The federal government spends nearly $5,600 per child on childcare measures, a report by the Productivity Commission has said.
The commonwealth spent $5.5bn a year on measures such as rebates to families, funding for centres, and approval and oversight of facilities in 2012-13, the report on government services said.
“This was equivalent to 0.4% of GDP [gross domestic product] in that year,” it said.
About 1.1m children, or 20% of those aged 12 years or younger, attended government-backed or approved childcare services, the report found.
On average, families paid $375 a child for 50 hours of family day care, and $385 for long day care. After government subsidies are taken into account, the median cost to families fell to $2.10 per hour.
A family with a gross disposable income of $75,000 spent 9.7% of its weekly income on childcare, the Productivity Commission said.
“Two-thirds of the cost of childcare are covered by government, around one-third by families,” the treasurer, Joe Hockey, told reporters on Friday. “But the families have been hit very hard by rising childcare costs, so we are very focused on that.”
Tony Abbott on Monday scrapped his controversial paid parental leave (PPL) scheme, and pledged to put money earmarked for the scheme into childcare.
The prime minister has not confirmed whether he will keep the 1.5% levy on big business that was introduced to pay for PPL, instead saying that businesses would not pay any more tax than previously promised.
Hockey said improving childcare affordability would have an economic reward.
“Childcare is hugely important for Australia’s ability to increase and improve its workforce participation,” he said.
Labor said families are struggling to afford childcare due to cuts to family payments in the May federal budget.
“We’ve got a budget which means that families will see up to $6,000 cut from the family budget,” the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said. “That’s about three months’ worth of childcare, and what are the Liberals doing about it? Nothing. Their budget in fact is making life worse.”
The Productivity Commission report also looks at young children’s readiness for school.
It found that nearly 91% of four year olds were enrolled in preschool, though that average dropped to 74% for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
Successive governments have made closing the gap on early childhood between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children a policy priority. The 2008 goal was to close the gap in this area by 2013.
Marginally more three to five year olds in regional areas use preschool services than the wider community, at 28.5% and 27.6% respectively.
