Nanny subsidy debate - CareforKids.com.au®

Oh for Tony, Kate & Mary's Sake
Can we just get real about nannies
by Sophie Cross

This last week's news has seen more mentions of nannies than you'd find at a Mary Poppins convention and everyone's getting their knickers in a twist while trying to appeal to the widest audience possible.

So while Tony Abbott is digging around trying to find funds to pay for the promises he's made about the nanny rebate, Kate Ellis is digging herself deeper and deeper into the hole she's created for herself by insinuating that nannies are there to do the ironing and cooking for rich people and making a lot of working parents very "cross".

So the facts:

We don't live in the Edwardian era where children should be seen and not heard, suffragettes are chaining themselves to iron railings and men go to work in bowler hats.
Australia needs women in the workforce. Our workforce is half women and needs to stay that way to maintain its prosperous and stable status, let alone to grow.
Australia still needs to continue to increase its population and future workforce, so women still need to have babies and preferably at an age where they're not having to pay for IVF to have them.
The cost of living is so ridiculously high in Australian cities that the days of the one income family are fast becoming a distant dream.
The demand for child care for the under twos outweighs supply quite significantly in metropolitan areas.
And even if you can find it, especially if you have more than one child, child care is unbelievably expensive.
Child care centres generally work to a very strict timeline – being 8-6pm which more often than not with the traffic we now have in the cities means that it's extremely difficult to work to those timelines unless you have a very accommodating boss (also not quite the norm just yet).
Nannies also work to guidelines set by themselves and their employers and the government in terms of employment law, and can enter an agreement that states whether they will also do the cleaning and ironing or whether they are there strictly for the children's care only.
There is a difference between a nanny and a nanny/housekeeper.

And so… Mr Abbott is definitely on the right track. Yes, there is a very big need for nannies in this modern society of ours, and not just for those who have six figure incomes and a large house in Woollahra or Bronte. When child care is scarce, pre-school age children number more than one per family and employers aren't that keen on flexi-hours, and if parents don't have the sort of shift work, don't live in the middle of nowhere and don't have 'special circumstances' and so can apply for in home care, there is often no other alternative from a practical and financial point of view.

So why should these families be penalized and not be able to claim the same rebate for a properly hired, properly qualified, police checked and referenced nanny than any other form of 'formal' childcare?

There is also a difference between rebate and child care benefit. Currently there is no means test for rebate. You simply have to be registered with Centrelink and have applied for Child Care Benefit to qualify for Rebate, even if you are zero rated for Benefit. So high earners will still not be able to claim Child Care Benefit for nannies anyway.

So, giving the same status of 'approved care' to nannies is not elitist, it's just common sense and giving every Australian working family the same help. The trouble is that we/Tony as yet have no idea where the additional funding is going to come from.

Despite the fact that the state and local governments seem to be rolling in it at the moment what with all the income they're raking in from the pokies, the unnecessary road tolls (further penalizing working parents by the way), stamp duty (just to stick the knife in a little bit further to working families trying to buy their own home) and all the other little earners they currently have going…

If this is Tony Abbott's rallying cry for the next election, GREAT. We'd also like to add in that In Home Care (currently a government subsidized form of childcare for which families must be eligible due to special circumstances, geography or anti-social working hours) should be looked at and the eligibility net should be thrown a bit wider.

However we'd like to see a few figures first before we really believe what we hear. Sadly nannies and working families who rely on them may well have to wait a while longer until this promise comes to fruition.

Now 'spit spot Tony', go and do some sums.

Sophie Cross is a public relations consultant and writer who has publicised and written about everything from makeup to The Muppets, child care to celebrity chefs and perfume to Partners in Population and Development! Originally from the UK and as a languages graduate she has worked around the world, living in Australia for the last 11 years where she runs, PR Chicks.

She is sometimes devoted wife of Stu and always devoted mother to Francesca and two cats, with whom she's about to go on her latest adventure, living and working remotely from their little piece of Spanish heaven in Chite, the Lecrin Valley, just south of Granada. And FYI it's pronounced "ch-ee-tay" not shite.