Australian families are being encouraged to sign on and change over to the Department of Education and Training’s new childcare and early learning system, which comes into force in less than three months.
Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham said the online transition portal the Department has set up was now live and it was time for people to take action.
“With more support for more families just around the corner, families need to make the switch to benefit from the new childcare and early learning system,” Senator Birmingham said.
He said the overhaul of childcare and early learning subsidies would target support towards families earning the least and those working the most, introduce hourly rate caps and abolish the annual rebate cap for most families.
“Overall, it will mean around one million families benefit and it’s estimated the package will encourage more than 230,000 families to increase their workforce participation,” Senator Birmingham said.
“The biggest winners will be families working, studying or volunteering that earn less than $250,000 a year, and even if your family has a higher income, you’ll still stand to gain from our change to lift the annual rebate cap to around $10,000.”
Minister for Human Services, Michael Keenan said that over the next fortnight the Department of Human Services planned to contact all 1.2 million families currently receiving subsidies for child care and early learning to encourage them to transition to the new system.
Mr Keenan said the switchover was not automatic so families needed to update their details and provide new information.
Details about the new scheme and how to change over can be accessed on the Department of Education and Training’s website at this PS News link.
