One of the Labor party's key policies is to make childcare more accessible to families, however advocates warn attention needs to be given to the staffing crisis the industry faces.
Last Thursday shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers and shadow minister for early childhood education Amanda Rishworth spoke at Goodstart Early Learning in Charlton, Sydney saying Labor's childcare policy will "deliver a double dividend".
Ms Rishworth explained the policy will help "reduce those cost pressures on families" saving an average $1600 per year and will open doors for employment opportunities to those "choosing not to go to work because of the cost of childcare".
"Labor policy does not only deliver an important cost of living relief to families but it injects workers into the economy, allowing women in particular to work the hours they want and need," she said.
Under the same childcare organisation Labor visited, Cassandra Duff is a manager for Goodstart Early Learning in Kingston and has grown frustrated the political attention to the industry is "usually based around families [and] what gets missed is the staffing crisis".
Ms Duff is a 16-year veteran of the industry and currently works on secondment to Thrive by Five, a not for profit advocating for all children to have quality early learning. This year alone, Ms Duff has managed five employees resigning and two taking maternity leave.
The pandemic created significant strain on the sector as workers "went from being educators to therapists" when the industry was already "overworked and underpaid" from the 2020 government policy that made childcare free for families while centres were only paid 50 per cent of their standard fees.
Since the pandemic there have been major worker vacancies, in February 2022 alone 5622 staff left the sector which is double pre-pandemic levels.
Further to this, nearly 14 per cent of long day care centres did not meet the staffing requirements of the National Quality Framework.
"People are losing that passion and I think that's what's so heartbreaking," Ms Duff said.
New South Wales and ACT state manager of Goodstart, Kim Bertino, has observed the challenges centres face is needing to cap numbers of enrollment because they are "unable to have the necessary, qualified staff".
Ms Bertino believes whoever wins government an implementation on the national workface strategy needs to occur for the "urgent need to address workforce issues".
"That includes improving wages and conditions, the pipeline of new educators and teachers, and ongoing support for developing the workforce," she said.
"To provide the increase in places for families wanting care, more educators will be needed."
The shadow minister for childcare Ms Rishworth pledged if Labor formed government she would look at the national workforce strategy.
"I would sit down with the states and territories and the sector to look at how we could best move the implementation plan where the works gone into it, but nothing's actually being done on it," she said.
