Rishworth calls out Liberals for unfair CCS changes

Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Development Amanda Rishworth has accused the current Federal Government of “trying to hide the impact their unfair child care changes are having on vulnerable Australian children”.

Ms Rishworth said the decline in vulnerable and low-income families who are receiving the Additional Child Care Subsidy (ACCS), as reported by The Sector, has fallen as “a direct result of the Liberals’ decision to swamp families and providers with red tape and restrictions, making it harder to access the payment and putting early learning out of reach for these families”.

Ms Rishworth said the decision by the Federal Government to publicise the September 2018 quarter data on the Department of Education and Training website “in the dead of night” was “against convention”, describing it as “the latest attempt to cover up just how out of touch the Liberals are”.

The Child Care in Summary reports from the Department of Education and Training have been compiled and released quarterly for many years and contain key data on information including child care service numbers, children in care, child care costs and the number of children accessing subsidy types. These reports have been released under all governments for years and, up to this week, had been an uncontroversial, standard resource for the sector, Ms Rishworth said.

The timing of the most recent release, the first set of data to examine the impact of the new Child Care Subsidy (CCS), is an attempt by the Liberal Government “to evade scrutiny”, Ms Rishworth said.

She added that the Australian Labor Party “has always been concerned about the impact of the Liberals’ new system on low income and vulnerable families. That is why we voted against these changes. Labor has been asking the Department for data for months and have been denied at every attempt. It is clear now why.”