Albany educators relieved as Federal Government ends emergency free childcare scheme

Albany daycare educators say they can breathe a sigh of relief after the Federal Government announced it would wind back its free childcare package from July 13. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said the temporary relief package offered to parents at the height of the COVID-19 crisis had “done its job”. The $1.6 billion plan to provide free childcare to parents from April saw family and long daycare operators reimbursed for half of their existing hourly rate cap and made eligible for JobKeeper payments. The decision caused outrage among family daycare educators, who provide care for small groups of children in their homes, who said they would struggle to stay afloat on half their weekly income. But after a tumultuous eight weeks, the Child Care Subsidy is set to resume and JobKeeper payments switched off, with the Federal Government providing $708 million for the transition. Albany Family Day Care owner Caroline Boocock said although she managed to keep her doors open, operating on less than half her income had been a struggle. “I think I lost about two-thirds of my pay before JobKeeper kicked in, and then JobKeeper took me up to about 50 per cent of my income,” she said. Ms Boocock said although the move away from the emergency package was good news, the process had made her sceptical of the Government. “We thought ‘we’ll see it when it happens’ — we’ve lost all trust in this Government anyway,” she said. “Basically they took none of our suggestions on-board and decided to roll back to the old system. “I’ve been feeling that my profession is unappreciated by a lot of people and am sad that we didn’t seem to be classed as essential workers. Without us essential workers couldn’t have worked.” Long daycare centres which provide care for larger groups of children with more staff say they are happy to be getting back to business as usual. Rainbow Child Care Centre co-ordinator Caroline Bole said the last few weeks had been a “rollercoaster”. After numbers plunged at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the centre had since seen families return in droves. “I am happy that we are healthy enough to go back to our normal way of running a childcare centre,” she said. “Families are really wanting to book their children in so they can go back to work. “It means all my staff can come back.”