Outside school hours care (OSHC) provider Camp Australia has announced that it will support those communities devastated by the recent and ongoing bushfires by providing free holiday care for all Australian emergency services personnel and volunteers for the remainder of the summer school holidays.

Children and educators from across G8 Education’s 476 strong national network of early childhood centres have banded together to host fundraisers in support of communities ravaged by bushfire. To support these efforts, G8 announced yesterday that they would match donations dollar for dollar.

Following the end of the 2018/19 financial year, the first since eligible families moved from Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate to one system of Child Care Subsidy, both providers and families have expressed concern about the confusion of the system, which has left some with high debts owing to services, and others with unexpected windfalls which rightfully belong to services.

Australia’s system of childcare support is pretty good.It ensures high-quality care is provided to a large number of children, it is targeted through income-based subsidies, and it is attentive to the needs of disadvantaged children and families.

More than half of Australia’s parents who are currently receiving the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) would be willing to receive less subsidy if it meant they had more flexibility in how it was spent, research from the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) has revealed.