Broken childcare promise 'will hurt PM'

A broken election commitment to build 260 childcare centres will upset Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "working families", federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.

The Rudd government has scrapped a plan to deliver hundreds of childcare centres, arguing there is no demand for them.

The government has released two reports into the state of the sector that was hit by the collapse of the largest provider ABC Learning more than a year ago.

Plenty of places available

While parents may disagree, the data shows there are plenty of available childcare places.

The government will go ahead with 38 already under construction, costing $114 million.

But Mr Abbott said on Thursday the backflip was a "colossal breach of trust" for working families.

"Demand for places is still high," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney.

"Ask the working mothers of Australia whether they think it is easy to get accessible, affordable childcare, I think you'll get a resounding `No'.

"The government is asking us to believe that it has miraculously solved the childcare problem by doing virtually nothing.

"This is implausible.

High cost 'will harm families'

"This really is a government that's worse than Whitlam when it comes to delivering programs for the Australian people."

On Thursday, the government released two reports showing on average, 30 per cent of long day-care places were available across the country each day in the week ending March 19, 2010.

This equated to more than 65,000 places, according to the Child Care Vacancies quarterly snapshot, released on Thursday.

For families wanting out of school care, more than 70,000 places were available each day over the same period, and 6,000 family day care places were also free.

NSW opposition community services spokeswoman Pru Goward says up to 145,000 women will be forced out of the workforce because of high childcare cost.

She said the extra centres would have provided more price competition in the industry.