Many parents will find it impossible to find available and affordable before and after school care when school returns next week because of poor planning of child care places, according to the Australian Democrats.
Democrats' Child Care spokesperson, Senator John Cherry, said many areas of Australia remain critically undersupplied with out of school hours care, particularly in regional centres. An Australian Bureau of Statistics survey reports a shortage of 62,000 before and after school care places across Australia.
"This means that working parents will struggle to make private arrangements, or use siblings to care for younger children, and some may have to leave children at home alone after school," Senator Cherry said.
"This may place the children at risk, and denies them the opportunity to participate in developmental programs offered by formal care.
"The Howard Government is not properly planning the provision of child care places, with significant imbalances between areas with surplus places and other areas with no places at all.
"Regardless of arguments about whether governments are spending more or less on child care in absolute terms, it is clear that many individual services have been cut back and that many rural families, many of whom are already in a lot of financial difficulty, simply can no longer afford it.
"The provision of child care places, particularly after school care, is failing to meet the need in the community.
"The situation of small out of school hours centres has been made worse by the administrative load caused by the Government's Child Care Benefit, where staff have to spend hours at a computer providing the Department with information in order to qualify for child care benefits.
"The Australian Democrats support better planning and funding of child care, particularly for out of school hours and vacation care.
"Instead of paying baby bonuses to wealthy mothers, this Government should invest in affordable and available out of school hours and vacation care for Australian children.
"Work and family policy must provide parents with genuine choice without compromising the well being of their children.
"Child care policies that leave thousands of kids home alone after school are a serious failure of our society's responsibility for their welfare," Senator Cherry concluded.
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