That the ICPA (Aust) advocates to the Minister for Early Childhood and Minister for Education to review the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) allowable absence provisions to better align with the working patterns of rural and remote essential workers, such as teachers.
The current Child Care Subsidy (CCS) provisions fail to account for the unique employment cycles of essential workers in rural and remote Australia. This creates a significant financial and logistical barrier for families, particularly those in the education sector.
Under the existing CCS, families are restricted to 40 allowable absence days per financial year. While this may suit standard year-round employment, it does not align with the working patterns of teachers and other essential workers who have mandated non-attendance periods, such as the 12 weeks of student school holidays.
The mathematics of the current policy directly penalises these regional educators:
• Mandated Holiday Absences: 12 weeks of school holidays equates to 60 week days where care is not required. This automatically exceeds the standard 40-day allowance by 20 days.
• Childhood Illness: Utilizing the standard allowance for holiday periods leaves a zero-day buffer for standard childhood illnesses throughout the remaining 40 weeks of the school year. A conservative estimate of 20 sick days per year means a child will realistically be absent for a total of 80 days annually.
Once the 40-day limit is exceeded, CCS is only payable for additional absences under strictly limited circumstances, such as illness supported by a medical certificate. For rural and remote teachers who do not require care during school holidays, these absences do not qualify for additional subsidy. Consequently, families face a significant financial penalty. Based on a standard regional childcare rate of $120 per day, a family must pay full fees for the 40 uncovered days (20 short from holidays and 20 sick days). This forces them to pay the full daily fee, exceeding $4,000 per year in additional costs, simply to maintain access and ensure their child’s placement is not lost.
In many rural and remote regions, teachers reside a considerable distance from the nearest childcare service. It is neither practical nor sustainable for these families to travel these distances during non-attendance periods when they are not required at their place of work.
A stark local example of this logistical and financial burden is a teacher operating within our remote region. Living in an isolated pocket, she has two children attending the local primary school and one preschool-aged child enrolled for 5 days a week at the long day care centre. During the 12 weeks of school holidays, the mother and her two eldest children are not required on site. To keep her preschooler in care during just one single week of school holidays would require a 148km round trip each day, equating to 740km of travel per week solely for childcare.
The financial cost of forced attendance or absence adds up rapidly:
• If she commutes: At standard vehicle running costs, driving 740km a week just for childcare introduces massive fuel and vehicle wear expenses on top of standard fees.
• If she stays home (and has exceeded the 40 days): Keeping her child home for just one 5-day school holiday block costs $600 out-of-pocket in full daily fees ($120/day × 5 days) to preserve the position. Over the course of the 12 weeks of holidays, this layout becomes completely untenable.
Reviewing these provisions to better reflect regional work cycles is essential for:
• Workforce Stability: The current financial burden acts as a major disincentive for teachers to remain in or accept rural and remote postings, exacerbating critical workforce shortages in hard-to-staff areas.
• Equitable Access: The "one-size-fits-all" framework inadvertently penalises rural and remote families whose employment is tied to the school calendar, leading to inequitable financial outcomes compared to their urban or year-round counterparts.
• Retention of Essential Services: Aligning CCS absence limits with school holiday periods supports teacher retention and ensures that children of essential workers maintain access to care without being penalised for their professional calendar.
Without a targeted adjustment, such as increasing allowable absence days from 40 to 80 for this cohort to fully cover the 60 mandated holiday days and preserve a necessary 20-day sickness buffer, current policy settings will continue to contribute to workforce instability and the rural education disadvantage.
