The NFAW supports measures that improve the affordability, accessibility and quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC).

The NFAW supports measures that improve the affordability, accessibility and quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC), early childhood development (ECD) and the well-being of children and families.

In general we support the provisions of the Bill. However, we note that there are key features of the current child care system implemented in 2018 which have not been addressed in this Bill. They warrant further consideration and review. Some of these issues were raised in the Government’s independent Evaluation of the Child Care Package (AIFS, 2022).

The National Foundation of Australian Women’s (NFAW) policy position on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Paid Parental Leave (PPL) is set in the context of a productivity agenda to help boost economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 1.3 million Australian children are enrolled in approved child care services.1 While the provision of affordable ECEC is a ‘workforce issue’, enabling parents to work outside the home, it is also critically important for the development of children.

The National Foundation for Australian Women deplores both the content and process of the Bill now before the Parliament. We urge the Parliament to reject the Bill.

Impacts of Government proposals to cut family benefits. 1.1 million families will lose FTB-A Supplements of $726 per child.

NFAW has a strong policy of support for women to make their own life choices – to choose to be a home maker, to choose to do paid work, to choose part time work if that is a real choice. Responsibility for bearing and rearing children, rightly or wrongly falls mostly on women.

The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW), having given evidence to a hearing of the Commission, undertook to bring some further information to the Commission. We will not comment on every issue raised in the Interim Report. Our specific submissions are set out below.

If parental workforce participation is a major goal of Government policies, then child care is but one of an inter-related suite of policies which must be coordinated. Reformation of child care alone will not produce solutions.

NFAW recognises and respects the improvements to child care standards and fee relief systems which the current Commonwealth Government has brought about, including through important cooperation with the States and Territories. The NFAW notes that means of achieving greater time-flexibility and simplicity in funding arrangements are under consideration, but no announcements have been made as yet.

NFAW believes the process of Reform of Australia’s Future Tax System, and the October 2011 Tax Forum are a key opportunities to introduce changes which will enhance gender equality in the work-place, together with the promotion of greater fiscal vertical equity.

In recent consultations with women throughout Australia, women identified a range of issues as relevant in determining the extent to which they are able to engage in the work force.

Since the 1980s the introduction of income tests on family payments has transformed Australia’s progressive individual income tax into a system with strong elements of joint taxation and a rate scale that has an inverted U-shaped profile – the highest marginal tax rates apply across low to average incomes and to the incomes of married mothers as second earners.