Parents Work Collective founder and author of All Mothers Work, Virginia Tapscott, calls for childcare rethink

Australia’s childcare crisis has sparked calls for the country to rethink its reliance on for-profit centres, with one advocate saying parents should have more freedom in how subsidies are spent. Parents Work Collective founder and author of All Mothers Work Virginia Tapscott said the furore over the arrest of a childcare worker was an opportunity to overhaul a system that did not best serve children or parents. It could include making it more financially viable for parents who want to stay home with young children to do so, widening the scope of the childcare subsidy and prioritising not-for-profit childcare centres over the dominant for-profit model. “I’m both relieved that the conversation is happening and deeply distressed that this is what it took,” Ms Tapscott said. “Because, yes, this is really devastating ... but I would argue that the way childcare centres commonly operate has some pretty distressing elements that are built into the system. “For a long time there’s been a distance between what the evidence says is appropriate for toddlers and young children and what that childcare delivery looks like. “The childcare system we’ve got is textbook how you don’t build a childcare industry. “We can see for-profit childcare centres across the board provide lower quality care, with any kind of scale, care quality tends to be affected and diluted.” The arrest of Joshua Dale Brown and revelations the alleged paedophile was able to work in 23 childcare centres over a period of time, has shaken public trust in the sector. In response, the Federal Government has rushed to introduce new laws that will, among other things, cut funding for substandard centres. But Ms Tapscott wants to see more widespread reform. As well as moving away from a reliance on for-profit childcare, she said that would include more paid parental leave and greater scope for how the childcare subsidy could be spent. A direct-to-parent paid subsidy would give parents more options to use the money they might have paid to a childcare centre on more personalised care. She said the childcare subsidy, which is currently only paid to centres and not nannies, family members or parents themselves, was “barefaced inequity”. She said centre-based childcare was not a “one size fits all” and parents should have more freedom to choose what worked for them. “It’s saying ‘we’ll subsidise you but only if you’re a cookie-cutter family and your family works regular hours’,” she said. “I don’t understand why governments have gotten away with this for so long and people love them for it.” A current Change.org petition wants to see the childcare subsidy eligible for a broader range of care options, including care by grandparents, nannies, au pairs and co-working spaces for working parents.