26 March 2025

‍2025-26 Budget Wrap Up

Last night the Treasurer, Dr Jim Chalmers, handed down the Federal Budget which appeared, not unexpectedly, somewhat absent of significant new allocations for the early childhood education sector.

This is largely due to the considerable recent commitments through measures such as:

• $426.6 million for the new 3 Day Guarantee, which replaces the Child Care Subsidy Activity Test to ensure families are eligible for at least 3 days a week of subsidised early childhood education and care. An additional $4.5 million was allocated over four years from 2025–26 to Services Australia to make system changes to ensure consistency with the passing of recent legislation to implement the Child Care Subsidy 3 Day Guarantee. 
• $1 billion to establish the Building Early Education Fund to increase the supply of high‑quality early childhood education and care places across Australia, especially in priority and under‑served markets.

FDCA actions

Following on from extensive consultation with members, FDCA recently put forward Request for Election Policy Commitments for the Family Day Care Sector to Australia's major political parties ahead of the 2025 federal election.

Over the past week, FDCA CEO Andrew Paterson has held face to face meetings with the Hon Dr Anne Aly MP, Minister for Early Childhood Education, and Ms Angie Bell, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, to discuss the election policy commitments and emphasise the importance of supporting viability and investment in family day care.

Andrew has also held multiple meetings with the Department over recent weeks and beyond to further advocate for the development of a worker retention payment equivalent for family day care and application a portion of the Building Early Education Fund to be accessible to family day care in the establishment of venue models.

Our Election Policy Commitments provide Australia’s major political parties with a selection of targeted initiatives and opportunities to better leverage the capacity and unique strengths of the family day care sector.

Our 2025 election commitment requests address key priorities that will be pivotal in ensuring the long-term viability of the family day care sector. These priorities include (but are not limited to):

• Arresting the decline in numbers of family day care educators and approved services through strategies to support service viability, reducing administrative burden (at both service and educator level) and supporting sustainable growth in educator numbers.
• Strengthening the financial viability of providing family day care by improving remuneration opportunities (e.g. through higher CCS hourly cap rates) and through targeted supply-side initiatives for services.
• Exploring innovative models of family day care to expand capacity and delivery in areas of need, and for particular cohorts, in partnership with governments, industry, FDCA, approved services and educators.

To view a copy of FDCA’s Request for Election Policy Commitments document, click here.

Click here to view the 2025-26 Budget Documents.

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Last Chance to Claim a National Family Day Care Week Picnic Pack

This week is your last chance to claim a 2025 National Family Day Care Week picnic pack!

We’re giving away FREE picnic packs to the first 200 FDCA members that register a National Family Day Care Week Picnic and a limited number of packs are still remaining.

The deadline to claim your free National Family Day Care Week Picnic Pack is 30 March 2025.

The FREE National Family Day Care Week Picnic Pack includes:

• 24 FDC Week stickers
• 12 FDC Week postcard invitations
• 2 x A2 FDC Week posters

This year National Family Day Care Week will take place from 5-11 May 2025 and we're calling on all FDCA members to take part in the National Family Day Care Week celebrations and host a picnic.

To register your National Family Day Care Week Picnic, click here.

Geccko Online Learning - Electronic Payment of Gap Fees

The Commonwealth Department of Education offers a range of courses through its Geccko online learning platform, tailored for the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. The Electronic Payment of Gap Fees course helps service staff, including those in family day care, understand their obligations regarding the mandatory electronic payment of gap fees.

In the course, participants will learn how to:

• Describe what a Child Care Subsidy (CCS) gap fee is and how to explain it to families
• Understand the requirement to collect gap fees electronically
• Meet obligations under Family Assistance Law (FAL)
• Identify when an exception to electronic gap fee collection may apply

Geccko offers flexible, self-paced learning that can be accessed anytime on tablets, laptops, or mobile phones. Course certificates are also available for download upon completion.

To access this free course, you must first register for Geccko here.

Child enrolments: Are your records complete and up to date?

There are a number of record keeping requirements that approved providers and family day care educators must comply with under the Education and Care Services National Regulations.

A common breach in family day care relates to Regulation 160 – Child enrolment records to be kept by approved provider and family day care educator. This regulation requires that:

• The approved provider must ensure that an enrolment record is kept for each child enrolled at the education and care service
•  A family day care educator must keep an enrolment record for each child educated and cared for by the educator. 

Key Points to remember:

• Each educator must keep a copy of each child’s enrolment record. Services should ensure educators have access to, and securely store, these records as required under the regulations.
• Ensure all sections of the enrolment record are completed in full and accurately, including:
  
  • Child’s full name, date of birth and address
  • Contact details for each known parent of the child and authorised nominees
  • Authorisations (e.g. medical treatment, collection and transport)
  • Health information, including medical conditions and allergies
  • Court orders, parenting orders or parenting plans that relate to the child
  • Home language, cultural background and any special considerations (e.g. religious, additional needs, dietary requirements).
• Enrolment records must be updated as required and when regulation changes are introduced or occur. This includes changes to personal information about the child such as contact details or medical information etc.
• Enrolment records must be kept until the end of 3 years after the child’s last attendance.
• At any time, authorised officers and parents can request to inspect these records. Parents can also request to see any documentation relating to their child.
• Ensure each known parent of the child is listed on the enrolment form.

Additional resources: 

• ACECQA’s  information sheet on Enrolment and Orientation policy guidelines
• ACECQA’s  information sheet on record keeping in family day care, which provides details on record keeping and storage requirements under other regulations
• Australian Government Department of Education’s website, which provided information about the enrolment process to ensures families are paid CCS

Vegie Month

There’s still time to join the fun for Vegie Month! Running from Monday 10 March to Friday 4th April, Vegie Month is designed to ignite curiosity and make vegetables fun for children. It creates interest in vegies without any pressure to eat them. It's important for children to have these opportunities to explore vegetables. Research shows that this can increase the chance that a child will learn to like vegetables over time.

Developed by the Northern NSW Local Health District, Vegie Month is in its eighth year and encourages the intentional planning of vegetable focused nutrition learning experiences into daily programs. Thai year’s focus is on exploring vegetables via the five senses.

The Big Crunch is set for Thursday 3 April at 10am which is an attempt to set a record for the greatest number of children crunching on vegetables simultaneously.

For more information on Vegie Month and The Big Crunch, there’s an Educator Resource you can find here. For resources on healthy eating including nutrition learning experiences and recipes visit the NSW Health website.

Have your say -  ACECQA Stakeholder Survey now open

The inaugural ACECQA Stakeholder Survey is now open.

ACECQA is calling on anyone who works in, or is involved with, the children’s education and care sector, to share your views on their functions, programs and services. For example, our stakeholders include a diverse range of roles and perspectives: approved provider, teacher or educator, government or regulatory authority representative, education/training provider, peak body representative or parent, guardian or community member.

Your responses will help ACECQA to assess their performance and effectiveness so that they can keep improving the ways they work, communicate and engage with all of their stakeholders.

The confidential survey should only take 10 minutes to complete and is open until Friday 4 April 2025.

Complete the survey and share your views.

Happy Eid al-Fitr

Eid al-Fitr also known as, the 'festival of breaking the fast' is a joyous occasion that marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting for Muslims, when they abstain from food and drink between dawn and sunset.

Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam and Eid al-Fitr is significant in celebrating the end of a very intense month of fasting, prayer, self-reflection and charity.

We wish a happy Eid al-Fitr to all our members that are celebrating.

Child Care Subsidy periods of emergency

The Australian Government Department of Education (the Department) has recently added more local government areas (LGAs) in parts of New South Wales and Queensland to the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) period of emergency due to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Alfred. The CCS period of emergency applies from 5 March 2025 to 18 March 2025.

If services, families or educators are affected by Tropical Cyclone Alfred or another natural disaster, please visit the Department of Education website to view the most up to date list of declared LGAs and timeframes.

Providers, services, and families in affected areas can access emergency support for the specified dates. The Department will continue to monitor emergency situations and update the list as needed.

For further information about the support that is available in the affected regions, click the links below: 

• Support during the emergency
• Support after the emergency

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