Labor has signalled it will work with the government in implementing recommendations from a Productivity Commission report into childcare, but said the government must make up for cuts made to family payments in the last budget.
The commission’s final report recommended changes including combining subsidies into a single payment which would be means-tested and paid directly to childcare providers.
It also recommended extending subsidies to in-home care such as nannies.
Shorten said on Friday morning: “Labor will approach this report with a constructive view in mind.” Senior Labor figures would meet the government next week to discuss its recommendations.
“We will help work with the government to crunch the numbers,” Shorten said.
The government has indicated that the report’s recommendations would frame its childcare policies.
The social services minister, Scott Morrison, said on Friday morning: “We’re not ruling anything in or out in this report.”
“We’re keen to hear what families in particular, but also childcare providers and early education professionals are saying about the recommendations of the report.”
Shorten said families were still hurting from last year’s budget cuts.
“If the government wants to show its bona fides in childcare, it is going to have to explain how it’s going to make up for the terrible damage it’s done by cutting the budget by $1bn,” Shorten said.
Morrison said he didn’t agree that the Coalition took that amount of money out of the budget. “If the opposition wants $1bn put into the system, then the opposition needs to say where that $1bn is coming from,” he said.
“Money doesn’t rain from the sky. If we are to have a real conversation on this with the opposition, then they’ve got to bring offsets, they’ve got to bring proposals to the table if they want to see spending on this area.”
Morrison said the recommendations would help drive workplace participation.
Tony Abbott said the government would “carefully reflect” on the recommendations before responding.
“The Productivity Commission is not talking about taking away childcare assistance from anyone; it’s talking about properly targeting the subsidies,” the prime minister said on Friday.
The commission was given strict budgetary guidelines for the options it could present in the report.
David O’Byrne from the United Voice union said: “We’ve got to remember they were told to provide recommendations within the current funding envelope, which people acknowledge is manifestly not enough to resolve the challenge.”
The childcare sector has cautiously welcomed the recommendations, but many wanted more funding.
O’Byrne said the single payment would be a “massive improvement” that would improve transparency for parents and service providers. He said whatever funding model the government decided on needed to be equitable.
“Greater access at lower levels will absolutely be welcome but if that is at the expense of other families accessing affordable care, you don’t resolve the issue of workforce participation at all,” O’Byrne said.
Ros Cornish, the national president of Early Childhood Australia, said the government should implement minimum training standards for nannies, but warned that increased regulation could result in higher prices.
“They’d have to meet those quality benchmarks and requirements, and that puts added pressure on resources both at a federal level and a state level in terms of funding,” Cornish told ABC radio.
AnneMarie Sansom from the Australian Nanny Association agreed, but said the move would be positive. She said the regulation should be phased in to ensure families’ needs were met.
“The need for in-home care is already there,” Sansom said. “Many are not able to afford it.”
The deputy Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said the party was not sold on the idea of funding nannies, but pledged to look at the report more closely before saying if it would support the recommendations.
“That’s not something that we’re initially attracted to. We think you’re going to get better bang for your buck if you go through childcare centres and that way you have better control of quality as well, but we’ll have a look at the report,” Bandt told ABC radio.
