Greens to host childcare summit in SA

Childcare providers in South Australia will get to have their say about the future of the sector at meeting.

The Australian Greens will host the meeting on Wednesday prompted by the fall of ABC Learning, which has been placed in voluntary receivership.

On Tuesday, CFK Childcare Centres, the operator of 43 childcare centres in NSW, announced it had gone into voluntary administration due to a failed asset sell-off to ABC Learning Centres Ltd.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the Adelaide meeting was an opportunity to hear first-hand from the private and not-for-profit sector.

"This meeting in Adelaide is a first step in opening those lines of communication, creating a dialogue, and learning from those who are working on the ground as to how to stabilise and improve childcare provision in Australia," Senator Hanson-Young said.

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Gillard flags childcare rethink
Ms Gillard has blamed the Howard Government for letting the private childcare industry run unchecked with no national standards.

Child care for people not profit! The future of childcare services in Australia has been brought into question by the financial collapse of ABC Learning, the largest childcare provider in the country. Its collapse, and government responses to it, reveal much about how public services and private profit interact in Australian society.

What does the Melamine- laced milk disaster have in common with the collapse of the childcare giant ABC Learning? The failure of commercial childcare and the disaster of the melamine toxic milk episode lead us to examine how 20th century capitalism has exploited women and their babies and children. Women’s dissatisfaction whilst caring at home has been amply described by Betty Freidan and others. Their factual reports of the unhappy lives of many a suburban mother and housewife contributed in some part to the mass co-option of discontented women into the workforce.