're going to be headed for better paid primary school positions, rather than childcare, because of the discrepancy between childcare and rates of pay in the primary education sector. Once again, is that something that you can do something about?

KATE ELLIS: What I'd say to the Opposition is that I actually attend childcare centres regularly. I attend them all over the country and what I see, each and every time I go, is staff who are there because they are passionate and they are committed and they recognise just how important these critical early years are.

So I know that there are options that are higher paying, but I also know that we have really dedicated staff, and we need to make sure that we value them and we need to make sure we recognise them and I think, the debate about the pay of childcare workers will continue on, as it should.

We need to make sure that we get the balance right between valuing our workforce and also ensuring that childcare remains affordable. Now, that's not something - that's not a debate that's going to be cleared up overnight, but it is an ongoing one. It's an important one, but I believe that an important step in resolving that is we have to move the community view of childcare. Years ago, it was viewed as babysitting. It was a babysitting service.

We need to recognise that what these staff members are doing is so much more than babysitting. That they are actually getting involved in the most critical early education phases and they're helping shape young Australians for the future. So when we recognise that, that means we invest in quality centres. That means we recognise that quality childcare is worth it and that's why we're saying that Australian kids deserve better.

JOANNE DODGSON: Okay, Minister. Thank you for your time this morning.

KATE ELLIS: Thank you.

[Ends].

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