The Guardian 22 March, 2006
Child care minus the care
Tom Pearson
In the 1990s the Keating Labor Government extended child care subsidies to private, for-profit centres. In 1997 this was followed by the Howard Government withdrawing its share of funding from the joint state and federal funding provisions for the constructions of public child care centres.
So began the rapid downhill slide of the number of public childcare centres, and so the number of places available. Thus we have moved from the cornerstone of the provision of affordable, quality child care — the Quality Improvement and Accreditation System introduced in 1993 — to the rise of the world’s biggest publicly listed for-profit child care company, ABC Learning Centres.
Headed by Eddy Groves, ABC now has 850 centres and last year received $128 million of Federal Government subsidies. Groves is anti-union and has been fighting a running battle using the dirtiest of tactics against the child care workers’ union, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers’ Union (LHMU).
Profit comes first for Groves and that means sacrificing quality of care and refusal to pay the extra money needed for the care of children with special needs and those under two years of age: by law under twos and children with disabilities require the employment of more qualified carers. ABC in general simply doesn’t provide places for those children.
The cost of child care across the board has increased, in some cases climbing to $100 a day as a result of Howard Government policies, putting the service out of reach for many single parents.
When the LHMU carried out a campaign in 2004 against ABC’s attempt to force down the wages and conditions of its Queensland employees, Grove sued the union’s State Secretary, effectively placing a gag on the union, which will now not comment on ABC.
In terms of quality of care, the company has been sued in NSW and Victoria and has been fined by the Children’s Services Department in Victoria for inadequate supervision when a child climbed the fence of an ABC centre. An ABC centre in the NSW country town of Wee Waa was found to have no smoke detectors, rodent droppings on the floor and in beds, and had not kept dangerous cleaning materials, disinfectants, poison, medication and other dangerous substances away from children.
Lynne Wannan, of the National Association of Community-Based Children’s Services, says that overall standards have fallen, that "dubious practices" have emerged and poorly paid and inexperienced staff are being employed. "As they become larger, they use predatory pricing to drive smaller, community-based services and even smaller private operators out of business."
The free market in full swing.