https://hdl.handle.net/2123/1967 2026-06-09T06:50:43Z 2026-06-09T06:50:43Z Press, Frances https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2145 2025-10-20T00:03:17Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Public investment, fragmentation and quality early education and care – existing challenges and future options Press, Frances Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison This chapter seeks to outline, critique and challenge Australia’s current approach to the provision of education and care services to children and their families. In doing so, the chapter highlights the complexities and fragmentation of the current system so that advocates and policy makers might avoid the temptation to proffer overly simplistic solutions that fail to address the ‘real world’ contexts that families must negotiate and children are left to experience. In examining Australia’s current approach to the provision of education and care services to children and their families, the chapter draws upon the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) including the Australian Background Report (Press & Hayes 2000); the OECD Country Note on Early Childhood Education and Care Policy in Australia (2001a); and the OECD Comparative Report Starting Strong: Early childhood education and care (2001b). The chapter also canvasses a range of other relevant national reports, including the recent policy paper What about the kids? Policy directions for improving the experiences of infants and young children in a changing world produced by the author for the Commissions for Children and Young People in NSW and Queensland and the National Investment for the Early Years (NIFTeY) (Press 2006), as well as trends such as the rapid corporatisation of the long day care sector.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Pocock, Barbara Hill, Elizabeth Elliott, Alison https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2123 2025-10-20T00:03:14Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Front Matter - Kids Count: Better early childhood education and care in Australia Pocock, Barbara; Hill, Elizabeth; Elliott, Alison

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Apps, Patricia https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2140 2025-10-20T00:03:13Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

The new discrimination and child care Apps, Patricia Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison Over the last decade a number of countries, notably the USA, the UK and Australia, have introduced new tax and welfare programs, or expanded existing programs, that have the effect of raising tax rates on the income of the second earner in the family. Examples include the earned income tax credit (EITC) program in the USA,1 the child tax credit (CTC) and working tax credit (WTC) programs in the UK, and the Family Tax Benefit (FTB) system in Australia. Since the second earner is typically the female partner, these programs also have the effect of increasing the net-of-tax gender wage gap. Many of the same countries have poorly developed, highcost child care sectors, and so reducing the net wage of the second earner can make child care unaffordable from her net earnings. In a recent paper (Apps 2006a), I referred to this phenomenon as the ‘new discrimination’. Unlike the ‘old discrimination’, which took the form of lower gross wage rates and poorer opportunities for women in the labour market, the new discrimination is located in government policy. This paper investigates the extent to which the second earner in Australian families has become subject to this new discrimination. The analysis compares effective tax rates on primary and second incomes and identifies the changes introduced in the 2006–07 Budget. A key finding of the study is that second earners in families on less than average wages now face the highest average tax rates in the economy. This outcome is identified as a consequence of a series of changes in four key policy instruments used by government to set tax rates on family incomes: the personal income tax schedule, Family Tax Benefits, the Medicare Levy and the low income tax offset.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2150 2025-10-20T00:03:14Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Appendix & Index - Kids Count: Better early childhood education and care in Australia Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Goodfellow, Joy https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2148 2025-10-20T00:03:17Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Childcare provision: Whose responsibility? Who pays? Goodfellow, Joy Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison; Hill, Elizabeth Recent debates about the provision of child care for children of below school age have focused on issues relating to children, to families, to social capital building and to financial return on investment. The first of these is concerned with providing for children’s growth and development and focuses on the enhancement of skills and experiences conducive to furthering children’s capacity as learners. Early learning provides a critical underpinning for subsequent social and academic success (Shonkoff & Phillips 2000). For example, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), identified that 4–5 years olds who had not participated in educational programs prior to school were performing less well on measures of early literacy and numeracy (Harrison & Ungerer 2005). Issues around social capital building recognise that a focus on the early years, particularly for socially disadvantaged families, subsequently reaps long-term benefits in terms of improvement in educational outcomes, increased economic self-sufficiency, crime reduction and improvement in family relationships and health (Bruner 2004; Karoly et al. 1998, Lynch 2004; Schweinhart 2005). Family circumstances include those associated with social disadvantage, child protection and disability. Martin (2003) identified that the childcare system in Australia returned over $1.86 per dollar spent to the government’s ‘bottom line’ through increased taxation revenue and reduced social assistance outlays. Martin also recognised the potential for such investment to have a ripple effect through society and, consequently, to facilitate social capital building. The Australian Government’s Stronger Families and Communities Strategy and the NSW Department of Community Services Early Intervention Program have both welfare and social reform agendas but little attention has truly been given to financial and social return on investment.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2124 2025-10-20T00:03:21Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Author Biographies - Kids Count: Better early childhood education and care in Australia Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Brennan, Deborah https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2139 2025-10-20T00:03:19Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Home and away: the policy context in Australia Brennan, Deborah Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison The policies that shape early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Australia are formulated within overlapping national and international contexts. Globalisation, the development of international law and the spread of electronic communication technologies all play a role in the rapid diffusion of ideas and practices to the broader policy community surrounding ECEC internationally. In recent decades ECEC has grown as a component of the in-kind service provision of all Western welfare states (Meyers & Gornick 2003). Women’s rising labour force participation and government policies mandating ‘workfare’ rather than ‘welfare’ are important reasons for this. So, too, are ideas about the significance of the early years for the intellectual, social and emotional development of children. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), ‘ … the education and care of young children is shifting from the private to the public domain, with much attention to the complementary roles of family and early childhood education and care institutions in young children’s early development and learning’ (OECD 2000, p. 9). This chapter provides an overview of the domestic (‘home’) and international (‘away’) contexts surrounding Australian child care and early education policy. The broad argument is that there is a lack of fit between the emerging international agenda around ECEC which is increasingly child-focused and the Australian Government’s adult-centred, instrumentalist approach to ECEC which sees it as a service linked primarily to supporting workforce participation. The chapter begins with an overview of international developments and moves on to discuss the domestic policy framework established by the Coalition government since 1996.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Cass, Bettina https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2141 2025-10-20T00:03:19Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

The goals of a good national system: placing priority on the wellbeing of children Cass, Bettina Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison This chapter takes a child-centred focus on debates about the goals of a good childcare system, and takes as its particular priority the interests and needs of children in low-income and socioeconomically disadvantaged families and their right to benefit from participation in mainstream early childhood education and care (ECEC) services of good quality. Two recent influential Australian reports (ACOSS 2006; Press 2006) and the OECD (2001) adopt the term early childhood education and care (ECEC) to refer to formal prior-to-school care and education for infants and young children, covering services such as long day care centres, family day care, registered in-home care and pre-schools (or kindergartens in some jurisdictions) that provide sessional care and education for children one to two years prior to the commencement of school. I would add to this list, out-of-school hours care, of increasing significance as mothers in two parent and sole parent families increase their labour force participation when their children enter school, and as the implementation of welfare-to-work legislation from 1 July 2006 mandates at least 15 hours of paid work or employment-related activity for income support recipients once their youngest child is aged six. The argument here is predicated on the well-substantiated international literature which demonstrates that good quality early childhood education and care services are of benefit in improving the social/emotional wellbeing, and cognitive development outcomes for all children, particularly for low income and disadvantaged children – an effect which recognises children both as present citizens whose wellbeing should be paramount and as future citizens with respect to the enhancement of their educational and employment participation, often called their human capital (Lister 2004).

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Hill, Elizabeth Pocock, Barbara Elliott, Alison https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2125 2025-10-20T00:03:19Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Introduction - Kids Count: Better early childhood education and care in Australia Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Nyberg, Anita https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2138 2025-10-20T00:03:25Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Lessons from the Swedish experience Nyberg, Anita Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison An important principle in the Swedish welfare model is that all adults – women and men, mothers and fathers – should have the possibility to support themselves through wage work. Public child care constitutes a very important part of the social infrastructure which should make this possible (Bergqvist & Nyberg 2001, 2002). However, an adequate supply of public child care is not enough; it should also be accessible, of high quality and affordable. If not, public child care risks being a marginal phenomenon, a last resort for mothers (parents) who do not have a choice. The policies laying the foundations of the dual earner model emerged in Sweden in the course of the 1960s and 1970s (Sainsbury 1996, 1999; Bergqvist et al. 1999; Löfström 2004). A new approach to gender equality in both employment and responsibility for children and family became acknowledged in the law and in policies, if not always in practice. However, at the beginning of the 1990s there was a sharp economic downturn. The employment rate fell dramatically and unemployment soared to levels unthinkable since the 1930s.1 The employment crisis, in turn, produced an accelerating public sector deficit, with revenues plummeting and public expenditures shooting up.2 The situation began to improve only as the decade came to an end, but the employment rate is considerably lower today than in 1990, while the unemployment rate is much higher and this is true for both women and men. In addition to the economic crisis, there were also other factors that might constitute a challenge to the stability of the traditional Swedish welfare model, the dual earner model and gender equality. First, the Social Democratic Party lost its historically dominant position, which opened the way for neo-liberal ideas on market forces and privatisation. The internationalisation of capital markets and financial transactions, plus Sweden’s participation in the European integration project also posed new challenges. Given the unemployment situation, the financial strains, globalisation, and the spread of neo-liberal ideas, it is reasonable to assume that serious attempts to transform the Swedish welfare state might have been undertaken and the dual earner model might be undermined. The aim of this article is to assess the consequences of the economic crisis on publicly financed child care. What happened to the supply of child care, to the accessibility, affordability and to the quality in public child care between 1990 and 2005? To start with, however, the background in terms of mothers’ employment and the expansion of public child care is briefly presented.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Meagher, Gabrielle https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2143 2025-10-20T00:03:24Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Contested, corporatised and confused? Australian attitudes to child care Meagher, Gabrielle Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison Controversies about child care have been much in the news in Australia in recent times. Some commentators have damned the very existence of child care for very young children, using cortisol studies, among other evidence, to argue that formal care is positively harmful (Manne 2006). Yet despite these rather dire warnings, more and more Australian families are using child care – and finding the system complex, difficult to navigate, and increasingly unaffordable (Anderson 2006; Farouque, 2006; Halliday & Dunn 2006).1 Meanwhile, the business press reports that Australian-owned ABC Learning has grown to become the world’s largest listed company providing child care (Potts 2006). With around 900 centres, ABC Learning now controls an estimated 20 per cent of all long day care centres in Australia (O’Loughlin 2007). The rapid expansion of this and other corporate providers has reopened debate about what kind of organisations are best suited to providing child care services. This chapter explores what Australians think about child care, to provide a context for interpreting these media reports and for thinking about policy options. I explore three questions: where do Australians stand on working mothers and child care for young children, and how have these views changed over time? What kinds of organisations do Australians think are best to deliver child care? And what kinds of rationales for public subsidies for child care do Australians support? Understanding what Australians think about child care is useful, because insofar as attitudes are not currently well-understood or irrevocably fixed, there are clear opportunities for political and social actors to lead the childcare policy debate in new directions.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Sims, Margaret https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2147 2025-10-20T00:03:26Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

The determinants of quality care: review and research report Sims, Margaret Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison There is consensus around the world that young children must experience high quality services, not only to ensure the best possible future outcomes, but because children have the right to the best possible present (Elliott 2004; Myers 2004; Wylie & Thompson 2003). All children are found to benefit from high quality early childhood programs, but those from disadvantaged backgrounds demonstrate stronger advantages (Myers 2004). The catchphrase ‘the importance of the early years’ has now become a call to arms: it is recognised worldwide that we must provide the best possible services to young children and their families (Stanley, Prior & Richardson 2005). However, there is not universal agreement as to what constitutes best possible early childhood services. Understandings of quality are value-based and change as values change (Childcare Resource and Research Unit 2004). Understandings are also different across cultures, religions, contexts and the person or group making the judgment (Friendly, Doherty & Beach 2006). Myers (2004, p.19) argues that ‘different cultures may expect different kinds of children to emerge from early educational experience and favour different strategies to obtain those goals’. There is not a universal definition of quality: in different times and places different kinds of practices are valued as high quality. Despite this, within the Western world, professionals assume at least a basic common understanding (see Cryer, 1999 for example). The European Commission Childcare Network attempted to define these commonalities and came up with 40 quality targets (available at www.childcarequality.org). Analysing the literature from a range of European countries, Myers (2004) argues there is consensus around quality components including safety, good hygiene, good nutrition, appropriate opportunities for rest, quality of opportunity across diversity, opportunities for play, opportunities for developing motor, social, cognitive and language skills, positive interactions with adults, support of emotional development, and the provision of support for positive peer interactions. However, performance indicators identifying how these principles play out in practice differ in different contexts and with different levels of expectations and resources. What is clear is that quality is multidimensional, complex and multi-theoretical (Duigan 2005; Raban, Ure & Wangiganayake 2003). Single indicators of quality are ineffective, as quality outcomes for children are found to relate to a complex interplay of many different factors (Buell & Cassidy 2001).

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Cox, Eva https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2149 2025-10-20T00:03:29Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Funding children’s services Cox, Eva Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison It is now over 30 years since the original federal Child Care Act was passed in the dying days of the McMahon Liberal government but funding and policy issues are still confused and contested. Many more child care places exist and more funding is provided, but Australia still lacks an integrated national childcare system that recognises the importance of the early years, and the need for effective national policy for both early childhood care and education. Most of the problems are depressingly familiar, after my thirty-plus years of involvement in this policy area, but there are some worrying newer aspects. In the three-plus decades of public debate on funding and providing such services, there have been major shifts in political frameworks and priorities. These affect supply, quality and affordability, so our questions and answers need to be reframed in current cultural social and political frameworks. The changing demographic patterns, such as falling birth rates, delayed childbearing, increased female education and workforce participation, affect demand questions. The shifts in political frameworks will affect supply and funding. Universal publicly funded child care was one of the key feminist issues we raised in the seventies, as more women were moving into paid work. Our hoped-for national program of quality affordable care ran up against the arguments about whether women should be encouraged to be in paid work and pressure to retain the separation between education and care. Before this divide could be resolved, the arguments were overtaken by the 1980s change of political directions to neo-liberalism which diminished the role of the state. Child care was expanded but in a framework which shifted collective risks from the individual by shifting from public services to market forces. Commercial child care was funded by 1990 and the expansion of market providers was encouraged by policy changes after 1996. Overlapping with these changes in the mid 1990s were other, often contradictory, ideological shifts away from the 1980s emphasis on encouraging self provision and private providers. This move signalled the ascendancy of neo-conservatism, indicated by the move away from smaller deregulated governments to increasing size, centralised controls and complex demands for accountability by bureaucratic requirements. The new political masters used this increase in interventions to promote moral agendas and neoconservative views. The changes are most evident in the social policy areas where government funding was to be directed at promoting conservative social positions.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Hill, Elizabeth https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2120 2025-10-20T00:03:21Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

The childcare policy challenge in Australia Hill, Elizabeth Pocock, Barbara Australian newspapers often feature stories about child care and its potential benefits or hazards and many parents read them diligently, wondering if they are making the right decisions for their own children. Controversy over how to care for children has also given rise to new books by Australian authors, with some arguing that child care has negative effects on children (Biddulph 2006; Manne 2005). Pointing in the other direction are reports by international organisations that emphasise the positive and often critical impact that high quality early childhood education and care can have on children’s current and future development and wellbeing – particularly children from low-income households (OECD 2006; UNESCO 2006). Amid all this debate, however, a growing number and proportion of Australian infants and young children are using diverse forms of child care. This growth reflects changing economic, labour market and social factors, particularly the increasing rate of labour market participation of Australian women in the absence of universal paid parental leave. This makes the provision of a system of good early childhood education and care of pressing importance. In the chapters that follow, we take the demand for child care as a given, and we focus on how it can best be provided with the best outcomes. The provision of a good childcare system is far from the full picture of supports that Australian citizens and their children need. We recognise that there are very good arguments for discussion of other policies, especially leave arrangements that facilitate familial care. We strongly support the creation of a national system of paid parental leave. International evidence about its effects on child health (see for example The Economic Journal, February 2005) and maternal wellbeing is accumulating. We believe a good case exists for a period of at least a year of paid parental leave. To be meaningful for workers who depend upon their own earnings, this must be paid at a living wage level. Given the strong preference in Australia for parental care, a period of one or one and a half years paid parental leave would give many families a practical choice to care for their infants and young children. At present less than half of all working Australian women have access to any paid parental leave and only a small proportion for longer than a few weeks or months. This makes early childhood education and care a significant element of social policy in Australia. But it seems that policies around early childhood education and care in Australia are in a muddle, and that the costs of this muddle are very high for some. It is especially high for women who want to work and cannot, for the economy, for households and, in particular, for those who can speak least in their own defence – Australian infants and children, and their carers. It was concern about this muddle and its impact upon those who have least voice in the ‘system’ that led to the development of a research workshop on the issue, and this book.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Elliott, Alison https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2146 2025-10-20T00:03:31Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Improving early childhood quality through standards, accreditation and registration Elliott, Alison Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison Social practices and community values and issues are always in the process of redefinition and reconstruction. This means that our views on what is appropriate for children’s care and education are constantly changing. Nineteenth and 20th century models of early childhood care and education, including regulatory and staffing models are often not appropriate for 21st century children and families. Recent media and policy focus on child care and early education issues is well overdue. Finally, the volumes of research showing the benefits of strong, rich early childhood programs on children’s development and learning have captured community attention. Quality early childhood programs help children reach key developmental milestones and have longer term social and academic benefits for students and families. Now, this knowledge must translate into vision and action for improved quality. This chapter foreshadows greater regulation in early childhood care and education and proposes a registration scheme for early childhood practitioners, accreditation of early childhood practitioner preparation programs, and a set of standards for professional practice. It highlights the links between quality inputs (environment and staffing) and quality outputs (children’s development and learning), and stresses the importance of getting the right staffing mix in early childhood settings. Generally, the concept of regulated pathways to practice is well established. However, while there is wide agreement on the importance of regulatory pathways to professional practice, there is less understanding about how these could benefit the complex and idiosyncratic early childhood sector.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Wannan, Lynne https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2142 2025-10-20T00:03:26Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Getting the basics right – goals that would deliver a good national children’s services system Wannan, Lynne Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison Over the past three decades Australia’s children’s services system has been transformed from a predominantly publicly provided and operated community based system to a privatised, commercial market driven system. Today 70 per cent of our childcare services are privately owned and more than 25 per cent of our services are owned by one shareholder company. The National Association of Community Based Children’s Services (NACBCS) is an advocacy body and has been the principal force behind the retention of community based children’s services in Australia. NACBCS was formed in 1982 following the reporting of a federal government review of Australia’s Children’s Services Programme. This report, which became known as the Spender Report after the review committee’s chair John Spender, was never published but details of its recommendations were leaked. While many recommendations in the report were welcomed, some recommendations were strongly opposed, including recommendations that commercial services be subsidised by the federal government. Around the nation childcare advocates labelled such commercialisation of child care as inappropriate and destined to lead to poorer quality care as profit takers entered the service system and the service system became a market place. NACBCS came into being as the organising vehicle for these advocates and has remained an active advocacy body over the past three decades. It aims to protect a quality children’s services system and has put forward policy initiatives designed to curb the worst that commercialisation has brought to Australia’s children’s services.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Rush, Emma https://hdl.handle.net/2123/2144 2025-10-20T00:03:26Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Employees’ views on quality Rush, Emma Hill, Elizabeth; Pocock, Barbara; Elliott, Alison The results from a national survey of almost 600 long day care staff, carried out by the Australia Institute in late 2005, show that in most cases staff believe that the quality of care offered in their centre is quite high. However, when the results are reported by provider type, consistent patterns become evident. Across a range of aspects of quality care, corporate chain childcare centres appear to provide poorer quality care than community-based and independent private childcare centres. The staff survey included questions about: • time to develop relationships with individual children • programming to accommodate children’s individual needs and interests • the variety of the equipment provided • the quality and quantity of the food provided • the staff-to-child ratios • whether the respondent would send their own child, aged under two, to the centre they were employed at, or one offering comparable quality of care.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z