While my own children are way past needing child care, a friend of mine has several small children and is dismayed by the huge increase in child care costs over the past decade. So much so that even as a higher earning professional, it is barely worth going back to work.

In our time, we were fortunate enough to have a neighbour with children of a similar age who was not working, and she was happy to take our children for the few unscheduled days a week my wife worked, in return for some small remuneration. This today would be illegal, as our neighbour without the required qualifications, insurance and paper work would not be considered fit to look after our children (and I guess her children.)

David Leyonhjelm made an appeal to completely deregulate the child care industry which was immediately rejected. I however, understand why some regulation is required, but can't understand why a UNI degree is required to look after a maximum of 4 children.

Any push to get women back into the work place is a waste of time if it costs more to put children in child care than is earned by working.

Your thoughts?

All this b/s goes against bringing in a baby sitter for a couple of hours.

As I look at many of the jobs that people do and the way they perform their responsibilities I wonder what case they could make for earning more than the lowest staff member in a child care centre.

Not meaning to be rude, but why should (say) and accountant, a news reader, the law-trained bureaucrat in government, or back bench politician expect more $$ and superior conditions to someone in child care?

Then again, why should most of the career politicians in the Senate, Party men and Party women all and never an original thought among them, imagine they are worth more - a multiple in straight out pay alone - than a child care worker?

Just going that small step further to ask why the bloody hell do we fork out the $1+million pa that it takes to keep a member of the federal Senate? Tot that up for the entire Senate and then do a comparison with childcare centres. You could close the federal Senate for a day, a week or even forever and not only would no-one die because of it, but the community might be better off as a result.

We have lost all relativity. Of course parents, mothers & fathers and those who are required to take over their responsibilities for them are performing complex tasks of high responsibility and urgency. Can that be always said of members of the federal Senate though?

'Any push to get women back into the work place is a waste of time if it costs more to put children in child care than is earned by working. '

far better for husband and children if she spends a few years at home. They should be of more concern than money. Also frees up the job market.

If the expense of childcare forces mothers to stay home with their children then the costs are justified. I'm with runner on that one.

I WATCHED MUCH OF IT UNFLD
AT ONE STAGE/one guy run\40 pecent/of chld care/via a nEW-way
john howard somehow paid for/it

the scam worked so well the bankers busted the dude/thAT thunk it/and the govt that legislated it/moved on/and it ecame normal

its nanny state
but dont we all deserve better
i disagree about tying one partner/to te home
but when mum went to work/thats when the jobs got shorter and the hours longer and the cost of everything changed/it was a co=incidence/no doudt

war revealed that one who know
guiding many who never touched a spaner/or a rivit gun\is all the skill base most jobs require/anyone can do it/child care could be done/like schools/but then ya need a full time nappy changer/and nappies by the ton

boy look what the nanny state/has done
no teenager can look after a kid
they need phd/nothing less

EACH AND EVERYONE VEXED
with/plenty of hexed debt