Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Early learning services and educators in New South Wales are doing it particularly tough during this lockdown. They are still open and serving families in the community who are doing essential work, and I want to thank early educators, centre directors and all the support staff for performing this essential work.

It is clear that early education and care have been left behind by this Morrison government. While the government belatedly moved to ensure it was legal for centres to waive out-of-pocket costs for children who were not attending, services have now been left with a difficult choice because there's no corresponding support package in place from the Morrison government. The choice is to waive fees and give families in lockdown a break but incur a significant reduction in revenue and potentially be forced to stand down educators or to keep charging full fees to maintain their income and viability, with the chance that families will just unenrol, which will also threaten their viability. This is a no-win situation.

The government's response has been that services can access business support payments. But in reality many of them are just not eligible, because the significant drop in their enrolment and revenue has been a growing problem as the lockdown has dragged on and more families have exited the system. Last week, the Leader of the Opposition and I hosted a crisis meeting with services in Sydney that are crying out for help. The Morrison government must act now. (Time expired)