Morrison postpones family day care changes to consult

Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Scott Morrison has today postponed the introduction of changes designed to address ‘child-swapping’ rorts in family day care, which were due to take effect next Tuesday. The changes have been postponed to enable further consultation with the family day care sector to avoid any unintended consequences.

“Today I have revoked a determination that prevented family day care providers from obtaining a session of care for their children from a family day care provider whilst they were engaging as a family day care provider,” Minister Morrison said.

“This measure, referred to as the ‘child-swapping’ rule, was aimed at stamping out serious non-compliance that had arisen as a result of a number of unscrupulous family day care providers.

“While I remain absolutely committed to stamping out these ‘child-swapping’ rorts, we need to ensure that we mitigate against any unintended consequences for legitimate operators and the families who depend upon them.

“The consequences of the determination however were potentially far more widespread and it has therefore been revoked in order to allow further time to consult with the Family Day Care sector.

“Over the last week I have been approached by a number of Government MPs as well as Senator Xenophon, outlining concerns with the measure and its wider impacts.

“I have therefore decided to put the measure on hold, whilst further consultations occur with the Family Day Care sector. I welcome the representations made to me on the impact of these changes. Where measures do not provide desired outcomes or lead to detrimental consequences I am happy to make changes.

“I want to make it very clear that I will not tolerate fraudulent behavior and once further consultation has occurred I will be bringing forward revised measures to stamp out noncompliant behavior to ensure that the child care rebate and child care benefit schemes are not abused,” Minister Morrison said.