Labor will expand early childcare subsidies to give three-year-old children and their families access to 15 hours of subsidised weekly care at preschool if it wins the next election, opposition leader Bill Shorten has announced.
Mr Shorten said the pre-election promise, valued at $1.75 billion over four years, was about “reimagining childcare” as “early childhood education”.
While Australia has high enrolment of four-year-olds in preschool – more than 90 per cent – Labor argues the enrolment of three-year-olds is “well below the OECD average”.
“We need to give all three-year-olds and four-year-olds in Australia the best jump start to going into school,” Mr Shorten told ABC News ahead of a speech in Melbourne where he is expected to detail the policy.
“All the educational experts have made it very clear that a little child's development up to the age of five is very important.”
“So Labor believes in investing in the learning and educational outcomes of 3 and 4-year-olds. It will help parents with the cost of paying for preschool and I think it will really, really make a massive change.”
The Morrison government is yet to respond to Mr Shorten’s proposal.
Under Malcolm Turnbull, the Coalition reformed childcare payments by scrapping several subsidies and combining them in a single, means-tested payment.
Labor’s policy documents say the objective is to get 90 percent of Australian three-year-olds enrolled in the program by 2023.
Asked how the policy was funded, Mr Shorten referenced the opposition’s array of tax reforms, which would raise more revenue from taxes on trusts and property sale profits.
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