The Greens welcome the Council of Australian Government's decision to lift childcare standards, but warn that the Prime Minister now has to back the agreement with more Government support for Australian children, according to Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Senator Hanson-Young, Greens spokesperson on early childhood Education, says COAG's decision to raise minimum staff ratios to 1:4 for children aged under two, and 1:5 for children aged three to five is a good first step, but that much more needs to be done.

"Reports suggest the new ratios would add $50 a week to childcare bills, but our goal should be to ease costs for parents and families, not add to them,'' she said.
"In particular, we need to find a way to link funding for providers to standards of care and educational outcomes - in other words, we need to make the Government's money work to the advantage of our children.

"The Greens believe the Productivity Commission should be given the opportunity to review funding models so we can find a mechanism for the Government to ensure quality care that doesn't cost parents the earth.‘'

A decision on the new owners for the 700-plus childcare centres left over from the collapse of ABC Learning is due this week. The Greens believe that the failure of Government reliance on corporate providers shows the need to provide more funding and support for not-for-profit organisations.

"We want to see early childhood education and care (ECEC) transformed from a costly, corporate-run afterthought into a high quality, affordable, accessible service for all,'' Senator Hanson-Young said.

"It would be unfortunate if a large for-profit consortium were again handed a giant share of Australia's market in early childhood education and care, which has seen profit clearly put ahead of quality.

"While the outcome of the new owners is in the hands of receivers rather than Government, the Prime Minister should act quickly to implement guidelines to protect against the possibility of corporate domination of childcare in this country.

"We need to start valuing our children more, and that has to start with the standards of early childhood education and care, which is critical for the development of our children.''