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The cost of child care has passed the $100 a day mark - a price surge that could force many mothers out of the workforce.
Wages for child care workers, rent and a shortage of places are pushing fees up much more quickly than overall consumer prices, prompting the Federal Opposition to call on the Government to link the child care benefit to the cost of care.
The Herald has established that one child care centre in Bondi Junction, Junction Juniors, recently raised its rates from $90 a day to $105 - almost as much as the after-tax income of a parent on average earnings.
Jonathon Kruger, executive director of Childcare Associations Australia, said: "Unfortunately, quality costs. When you're talking about having children engaged, happy and wanting to go to child care - these things cost money."
In the past 12 months the average weekly cost of child care has risen by 12.4 per cent.
According to a government survey of child care fees, the average weekly fee paid by parents using private long-day-care centres is now $208, up from $154 in 1997. For community-run centres, the average weekly cost has risen from $162 to $211. In central Sydney, rates are far higher.
The Opposition child care spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, said the Government needed to do more to deal with the "absolutely appalling" cost of child care. "When families have to pay for care for two or three children, they would be using one person's wage to pay for child care, and that's completely unacceptable."
The child care benefit needed to be linked to the cost of child care rather than the inflation rate.
More parents are using child care, the number of children in centres rising from 544,700 in 1997 to 752,800 last year.
The Government funds about 600,000 child care places, almost double the number available in 1996. It estimates the child care benefit and new 30 per cent rebate will be worth on average $6000 a year per child.
The Minister for Family and Community Services, Kay Patterson, is exploring how to encourage operators to open more centres in suburban hubs, where land and rent are cheaper, rather than near workplaces.
- reprinted from the Sydney Morning Herald