Another day, another child-care conglomerate goes belly up, another facebook message from a friend at the ‘Nationalise ABC Child-care’ facebook group.
Today it’s CFK, which runs 43 centres with 4000 kids, that has failed.
Surely it must be time for Kevin Rudd, who after all pours $2.5 billion a year into subsidising child-care centres, to realise that either private sector operators need to be punted or regulation needs to be improved.
Surely we can have more of a say in what they say is the most subsidised sector in Australia.
With that kind of investment (50% of private sector child-care income comes from our taxpayer subsidies) Rudd could either start his own centres, favour funding for the not-for-profit sector or insist on stringent regulation.
If you compare the incredible regulation of either the private health or aged care industry to the almost non-existent regime for child-care industry it’s obvious something needs to change.
Certainly Howard’s cosy regime that meant former Howard Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Larry Anthony sat on the ABC Learning Centre board - a board chaired by former Liberal Brisbane mayor Sallyanne Atkinson - needs to be revised.
An environment that saw ABC Learning Centres concentrating on expanding rather than caring for children under a billion dollar mountain of debt – it currently has 25% of the market with some 1075 centres and 120,000 kids.
An environment which saw, according to industry insiders, ABC learning Centres buying up high-quality child-care centres and then cutting costs leading to the parents pullins their kids and the centres going into the red.
An environment which saw ABC Learning Centres use bully boy tactics against unions and other voices of dissent – throwing around legal threats at the drop of a hat.
An environment where the Howard Government removed capital fundng support from the community based child care system - which meant its sustainable model couldn't expand into growth suburbs.
An environment which meant ABC could weave its company books into an indecipherable web of trusts, subsidiaries and inter-related companies that left anyone looking into its affairs scratching their heads.
An environment that has put $20 million in ABC staff entitlements in jeopardy – they must line up behind the big banks if the company is liquidated.
With the breaking of this private sector spell surely it is time the Government considered going back to the community-dominated child-care centre model of three decades ago.
After all a recent report by The Australia Institute found non-profit centres provided better care with more nutritious food, variety of equipment, staff time with children and a better staff to children ratio.
Or perhaps, shock horror, it could decide to run some centres itself.
Or at the very least it could apply the lesson of the World Financial Crisis – that a failure to regulate does no favours to the market – it just makes it easier for fast talking South African corporate cowboys to do themselves, and our kids, a mischief.