That ICPA (Aust) advocate to the Minister for Early Childhood Education, to urgently extend the Worker Retention Payment to the In Home Care program, in order to immediately address the rapidly deteriorating affordability of In Home Care for geographically isolated families.
The Federal Government has mandated wage increases for workers across the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector. In mainstream childcare settings, the Government has introduced a Worker Retention Payment to fund these increases, ensuring the cost is not passed on to families. However, no equivalent measure has been applied to the In Home Care (IHC) program. As a result, IHC families are bearing the full burden of these wage increases through dramatically higher gap fees.
For families in our branch, gap fee increases in excess of 33% have been experienced between February 2025 and April 2026, with a further price increase scheduled for July 2026. Several families are experiencing similar or greater increases. This is unsustainable, and inequitable when compared to our urban counterparts. Geographically isolated families who access IHC face a unique and compounding financial burden that families in urban and regional areas do not. In addition to gap fees, IHC families are required to provide an educator with living quarters, utilities, food, and in many cases, transportation. These are not optional costs — they are prerequisites for accessing care in a remote location.
The combination of these obligations and rapidly rising gap fees is placing IHC out of reach for many isolated families. For families in geographically isolated areas, IHC is not a lifestyle choice — it is the only form of childcare available. The failure to extend the Worker Retention Payment to IHC creates a two-tiered system in which isolated families are inequitably excluded from the financial protections afforded to other Australian families. ICPA calls on the Minister for Early Childhood Education to urgently extend the Worker Retention Payment to the In Home Care program, so that isolated families are not left behind.
