The government should “tread very carefully” when setting up a pilot program for publicly subsidised nannies, childcare groups have warned.
The social services minister, Scott Morrison, last week indicated the government would roll out a trial for including nannies in its childcare package, as recommended by the Productivity Commission.
“We’ll be taking our time with it and that is through the normal pilot process that you’ve seen adopted in other areas,” Morrison told the Early Childhood Australia forum on Thursday.
The minister did not provide details as to when the trial would start or how long it would run for, saying only that nannies would be an alternative for people who could not access mainstream childcare due to shift work, remote location and other special requirements.
A spokesman for Morrison told Guardian Australia no formal announcement had been made regarding the trial, and it was simply “the direction in which we are heading”.
The Productivity Commission report recommends the government subsidise nannies who meet national quality framework standards, but questions remain as to how the government will regulate the emerging sector.
“This is another detail-free half-policy from Scott Morrison. We don’t know how much it will cost, who will be involved, or what any of the details are at all,” the acting shadow childcare minister, Jenny Macklin, said.
“Judging from the government’s failure to provide any information on the impacts of this proposal, the government doesn’t know either ... Time is ticking for Scott Morrison to stop playing games and start providing answers.”
Annemarie Sansom of the Australian Nanny Association welcomed the decision to subsidise nannies, saying the organisation has been “lobbying strongly” for it for three years.
But Sansom warned the trial must be well thought through and properly implemented.
“We need to tread very carefully to make sure we get this right,” Sansom said. “We need to see at least a six-month trial [that] looks at different types of family needs.”
The chief executive of Early Childhood Australia, Samantha Page, said the government must also consider expanding existing in-home childcare arrangements in creating the pilot program.
“If the government is going to trial a new approach, they should look at both options,” Page said.
There are currently 5,600 federally-approved places for in-home childcare, mostly for at-risk families. The Productivity Commission recommends ending in-home care once nannies come in.
“I can’t for the life of me understand why they’re not considering in-home care,” David Wilson, the head of Australian Home Childcare said. “You’ve got a system that works now; use it.”
“I’m sitting on the sidelines and could solve their problems tomorrow.”
Page said the debate over nannies, which does not affect many families, threatens to “detract” from other issues in the childcare sector, including changes to subsidies and rebates.
“[Nannies] are a very expensive model to provide,” Page said. “You’d have to ask if it’s the best way to spend the government’s money.”
Morrison acknowledges there are issues still to be worked through before the subsidisation of nannies is implemented.
“We do not want to see a wide scale shift of people working in the formal childcare sector today move over into this sector. That will only force up prices for centres today if they lose their workers off to be nannies and things of that nature and so we’re going to take a very incremental and measured approach to this,” he said at the forum.
“We are of the strong view that if you move too quickly on this you are very prone to a whole range of unintended consequences and so we will be looking to work very closely with the sector to ensure that those sorts of outcomes are avoided.”
Morrison has indicated the government will take on the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s report, and that the final childcare package will be released before May’s federal budget.
