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ABC Learning should not receive Government assistance, instead community-based operators should be allowed to take over its centres if it is indeed in danger of going into liquidation, a community child care advocate says.
There is speculation ABC Learning could be on the brink of collapse, with a newspaper report suggesting the company has approached the Federal Government for emergency funding.
Education Minister Julia Gillard has moved to reassure parents of the estimated 100,000 children enrolled in the company's centres that the company is in good shape, but she admits the Government has contingency plans in place if the company goes under.
The national secretary of community-based child care services, Barbara Romeril, says bailing out the ailing company is not an effective long-term solution.
"The community sector can absolutely step in and provide child care in those communities, there's no need to bail out the companies," she said.
Ms Romeril says the only thing standing in the way of community-run centres stepping in is access to facilities.
Mr Romeril says if a corporate commercial operator failed, then the Government should help community organisations to take over the facilities so that they could run non-profit operations.
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ABC Learning has a 25 per cent share of Australia's childcare sector, and Ms Romeril says one company should never have been allowed to build up such a stake.
"We've been warning the Government ever since the commercial childcare sector started in the 1980s that it must not allow this vital public good of high-quality care for children to fall into the hands of organisations with a commercial imperative," she said.
"As corporate, publicly listed childcare chains came on the scene in the early 21st century, we warned Governments not to allow them to take a large proportion of the sector because it makes the whole sector fragile.
"There are highly skilled and competent community organisations operating social enterprises around the country, they're economically viable, they're high quality and they're well run."
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- reprinted from ABC News