Comment by Teresa Dowding
There was so much that frustrated and angered me in Susan Barley's article ("Child-care and promises", GLW March 10) that I felt compelled to answer some of her assertions.
As a working mother of one child, I am eligible for 81% fee relief from the government. (Maximum fee relief is 84%.) This sounds pretty good until you find out what Susan Barley didn't make clear in her article: that the government's percentages are based on what they arbitrarily decide child-care should cost, that is, $2.04 per child per hour.
Untrained child-care workers must be employed on a staff:children ratio of 1:4, and 4 multiplied by $2.04 doesn't even cover an untrained worker's wages. Because centres must also employ qualified staff and administrators, provide care for infants under one year where the staff ratio is higher, pay rates or rent and other overheads and pay for quality equipment, child-care centres invariably charge much more than $2.04 per child. As a result, maximum fee relief doesn't cover even 50% of the real cost for parents.
My child attends a private centre two full days per week, so I have to pay $40 a week — a major expense on a low income. This private centre charges only a fraction more than what public centres charge, and is the only option in Hobart, where there are no public centres in the immediate city area.
I could of course do what many low income families are forced to do: place my child in family day care, where the charge is much closer to $2.04 an hour per child. But then there are no qualified workers, so it's "luck of the draw in term of staff and environment; there is no kinder or preschool education; and the facilities and equipment are of a generally lower standard.
Barley poses the question: where is the inequity in a wealthy family paying 9% of their income per child for child-care, and a poorer family paying what the government suggests is only 7.7%? Well the inequity is rather obvious to me as "7.7%" is a greater financial blow on a small income, and makes full-time quality child-care an expense too great to bear for poorer families.
The real expense of child-care centres, the chronic shortage of places to meet demand, the fact that public kindergartens offer only 10 hours per week per child, and private kindergartens don't get fee relief for their clients — all this means that quality care for preschool-aged children, and education for them, are a privilege for the wealthy, giving their children an immediate head start in schooling. Keating's 30% fee relief for families of the higher income bracket not only fails to address these issues, but would exacerbate this inequitable situation. Lastly, Barley's insulting comment, "People value those things which they have paid for in some way", trivialises the financial crises many families are in, and illustrates just how out of touch she is. Free health care and education are valued by the community, most people's complaints being only that they should be better funded and offer a better service. Free child-care for all remains a demand most people can strongly identify with, and is above all a right.