Two Days of Productive Political Engagement in Canberra!

ACA President Paul Mondo and Vice President Nesha Hutchinson recently had the pleasure of meeting with a large number of key Ministers, Shadow Ministers and political advisors at Parliament House in Canberra, to talk about the issues most important to the early learning sector. 

This included meetings with the Hon. Dan Tehan MP, Minister for Education and the Hon. Michelle Landry MP, Assistant Minister for Children and Families, Dr Andrew Laming MP, Member Coalition Committee for Health, Aged Care Sport Policy along with the Senior Advisors to Senator the Hon. Mathias Cormann MP, Minister for Finance and the Hon. Josh Frydenberg MP, Treasurer.

Outside of the Coalition, key stakeholders they met with included Mr Owen Torpy, Chief of Staff to Hon. Amanda Rishworth MP, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Development, Senior Advisor to the Hon Joel Fitzgibbon MP, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources, Senator Dr Mehreen Faruqi, Education and Early Learning spokesperson for the Australian Greens,  Rebekha Sharkie MP, Education and Early Learning spokesperson for the Centre Alliance and Mr Bob Katter MP, Independent. 

The implementation of the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) was a hot topic of discussion. Minister Tehan and his team of staff were responsive to ACA’s feedback and are continuing their work with ACA to address the issues identified. 

A review of the activity test has long been on ACA's policy agenda so that all families qualify for 18 hours per week of subsidised access to early learning services, equivalent to meeting step 1 of the activity test. This was again discussed, with varying responses. ACA will continue to advocate for the benefits of affording all families a minimum level of subsidised access to ensure that all children can benefit from engagement in early learning and have the best start in life. 

Discussions also included the continuation of preschool funding in the year before school. It appears ACA's ongoing work advocating in this area has been paying off, as the program is highly valued by most of the politicians ACA spoke to, and they recognised the value in this program in the year before school as well as the need for a long term commitment to ensure that all stakeholders can plan ahead with certainty.

ACA will continue advocating across all of the policy outlined in our Best Start In Life campaign and we look forward to positive outcomes across the range of items we are advocating for.