When you attach profit to caring, you create a problem.

We don’t need yet another series of reviews and reports to tell us that when you rely on the blunt-force of the market, you will see profiteering from government subsidies, lack of quality in service delivery dressed up as “efficiency” to maximise profits, and next to no services in areas where there’s little money to be made.

Australia’s current funding model, the childcare subsidy (CCS), has facilitated the rapid expansion of for-profit providers, who now operate nearly 75% of all childcare services across the country.

Research shows that for-profit providers typically deliver lower quality care while charging higher fees than not-for-profit services.

Individual providers who are failing in their care for our most precious people should be held to account, but this is a systemic failure, and the broader fix will be a big, complicated job.

Many of those who work in the early childhood education sector will tell you that they struggle to provide quality education to our children and to keep them safe amid sometimes shocking lack of oversight and adherence to existing rules.

In a

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