Dear friends and supporters,
I’m Jess, the interim Georgie (aka CEO of The Parenthood) and I’m so excited to be doing this.
For years I’ve watched The Parenthood grow from its infancy into the established voice for parents, carers and kids in this country. Like you, my kids and I have benefited from its indefatigable advocacy under the leadership of the articulate walking megaphone that is Georgie Dent.
Georgie, who is a friend, a legend and a scholar, is on sabbatical in Canada with her family and so here I am in the hot seat, babysitting this magnificent organisation for six months while she’s away.
The new Child Care Subsidy
Starting this week, the Federal government implemented its new Child Care Subsidy (CCS) regime. This $5.4 billion investment in the CCS will allow more than a million families to access more affordable education and care for their little ones.
Thanks to the government's investment, more children will have the opportunity to benefit from high-quality early learning. Furthermore, by reducing the cost of care for families, these changes will free up the equivalent of 44,000 additional full-time workers—mostly mothers—who are already present, experienced, skilled, and eager to work more.
But as soon as this happened, some of you began to send in screenshots of notices shoved into backpacks and pidgin holes next to paint-splattered jumpers. Some cynical providers were undermining the policy intent with conveniently timed fee hikes of up to 20 percent. It’s just not on.
Parents and taxpayers deserve transparency on fee increases
It is not fair, nor acceptable, that some providers seek to profit from the government's $5.4 billion investment in the CCS at the expense of parents, taxpayers, and early childhood educators.
On behalf of parents and carers, we wrote to the 50 largest early childhood education providers, asking them what fee increase is being passed on to families and what it is contributing towards. We requested them to respond by the end of this week.
Parents and taxpayers deserve transparency and accountability. Anyone forcing excessive increases on parents to coincide with the government's significant investment should not get a free pass to price gouge on fees.
All children should have the chance to thrive so that they are ready for school and life, regardless of race, postcode, ability, identity, or any other factor.
We need your support
The Parenthood would be nothing without you. Without the numbers we represent, our megaphone is just a tired netball coach with an old whistle at half time. But with you, our numbers give us clout and traction to effect the change that needs to happen in order to realise the vision we all want and need for our kids, for us and for the economy.
We will continue to advocate for universal access to early childhood education and care, and to achieve that, we need as many supporters as possible. The more people support us, the more powerful our voice becomes.
So please sign the petition of our partner organisation, Thrive by Five.
Together, we are too powerful to be ignored!
Jess
ADVOCACY TRAINING JULY
We are organising another advocacy training in July and would like to invite you to join in! We know, parenting is a MASSIVE unpaid job already and to add volunteering on top of that can be a lot! That's why our volunteering is:
👉 Flexible
👉 Family-friendly
👉 Fun (or we like to think so!)
So join us on July 26th at 7:30pm AEST to learn more, meet others and hear from current volunteers.
PARENTS MET WITH ANTHONY ALBANESE IN SYDNEY
Parents from New South Wales met the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Sydney to discuss their experiences with early childhood education and care and paid parental leave. We are grateful for the opportunity for families in our community to sit with the Prime Minister and directly discuss the reality of raising children while also trying to financially provide for a family. Read more here.
HOW CARING FOR CHILDREN GROWS JOB SKILLS
Are you sick of parental leave being labelled ‘lost experience’ in your career? The Centre for Future Skills and Workforce Transformation is gathering examples to prove that parental leave is actually the most robust leadership course you could ever undertake! One of our amazing supporters, Sally McNamara, is leading the research and looking for people to be interviewed. If you’re interested send her an email: [email protected]. Sally also wrote a really interesting article about the project in Women’s Agenda.
