Prime Minister Tony Abbott's announcement that the government would honour contracts signed by the previous government to raise childcare wages has only added to the confusion engulfing the sector.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Labor had set aside $300 million in the budget to boost the wages of 30,000 childcare workers, an increase frozen when the Coalition came into government.
The money was to be spent bolstering the meagre pay by $3 an hour for certificate III childcare workers, and $6 an hour for early-childhood teachers.
The starting wage for a university-educated early childhood teacher is $42,000 a year, while starting teachers who were to receive the wages boost would have been paid about $53,000 a year.
The increase was designed to lend certainty to the sector - which has been rife with high staff turnover and funding shortfalls - while the Fair Work Commission considers a historic equal wage fight, due to be completed in about two years.
Assistant Minister for Education Sussan Ley commissioned a PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the short-term wage increases.
''I commissioned this independent report because a huge cloud was hanging over this flawed and inequitable Labor fund, including serious claims it was a front for an aggressive union membership drive,'' she said.
She had been promising to outline the government's response to the report for weeks, but it is understood Mr Abbott's parliamentary announcement took her by surprise.
Asked in question time about the funding, Mr Abbott said: ''We will absolutely honour all of our commitments, and contracts which have been entered into will be honoured.''
The previous government had signed 15 contracts, including one for Goodstart Early Learning, which has 641 centres across Australia.
A letter sent by Goodstart to its staff noted that three months after the organisation signed its contract with Labor, no money had been paid.
''I apologise that I cannot provide you with any more information and understand how unsettling this uncertainty has been,'' human resources general manager Michael Nobelen told staff.
The funding approved by Labor would have lifted the wages of about a third of Australia's childcare staff, in about 1040 centres.
Just 15 organisations (responsible for 670 centres) have signed contracts. The others had conditional funding offers they believed would be honoured by the new government, but which are in doubt.
Labor's education spokeswoman Kate Ellis said payments for contracted centres should be made before Christmas.
