The NSW Regulatory Authority's livestreamed roadshow session on Thursday, 9 April 2020, at 11 am (AEST) did not answer any of the 7 questions posed by the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW.
The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW's questions posed to the NSW Department of Education were:
- Is the NSW Regulatory Authority's recommending a reduction of the number of children attending at the service in order to achieve the social distancing objectives of the NSW Government?
- Given the tumultuous period resulting from COVID-19 and services' need to remain financially and operationally viable, what flexibility will the NSW Regulatory Authority provide in relation to approved providers' compliance with Regulation 172(1) where notification must be made at least 14 days prior to the service’s provision of education and care to any child, and the family’s ability to utilise the service?
- As there is no guarantee that every First Aid training can be conducted on-line, will the NSW Regulatory Authority provide written and public assurance that every service will be forgiven and will not receive any financial penalties upon having made reasonable and genuine efforts to comply with Regulation 136 in respect of educators/teachers' First Aid qualifications? Can the NSW Department of Education emulate the NSW Office of the Children's Guardian's extensions and also offer a 6-month deferral of the requirements of Regulation 136?
- In light of the social distancing requirements for essential gatherings, are fire equipment checks still required or can they be deferred for 6 months?
- In anticipation of the Federal Government's initiative of offering free childcare for children of essential workers, can the NSW Department of Education provide a written guarantee that the choice of service of parents who are such essential workers will solely remain with those parents?
- Will the NSW Government emulate the intentions of the Federal Government and introduce additional NSW funding to support services during this COVID-19 pandemic period? In particular, will the NSW Government increase the Start Strong funding to long daycare services (including community, not-for-profit and privately-owned services) where the current amount is $459 per child per year which is much lower than that of South Australia, Queensland and Victoria where the amount is between $2,011 to $3,600 per child per year? Moreover, the NSW Department of Education prohibits the use of the Start Strong funding by long daycare services to offset some labour costs, whereas the other three states do permit such use.
- Will the NSW Department of Education revisit the announcement made by the NSW Treasurer on 19 June 2018 where he said in Parliament "And from 2019, in an Australian first, every three-year-old in New South Wales will now have access to subsidised early learning." Will every 3-year-old receiving NSW Government funding and not just those in community preschools?
PUBLISHED: 10 APRIL 2020