26/11/2025
Nearly $100 million was poured into a BOM website that was originally quoted at just $4 million. A blow-out of this scale is apparently acceptable… yet Early Childhood Education is told to “wait”, “pilot”, and “prove need”.
The only recent funding initiative for FDC is a small pilot program, offered to a limited number of Schemes, where educators must work three months before they can even be considered for support — and even then, funding is not guaranteed.
At the same time, the sector is navigating a wave of new child safety changes that add paperwork, not protection. More forms. More hoops. More admin for already stretched services — with no resourcing attached and no evidence these changes will meaningfully improve children’s safety.
So while tens of millions can quietly disappear into a website redesign, the services actually caring for children — particularly those in childcare deserts — are expected to roll out new requirements, meet higher expectations, and expand access with minimal support.
Families in regional and outer suburban communities need real solutions.
Children need genuinely safer systems.
And FDC needs to be recognised as an essential part of Australia’s childcare landscape.
Australia doesn’t have a money problem.
It has a priorities problem.
And it’s time those priorities shifted towards the children and families who need it most.
