The Morrison Governments own data has confirmed those families in the Geelong and surrounding regions are paying more and more in childcare fees.

The Department of Educations most recent data (March 2020) shows child care fees jumped by 4.5 per cent over the previous 12 months, while Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the same period only rose 2.2 per cent.

Across Geelong, the Bellarine and the Surf Coast families have seen costs rise, in the Barwon West region alone, this went up by 21.7 per cent over the last 12 months.

These figures show the Child Care Subsidy support, which is indexedto theCPI, isfailing to keep up with out of control fee increases.

Nationally, childcare fees have now soared by 35.9 per cent since the election of the Liberal Government in 2013.

It is these large fee increases the Morrison Government gave the green light to at the end of September. As a result families across the Geelong and surrounding regions will likely again be hit by soaring fee increases this time in the middle of a recession.

This data confirms urgent action must be taken to provide relief for Australian families who are being crippled by soaring child care fees.

Last week Labor announced that an Albanese Labor Government will introduce the Working Family Childcare Boost to cut child care fees and put more money into the pockets of working families, straight away.

Child care fees in Australia are some of the highest in the world. Under this plan, Labor will:

• Scrap the $10,560 child care subsidy cap which often sees women losing money from an extra days work;
• Lift the maximum child care subsidy rate to 90 per cent; and
• Increase child care subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than $530,000.

This means 97 per cent of all families in the system will save between $600 to $2,900 a year. No family will be worse off.

Importantly, Labor will keep working to fix Australias broken child care system, which currently locks out more than 100,000 families because they just cant afford it.

Scott Morrisons child care system has failed families in the Geelong region. It has failed to keep a lid on out of pocket costs, and it has failed to support working parents, particularly women, to work full time or increase their hours.

If elected, Labor will fix that.

Joint media release with Richard Marles MP.