As late-stage capitalism now requires two incomes to maintain a basic lifestyle, so childcare has become a necessity for the majority of working parents in the 21st century.
As the demand has risen, so the childcare sector has become a vast $20 billion-a-year industry dominated by for-profit companies.
A corporate tax analysis report for the ABC reveals that childcare landlords collect a staggering $2.7 billion in rent annually.
To support families and generally encourage the sector, Federal Government has promised more than $16 billion in childcare subsidies.
Childcare is apparently a booming, economically secure industry fuelled by government policies keen to get more people, particularly women, in the workforce, which in turn fuels the demand for more childcare services.
So everybody is happy, right?
Well, not quite.
At the bottom of this pyramid of profit and grand government policy are stressed and underpaid childcare workers.
And underneath the bottom of the pyramid is the reason it exists in the first place — the child.
An ABC Four Corners report in March revealed a disturbing litany of sexual and physical abuse and neglect of children in many parts of the childcare industry.
The report found poorly trained staff, unsafe environments and a flawed regulatory system are all failing our children.
When I heard news of a 26-year-old male childcare worker being charged with more than 70 counts of child sexual abuse possibly affecting thousands of families I was sickened, but not surprised.
What did surprise me was being told by our premier that a state register of childcare workers would be established.
Really?
You mean there has been no register of staff in Victoria, so workers can move freely between jobs with no centralised record of their employment?
Incredible.
This sore has been festering for years and now the bandage has come off it is time to widen the discussion about who is best suited to care for children.
The answer in any mature society must be parents.
At the risk of returning to the 1950s or sounding like a radical right-wing evangelist, I think parents should be encouraged to stay at home to look after their children at least for the foundational early years of childhood.
Instead of pouring billions into creating affordable childcare, we should spend that money in parental leave payments.
Norway, for instance, offers 49 weeks of parental leave at 100 per cent of salary replacement or 59 weeks at 80 per cent of salary replacement.
Australia offers 24 weeks of shared paid parental leave at the rate of the national minimum wage — not a lot for those on big mortgages, but it’s a start.
There will always be parents who are incapable of providing a safe and loving environment for their children, so state care must be available for those vulnerable souls.
Equally, there will be parents who do not relish the thought of spending all day with their young children and would rather go to work.
So private daycare would still be available for them — at their own cost.
At the moment, it appears Australia’s heavily privatised childcare system is broken. It must be fixed — and quickly.
But the long-term and fundamental question we must ask ourselves is this: What is the purpose of this great edifice of government policy and funding with all its implied freedoms and rights, if it is not for the creation of happy, healthy children?
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
