Opinion & Commentary
For decision on childcare mum's (or dad's) the word
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has found that one-third of children in formal child care are there for ‘non-work reasons.’ In other words, mum isn’t employed and she’s using child care for some other purpose.
This report apparently led a Labor Party spokesperson to tell mothers who use childcare while they play tennis to ‘examine their consciences.’ Sydney’s Daily Telegraph similarly condemned what it called ‘Childcare for Yuppies.’ The consensus seems to be that more childcare places are needed, and that it is wrong for non-employed mums to buy places when working parents are on waiting lists.
The federal government agrees. Minister Mal Brough has announced that there is already a policy that childcare centres should give priority to working women, and he says his department is investigating how better to enforce this.
Indeed, it turns out that the government has a pecking order for access to childcare. Top priority is given to ‘children at risk of neglect or abuse’ (so if you knock your kids around do you get propelled up the queue?). Next come the children of working parents. After them comes the familiar litany of Aborigines, low-income families, people with disabilities and single parents. The children of middle-class, stay-at-home mums come at the very end of the queue (we wouldn’t want to encourage people to become middle class and stay at home with their children, would we?).
The Minister did have some crumbs of comfort to offer middle class stay-at-home mums who currently use childcare. Their children will not be kicked out to make way for a more deserving applicant. In Brough’s words, “You’re not in a police state.”
Maybe not – but we do appear to be in a socialist one.
Karl Marx famously defined communism as “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Under communism, resources are allocated according to needs as determined by a central planning authority.
The same principle seemingly applies to childcare in Australia. The Central Presidium in Canberra declares that Aboriginal parents need childcare more than white parents do, that single parents need it more than married parents do, and that parents who choose to work need it more than parents who stay home. Places are then allocated accordingly.
But why should working parents be deemed more ‘deserving’ of a childcare place than a stay-at-home mum? Take two families with a single wage-earner bringing home $50,000. One decides it wants more money, so the second parent takes a job and they look around for long hours care for their toddler. The other decides to forego a second income so mum can stay home (for whatever reason).
Mr. Brough says childcare providers must give priority to the first family over the second. But why should they? The decisions made by these families are none of his business. Nor, for that matter, are the allocation policies of private childcare providers. It is surely for families to decide what they want in the way of childcare, and for commercial and voluntary sector providers to decide what places they will offer, and at what price.
The reason the Minister thinks he has a right to interfere is because the federal government decided in 2000 to subsidize the cost of places through a Child Care Benefit. This has given Canberra the opportunity to interfere in contracts between parents and childcare providers.
Whenever governments start providing something, four things invariably happen. First, the cost escalates. Secondly, demand rises as voters get used to the idea that the government is now responsible for providing something they used to have to organise for themselves, so pressures on the government to increase its provision intensify. Thirdly, squabbles break out between different sections of the population as voters start complaining that they are not being given enough while others are ‘unfairly’ benefiting. And fourthly, politicians get increasingly involved in deciding who gets what while the rest of us lose control over another little part of our lives. All four of these unhappy developments can be seen in the recent history of childcare.
Childcare is important. But just because something is important doesn’t justify government moving in to provide or subsidise it.
What government should be doing is ensuring through the tax and welfare system that all parents have enough money to raise their children adequately. It should then leave it to parents themselves to decide how that money should be spent. Those who want to increase their work hours to bring in extra cash should pay for the childcare they need. Equally, mums who prefer to stay home should do just that. And if they want to park the kiddie in childcare while they go to play tennis, they should be free to do so, provided they have the cash to pay the fee.
Parents should not have to account for their actions to government ministers, nor should childcare providers be told by Canberra’s central planners which customers they should accept and which they should turn away.
Professor Peter Saunders is Social Research Director at The Centre for Independent Studies.
