A quarter of a million families will benefit - they say. There are about 940 thousand families using childcare (and are eligible for CCS) currently. So this policy will benefit 26% of families using childcare?
And I wonder - Does the older child have to be in long day care for this second kid discount to be in place, or will other types of care be sufficient? What about people with kids in OSHC? Presumably the younger child won’t be at the higher rebate for their LDC with their older sibling at ASC three afternoons a week? So then what? Both kids are back in the same CCS they would be now?
For families like ours, this would have benefitted us for about 1.5 of the nearly 7 years we’ve been using childcare. And I think we’re reasonably average (2 kids, 3 years apart). **
This will be wonderful for those families who can use it. For sure. I just don’t think it goes anywhere near far enough, and it’s a bit sneaky - sounds really great on the face of it but most families won’t benefit at all, and those that do may not benefit for long (only applies when kids are in childcare at the same time).
And call me cynical but it’s not coming into place until after the election? So they get to use it as a carrot for votes, but never have to actually put their money where their mouth is unless re-elected? At which point they will no doubt double back with some excuse for why they can’t do it and have 3 odd years for everyone to forget about yet another broken promise.
** edited to add:
This (the bit about our family) is not to say I begrudge any other family more affordable childcare than we had - certainly not! We made it through fine and I’m grateful for what help we got. I want BETTER for those coming after us.
