Social Services Minister Scott Morrison says his aim in redesigning the childcare system is to help make it easier for women to return to the workforce, and is open to broadening subsidised services to include nannies.
Releasing the Productivity Commission’s final report into Childcare and Early Childhood Learning, Mr Morrison told AM he could see the advantage in the key recommendation of a single, means-tested subsidy paid directly to the childcare service.
“It also has a benchmark price, so taxpayers under the proposal wouldn’t be subsidising out-of-core expenses for yoga classes or whatever else happens at the extreme of some of the service providers’ offerings,” he said.
“So it is a way, I think, of addressing the economic part of this policy.”
The commission concluded the current childcare system was “complex and costly”.
Its recommendations amount to a wholesale change in the way child care is funded and administered.
Taxpayers currently spend $5.7 billion a year helping parents cover the rising cost of child care through two separate payments.
The commission recommended the current system be dumped in favour of a single subsidy and said it should be available to nannies “to better meet the needs and budgets of families”.
“I think what that reflects is the commission saying families … are dealing with a different set of needs,” Mr Morrison said.
“And there needs to be a broader array of product offerings and service offerings, and the system from a government point of view, and the support we provide, needs to reflect that.”
The report also recommended winding back some of the requirements for childcare centre staff qualifications, introduced under the previous Labor government, which would help centres cut costs.