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| Virtual Tour Sydney 1998 IWD |
Cheryl Joint Assistant National
Secretary from the liquor, hospitality and miscellanies
workers union who are the largest childcare union in
Australia. Thanks very much everybody. When I am listening to the speeches today in one sense it is wonderful to hear the progress that women have made but it is also really alarming that many of the gains that we have made have been so deliberately and strategically stripped back by Mr Howard's back to the 1950’s agenda for women. I doesn’t really need stating that gains for women are just not possible without good quality childcare. Women cannot begin to have economic independence without it, and they can’t have peace of mind while they are at work without it either. So for twenty-five years we have been building this infrastructure for childcare but through budget decisions made only over the last nine months that system is being destroyed. In all over eight hundred million dollars has been cut form childcare over the past couple of budgets by the Howard government. The government has made these cuts in a variety of ways, but mainly they have been cut by abolishing operational subsidies to community based childcare centre's, and the effects of this have been quite horrendous. They have been made by introducing tougher tests for low-income families as to how they can access childcare and they have been made by freezing child care assistance and the child care cash rebate. So these centre's are forced to put their fees up a parent has to pay for the extra cost. My union as I said the largest childcare union in Australia we are well aware of how the cuts are hurting the community. Everyday we are contacted by childcare workers who have been redundant or who have had their hours slashed because of the childcare cuts. We know of at least forty centre's across Australia who have had to close their doors because of the cuts. As of April of this year those cuts will also extend to out of school hours care centre's so the operational subsidies will go in out of school hours care in April, and that means that a lot of those out of school hours care centre's are going to close as well. We also know of many who cannot afford the increased fees of up to $30 dollars a week to pay for the extra costs of childcare. The choices that are now being offered to women are pay all this extra money to have your child in care, stay home and disguise the unemployment statistics or leave your child in unregulated backyard care. An that’s really the agenda that is now being foisted upon women in the workforce. Now it’s not all doom and gloom, we have had a couple of pieces of relatively good news. The first is that the LHMU and other unions and other community groups have managed to persuade the government to conduct a senate inquiry into childcare and pretty soon that Senate Inquiry will be travelling around the various capital cities and you can make a submission to that Senate Inquiry protesting about the childcare cuts. We have produced a kit, it looks like this and it tells you in simple terms how you can make a submission to the Inquiry. We have a stall over there and you can get a copy of this kit and I urge you all to make a submission to the Inquiry. The second piece of relatively good news in a way is that you will have the chance to protest about the childcare cuts in the forthcoming election. The Labour Party has identified jobs, health care, aged care and childcare as the hot issues in the forthcoming election. So you will certainly have the opportunity to make those protests. So if you belong to a community group, if you belong to a parents and citizens association I urge you to make contact with those organisations, explain to them the nature of the problem and get them galvanised in some action because unless some action is taken to protect the infrastructure that we have built up in childcare it is going to go down the gurgle hole and if it does that the very lynch pin of women’s independence is threatened as well. Thank you very much . |
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Tour 96 | Tour
97 | Tour 98 |
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