The Federal Department of Education and Training (DET)'s new Child Care Finder website was launched today (13 December 2018) (see www.childcarefinder.gov.au). The website replaces the MyChild.gov.au website.

Media Conference with the Minister for Centrelink, the Hon Michael Keenan MP, and
John Alexander MP, Federal Member for Bennelong

DET is urging early learning service providers to keep their fee information, vacancies and operating hours up-to-date in the Child Care Subsidy system in order to comply with Family Assistance Law. It is obvious that it is the Federal Government's overt intention to have the new Child Care Finder be customer-centric, hence services who have updated ALL their information will be given priority placement in the search result rankings on the new Child Care Finder. That said, service providers providing fee information appears to remain optional. You can find out how to update information via here.

The two key features of the new website are:

• a modern graphical interface which is easier for parents to use and navigate; and
• provision of the correct current Rating of a service, when that Rating was updated, and what and when were their previous Rating.

The push-notification ability to parents' mobile phones when vacancy of their preferred service provider is not yet available for some months yet.

The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW, through its national body, will seek to explore with DET on what flexibilities exist to ensure service providers are not unreasonably disadvantaged in those search rankings.