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September 22nd, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
CHILDCARE centres are jacking up their fees as much as $25 a day to pay for the extra staff required to meet tough new quality regulations next year.
Working parents will typically be charged at least $20 a week more for childcare from January, despite federal government calculations that the quality reforms would cost parents 57 cents a week, rising to $8.67 a week by 2014.
Some of the biggest increases are in Victoria, where childcare operators have the most “catch-up” to do to comply with new national staffing standards.
Childcare fees charged by Melbourne’s Glen Eira council will rise between $6 and $25 a day from January next year.
The daily fee for babies and toddlers younger than three will jump 27 per cent, from $91 to $116 — an increase the council blames on new staff ratios that will force it to employ one carer for every four children, instead of five.
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Fees for childcare provided by the Greater Bendigo City Council recently jumped 15 per cent, rising by $10 to reach $75 a day in 2011-12.
Australia’s biggest childcare chain, the charitable GoodStart — which runs 659 ABC Learning centres — is planning to increase its fees by as much as $7 a day next year.
The average rise will be in the $3 to $5 range, and some centres in poor suburbs will be spared any increase.
GoodStart chairman Robin Crawford said yesterday childcare was the biggest single expense for families apart from the mortgage.
He called for more government funding to pay for the quality reforms, which he strongly supports.
“Childcare is a huge expense and there isn’t much flexibility for parents to pay more, so either we put up with an inadequate system, or we have to drag more money out of the government,” he said.
Australian Childcare Alliance vice-president Lucian Roncon, who owns the First Steps daycare centre at Geelong, said yesterday he would have to increase fees next year to pay for the cost of hiring three extra staff to work in the 90-place centre.
He predicted that Victorian centres would typically charge parents between $15 and $30 a day more.
“The smaller the centre, the greater the impact,” he said.
“We’ve been asking the federal and state governments to please put on hold the rollout (of quality standards) until they can fund the initiatives.”
Barrie Elvish, the chief executive of Queensland’s biggest childcare chain, CK, said yesterday fees had risen last month by an average of $4 a day and were likely to go up another $4 or $5 a day from January.
Childcare Minister Kate Ellis said yesterday the federal government would pay 50 per cent of the cost increases — to a maximum of $7500 a child a year — through its Child Care Rebate.
New data from the National Childcare Accreditation Council revealed yesterday that one in every 20 childcare centres falls below the minimum standards. One in every five of the 1136 daycare centres inspected during the first six months of this year failed to keep dangerous products and objects out of reach of children, while 13 per cent were found to have unsafe buildings or equipment.
The staff in one in every four centres had breached food safety regulations, or failed to wash their hands after wiping children’s noses or changing nappies.
“Our government believes this is not good enough,” Ms Ellis said.
“We would never accept this sort of performance in an aged-care setting and the same should be the case when it comes to the care of vulnerable children.”
Ms Ellis said the childcare reforms would improve staff qualifications and ratios, so each child would receive more individual care and attention.
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