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Media Release
Federal Budget fails to ease inner city long child-care waiting lists
Date Released: 10 May 2006
Yarra City Council expressed disappointment today at the Federal Government's child-care funding package, as it failed to target long waiting lists across the municipality for centre-based long day care.
Yarra City Council Mayor, Cr Jackie Fristacky, said while increased Federal funding was welcome, the Federal Government had once again failed to recognise that the most significant area of child care in need of financial assistance was centre-based long day care.
"The Federal Government's decision to repeat last year's budget and pour further funds into expanding family day care and out of school care places will do little to address the lack of child-care services experienced by many inner metropolitan councils including Yarra," she said.
"It is estimated that there are more than 1,500 children on child-care waiting lists in the City of Yarra . The majority of these children are 0 to 3 years, waiting, on average, 12 to 18 months for a place in a long day care facility.
"In comparison, Yarra City Council has no waiting list for outside school hours care and has vacancies that can-not be filled. The demand for family day care and out of school care pales in comparison to the growing demand for long day care.
"We desperately need an increase in Federal funding for capital projects so that potential operators in municipalities, like Yarra, can acquire land, build centres , and reduce the number of families sitting on long day care waiting lists."
The Mayor also said, expanding or establishing family day care services in Yarra was difficult because it was hard to attract skilled workers, particularly as the work was often part-time and industry-wide remuneration was comparatively low.
"Inner metropolitan councils, like Yarra, need assistance from Federal and State Governments to attract potential service providers and encourage them to establish child-care facilities in this municipality, where land is both expensive and in short supply," she said.
"The State Government exacerbates the problem for inner city services by imposing land tax at high, unrealistic levels.
"We can-not respond alone. The child-care needs of families can only be met with all three levels of government working together to ensure polices are integrated to target areas of need.
"Today's budget announcement confirms our fears that we will have to continue to be financially stretched to make up the shortfall created by misdirected Federal funding that fails to facilitate child-care services our community needs and wants.
"The City of Yarra already provides 14% of local child-care places. Last financial year, Yarra contributed $1.5 million in child-care service delivery and a further $5 million in community assets used by community child-care services.
"This year we have increased long-day child-care places by 25, and with the help of the State Government, anticipate increasing these places by over 100 next year.
"Being the closest level of government to the community we will continue to play a vital role in planning for local child-care needs and lobbying other levels of Government to better target and increase their support for this much needed service."
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