Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 6:21:57 to 6:27:17
Analysis of data regarding childcare service closures versus new approvals, including state-level reporting and national law cancellations.
Topics: Education, Infrastructure
Speakers: Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Mr. Brendan Moon, Ms. Kylie Crane, Senator Jess Walsh, Mr. Tony Cook, Senator Marielle Smith
Sullivan.
>> Thank you. No, it's a good good question. Um Senator Scarr's asking and uh a good segue to the topic that I now want to raise. Um >> It wasn't at all. Wasn't at all. Great minds. Um I think we all knew that >> the Alaca Early Learning and Care Council of Australia report that its members closed 152 long daycare centers between 2024 and uh year to date 2026 and identified a further 276 services at risk of closure over the next 12 months. That's 221 long daycare services and 55 preschool and kindergarten services. These figures are drawn from uh the 13 Alaka members rather than a a national census. I don't have access to national figures, but um in in on the four corners report, Minister, you you said that the government was seeing record service cancellations with 600 reported in the last period. Uh what does that figure refer to? which reporting period does it cover and how many were service closures by state regulators versus comwalth funding withdrawals and that that could be for the department.
>> There's a sort of a couple of different issues there and a couple of different data points. So the 600 service cancellations um I understand were by state and territory regulators, but we can probably also assist um with information about um service closures in general uh and also the number of um you know additional services in the last period as well.
>> Um so Senator um we don't have access to the data that you're referring to. So um the information that we will talk about uh comes out of what is the SQA reporting. Um the first thing I'll say is we don't have disagregated data. Um so that what we'll talk about will be at national or state level where we can um that data is owned by states and territories. So anything lower um we need to seek their approval and authority to to discuss. Um if we look at the 2526 financial year um there were uh 494 closures uh service closures in that period over the same period of time there were 734 new services that were approved. Um that kind of number where more services are opening than they are closing um is a repeated pattern uh over a number of financial years. So that's not just a oneoff in that sense. Uh but I'll hand uh over to Mr. Moon uh who has some of that.
>> Can you reconcile that 600 figure?
>> We got this by financial year. Chances are that's probably calendar year information, Senator, but we'll we'll take that on notice.
>> Take it on notice. That's perfectly fine. Um >> sorry, you're going to say something else.
>> All right, that's all right. Mr. Moon is ready to go.
>> So, Senator, if it's helpful, I can provide um a little bit of historical information about the number of cancellations and new provider approvals. Um just one quick caveat senator we will generally look at the national what we call the national law cancellations and approvals because of the dual regulatory system. So there's two factors here. The first is a service has to be approved under the national law before it can be approved for the childare subsidy. And the second is for a cancellation. Um often in fact most often a cancellation is first enacted under the national law and then the childcare subsidy cancellation takes effect under something called an operation of law cancellation. Uh so Senator in the 2022 23 financial year there were 455 closures um compared with 832 new service approvals in the 2023 24 financial year. There were 391 closures where as compared to 799 new service approvals in 2024 25 there were 436 closures as compared with 783 new service approvals and in 202526 as Miss Crane said there were 494 closures as compared to 734 new service
Do you have data on um on permanent closures of early childhood education care services
>> uh services center those are permanent closures permanent >> again I'm a regulator so I will always caveat um that is where a service provider has permanently closed a service >> it doesn't go to say that the physical building isn't at some point in the future again childare but it's shut down at that point out.
>> Okay. Um I I'll put there's a line of questions here which I'll put on notice for the sake of time. Um so do you does the department track where closures are occurring? For example, in metropolitan, regional or or rural and remote areas and identify communities where families have few or no alternative services. Yeah. Through Senator Scarr's example.