Quotes of the Day

Ask policy makers to sketch their dream family, and they might come up with one something like Susie's. She and her husband are young and work hard, and they have a toddler and plans for more. They've moved inland to a regional town, where Susie works as a midwife, a profession often badly short-staffed in rural areas. The community needs her, and she needs to work to help pay the mortgage. So everyone's happy, right? Not quite. The birth of Susie's first child almost forced her out of the workforce. Not only does her town have no child-care center, but she has spent nearly a year on a waiting list for the area's tiny family day-care scheme, in which groups of children are looked after in a carer's home. She has no relatives nearby to help her, and few options. "If I didn't work, God, we would be struggling." She's finally found someone to look after her child several days a week, but she's still angry. "I've had to rely on the goodwill of others," she says. "There's always talk about wanting women back at work, but how are we supposed to do it?"

What to do with a problem like child care? An estimated 175,000 children are waiting for places around Australia, and demand keeps growing - three-quarters of a million children attended some form of care in 2004, 10,000 more than the year before. Pregnant women are urged to enrol their unborn offspring for a day-care place a year or two ahead of time - often paying a fee to join a waiting list - only to be told by apologetic center staff, "We'll let you know." And it's getting more and more expensive: the price of child care rose almost 10% in the year to September 2005. At 35, Melbourne mother Simone is keenly aware that time's running out if she wants a second child. But she and her husband calculate that the cost of local child care means they won't be able to afford another baby until their three-year-old daughter starts school. Simone could leave her part-time job to look after both children, but she says that would not only hurt the family finances but deprive her daughter of friends and experiences she thrives on: "Even if I had family or friends to look after her during the day," she says, "I would still want to send her to child care instead."

It's true, of course, that no family's child-care worries last forever. But the kind of care on offer affects everyone, whether they're changing nappies or not. For one thing, over the next four years Australian taxpayers will fork out more than $A9 billion to subsidize child care. A shortage of places is keeping women - and their much-needed skills - out of a workforce in which they play an increasingly important role. There's ample international evidence, too, that the quality of a country's child care affects the way its kids grow up. And if - as many experts argue - children who receive inadequate care are more likely to grow up with learning difficulties and other developmental problems, then the community they live in will suffer as well.

Treasurer Peter Costello knows the issue isn't just on the minds of parents. Last week, on the Liberal-led government's 10th anniversary, and in the run-up to the May Budget, he raised many families' pulses by promising to make Australia "the most female-friendly environment in the world," and hinted at increased spending on child care and more flexible work practices. If he delivers, there'll be ovations from families whose frustrated calls for fresh approaches to the issue - such as making fees tax deductible and giving tax breaks to employers who help provide care - are rapidly becoming a chorus. Joining in is high-profile federal Liberal backbencher Jackie Kelly, who in January described child care as a "shambles" badly in need of attention. Kelly, who later announced she would refuse to vote on any further spending on Parliament House until it improved its own child-care facilities, says she's since received overwhelming support from party colleagues. There is a need for more child-care places, concedes Prime Minister John Howard - particularly in after-school care. But "these generalized calls for a complete revamp of the system - well, I think the present system works reasonably well," he tells Time. "Some people have unreasonable expectations. There are some people out there who basically think that child care shouldn't cost them anything." Howard points out that his government's 30% rebate on child-care fees - introduced in 2004 but paid for the first time only this year - offers parents up to $A4,000 per child each year. Making child-care costs tax deductible would be unfair, he adds, because it would favor those with higher incomes.

His new Family and Community Services Minister, Mal Brough, says child-care places have more than doubled - from 300,000 - since the government first came to power, and insists that families are receiving "unprecedented financial support" to access places. But statistics and parents suggest that's still not enough. A recent Australian Bureau of Statistics report says around 250,000 women who want to return to work or work longer hours can't because of a lack of child care. Having seen friends in that position, Melbourne mother Sarah Tomasetti thinks herself lucky to have just been offered a place for her son one day a week - after a 19-month wait. Though her temporary teaching jobs occupy only 26 weeks each year, she'll have to pay the center throughout the year or give up her son's place. Families constantly battle the system's shortcomings, she says, yet "there doesn't seem to be any earthly reason why it shouldn't be dealt with."

Lynne Wannan couldn't agree more. Since the government drastically cut funding for community-based child-care centers in the '90s, she has watched the sector stagnate. So she's about to launch Spike Children's Services, a not-for-profit company that will help desperate local parents' groups find the means to set up new centers. Community-based services are usually located in council-owned buildings and run with the help of parents' committees; working with local councils that have either land or empty buildings to offer, Spike would broker the loans and offer know-how. It's a simple idea that could become a national model, says Wannan, convenor of the National Association of Community Based Children's Services. Ahead of Spike's upcoming launch she's already had councils phone her asking how they can get involved. "We should have done this a long time ago," she says.

Not every day-care center has waiting lists for every age group, and in some areas a lack of planning has even produced too many places. Also a problem are duplicate applications, caused when panicked parents join several different waiting lists. To reduce confusion, some councils in Sydney share centrally compiled lists of applicants; a similar scheme will soon be tried in Victoria. But where shortages exist, they're often dire, particularly for babies and toddlers, who need more intensive - and expensive - care than older children. In the Melbourne bayside municipality of Port Phillip, 1,935 children are on the waiting list for care, says Rebecca Bartel, co-covenor of Childcare Access in Port Phillip, a voluble parents' campaign to highlight shortages in the area. The local council has offered to provide about 120 new places, far fewer than parents had hoped for, and Bartel says funding changes accompanying that offer threaten to push fees to $A73 a day. To afford to keep two children in child care at that price, she says, is beyond the means of most families. That's regardless of which child-care path parents choose. While the not-for-profit sector treads water, private care has grown rapidly since it became eligible for government subsidies in 1991. About two-thirds of Australia's long-day-care centers are now privately run - 660 of them by Brisbane-based ABC Learning Centres, the world's largest listed child-care provider. Not everyone welcomes the boom. Gordon Cleveland, a child-care economist at the University of Toronto, says Canadian observers are dismayed by Australia's "dependence on the corporate sector - it really frightens us." He argues that child-care providers whose chief aim is satisfying shareholders should not be receiving government help: "When you have subsidies available to large corporations, they will come in and subsidy farm." Critics of private care argue that it puts shareholders' interests before children's - and parents'. Community-based centers, by contrast, encourage parental involvement in everything from choosing meals to setting opening hours. "They felt like businesses, not child care," says Jill, a mother who visited several private centers in search of a place for her children. But Martin Kemp, ABC's ceo for Australia and New Zealand, dismisses the criticisms: "We wouldn't be the success we are if we didn't receive that support from parents." The company will go on expanding, he says, and this year hopes to add 8,000 places in the notoriously scarce under-two category.

Friends tell Sarah Tomasetti that only six or seven years ago they could shop around for quality child care. Now, she says, "if you're offered a place anywhere, you consider it." The risk of too little choice is that substandard care "becomes something you can't afford to see," says Margaret Sims, associate professor in community studies at Edith Cowan University. So how can parents spot it? Look at the developmental programs, activities and menus on offer, she says. And if carers are reluctant to let you watch them interacting with children, leave.

It may seem reassuring that more than 96% of long-day-care centers in Australia are accredited, but Lynne Wannan also urges parents to do their own research. She questions the merits of the national quality assurance scheme, and is horrified that its inspections are pre-arranged. "Without spot checks," she says, "it isn't a quality assurance system at all. I can't see any reason why we don't have (random inspections)." Barbara Romeril, executive director of Victoria's Community Child Care Association, agrees that both private and community child-care centers would benefit from unannounced visits. Some of the stories insiders tell her would make parents shudder, she says: she's heard more than once of centers ferrying in new equipment and better food when an inspection is due.

Of course centers aren't the only option. Family day-care schemes are being promoted as a cheaper alternative to long day care, especially as a career for single mothers being coaxed from welfare to work. For the past 23 years, Mary Hinton has looked after children in her Ipswich, Queensland home; four days a week, she now cares for four children under three, for which she charges $A3.90 an hour per child. She and her retired husband have converted their garage into an activity room, and their grandchildren have grown up playing with the children she looks after. "They become like family," she says. For those who can afford it, nannies are another choice. Long waiting lists for day-care in her Auckland suburb are one reason why Tanya Field plans to have her six-month-old daughter share a nanny with another child when she returns to work this year. Another is the one-on-one relationship: "I like the idea of my child getting to know someone and feeling really secure with them." Helen Clark's Labour-led government recently announced that all child-care workers must be qualified or in training by 2012, and starting next year, New Zealand's three- and four-year-olds will all be entitled to 20 free hours of early-childhood education a week. The next campaign, lobbyists say, will be to extend that to even younger children. Never far away, however, is the hotly argued question: should young children be in child care at all? Reviving it in her new book, Motherhood: How Should We Care for Our Children? (Allen & Unwin), Anne Manne presents a body of international research suggesting that too much time in child care, or poor-quality care, can impede kids' social and emotional development, particularly if they attend child care before the age of two. Manne argues that the value of full-time motherhood needs to be reasserted (see box, next page) - and that children's interests are best served when mothers are well supported, whether they stay at home or juggle work and family. Many countries tackle the dilemma of infant child care by providing paid parental leave - in Canada, women who work 600 hours the year before their child is born qualify for a year's paid leave, which they can share with their partner. "It helps with family bonding," says Toronto economist Cleveland, "and gets rid of the problems with infant care levels." But despite a long campaign for a national paid parental leave scheme, Australia remains one of the few developed nations without one.

Unfortunately, children often can't tell their parents what their day's been like, but researcher Sims believes there is a simple way to find out - and to bring some scientific clarity to a debate often ruled by emotional battles about what a "good" mother should do. By measuring children's levels of the stress hormone cortisol, Sims says it's possible to gauge how they're reacting to their surroundings. Her initial research showed that the better the care - "where children felt loved and safe and secure, and where care-givers knew them as individuals" - the lower their cortisol levels. Because chronically high cortisol levels can impair memory and the immune system, Sims argues that children receiving consistently poor care are at risk of learning and social problems later in life. Early findings from research on babies and toddlers suggests they are the most vulnerable: "A kindergarten-age child can probably supplement a good relationship with a carer with their best friend," Sims says. "But younger children really need a superb relationship with their carer."

Which means, at the very least, getting enough attention. Across Australia, a mish-mash of standards means staff-to-child ratios vary widely from state to state. In New South Wales, for example, there must be one carer for every five children under the age of three; in Queensland the maximum ratio is 1 to 4. Another essential is qualified staff. More child-care centers mean more jobs, but the industry struggles to keep workers from deserting the profession because of burnout and low wages - a qualified child-care worker might get $A35,000 a year. At Whittlesea Child Care Centre, in Melbourne, coordinator Margaret Hayes recently had a carer quit because she could earn more working in a supermarket. At the East Melbourne Child Care Co-operative, manager Petra Hilsen is happy if just a handful of people apply for a position. Ten years ago, "you got so many you didn't have time to look at them all." Wages in several states are rising thanks to successful union claims - and bigger paychecks mean more than money, says Perth child-care worker Shannon Burns: "It shows the community we are professionals." Only a handful of 50 diploma students Burns graduated with six years ago are still in the industry. The low pay has made her consider leaving several times; she's stayed, she says, only because she loves what she does. In the Department of Child Studies at Canberra's Institute of Technology, head Leslie Ralph says enrolments are healthy, but students are often disheartened by stories of wages and conditions. Ralph hopes they'll benefit from a growing recognition of their job's importance: "Parents are more aware that it's not baby-sitting." Better wages for carers mean rising fees for parents, and high on the wish list of many families is a boost in the federal government's Child Care Benefit, which it pays directly to parents' chosen service. Because it's means-tested, for families like midwife Susie's the return - in her case "about $A5 a week" - can feel hardly worth the paperwork. Industry bodies are also arguing for increased government subsidies to address the shortage of places for very young children; and numerous submissions to the government's Balancing Work and Family Inquiry, due to report later this year, have lobbied for child-care expenses to be made tax deductible. Jackie Kelly advocates a different approach, with fringe benefits tax reform, and incentives for employers to provide child care: "We have to start focusing on the workplace and taking the roadblocks away from employers." Some companies, like mining and chemicals giant Orica, aren't waiting for government-led reform. For staff at its Melbourne headquarters, Orica pays $A14,000 a year to a nearby child-care center for priority access to seven full-time places on a waiting list that can otherwise stretch two years. With 600 employees in that office alone, it's only a partial solution, admits human resources manager David McKinnon, but keeping employees with young children happy makes good business sense: "The benefit we get back is probably tenfold." Despite the scheme's success, though, it's unlikely Orica will extend it to other offices or provide on-site care, says McKinnon: "There is a philosophical debate - is it the role of employers to provide child-care facilities? Is it core business?"

Child care's rife with such brain-teasers: How much should we have? And who should pay for it? John Howard says his government provides "an enormous amount of support - but no country can afford free child care." Those urging reform aren't calling for that just yet, but M.P. Kelly is among those expecting big things in May's Budget: "The government knows it can do more in child care." When lobbyist Romeril began working in child care five years ago, she found many colleagues gloomy about the prospects for change. But as the issue gains momentum, she says, there's a sense "that policy makers are recognizing that child care is here to stay." Perhaps they're seeing that when they sketch a family like Susie's, something in the picture still isn't right.

• Lisa Clausen
• As child care grows harder to find and afford, parents are pressing for reform. But who should pay - and what are the costs of getting it wrong?