See text below.
EXCERPTS
The number of child-care places has expanded by almost 60 per cent in the past decade but a growing national child-care waiting list and spiralling costs are still holding back the economy.
Almost 200,000 extra child-care places are needed and their non-existence is stopping parents from working, a comprehensive child-care report has found.
Almost half of the parents looking for more care said they were either unable to find places for their children or the fees were prohibitively expensive, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found.
Last year the average cost of long day care was 25 per cent more per week than in 2003.
…
The report, which was released yesterday, surveys parents every three years. It found 1.5 million children aged between 0 and 12 years - or 46 per cent of children in that age bracket - were receiving formal or informal care last year.
The number of children in formal care has ballooned from 446,700 in 1996 to 704,400 last year. The most popular kinds were long day care and out-of-school-hours care.
But the parents of a further 188,400 children - or 6 per cent aged between 0 and 12 - said they needed more care but were unable to find it.
Most parents who needed extra care said they wanted the places so they could work.
The shortage was most critical for children aged 0 to four, with places needed for another 106,100 children.
No available places at centres was the main reason parents gave when they said they needed more care. The parents of 99,000 children said cost was stopping them from even trying to find child-care places.
The Opposition's child-care spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, said there was not enough affordable child care for all who needed it.
"If the Howard Government took child care seriously and ensured there was enough affordable care to go round, the Australian economy could benefit from the participation of another quarter of a million women in the workforce," she said.
The federal budget promised to fund all approved applications for out-of-school-hours and family day care to create more spaces.
This was criticised by the child-care industry, which said many of those were likely to remain hypothetical places because of a lack of trained workers.
…
- Reprinted from Sydney Morning Herald