GE Kindergartens/Childcare

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October 13, 2010

Council Meeting: 12th October

Posted by gleneira under GE Council Meeting(s), GE Kindergartens/Childcare
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A report on last night’s council meeting is below. The minutes of course are not up as yet, so this is a ‘preliminary’ summary of the main events.

  • Elsternwick Childcare: Placards were apparently displayed by members of the Local Childcare Coalition opposing the imminent closure of the Elsternwick facility. Councillors (apart from Lobo) all trotted out the party line that childcare is not the responsibility of local government but rather the state (and federal) government! All of course were 100% committed to maintaining the centre – they just didn’t want to spend any money to ensure its continuation. That must be done by the State government. Chief proponents of this view were Lipshutz and co.
  • Hyams moved an amendment to the Local Law Review committee’s recommendations that Centre Rd be considered for potential naming as an ‘Alcohol Free Zone’. This was opposed by Lipshutz with the argument that we don’t need it; that the police don’t want more work, they will do nothing to enforce it and hence the job will fall on the already overworked council officers. The amendment was eventually passed with the acknowledgement that council isn’t committing itself to anything but that by putting it on the agenda for future discussions all options are left open.
  • Murrumbeena planning application. Placards were again held up with the signage ‘save our suburbs’. Instead of 3 to 4 storeys and 80 odd apartments, this development was ‘reduced’ to two storeys and (only 50) apartments. Traffic congestion was acknowledged as a potential problem!
  • Lobo attempted to raise the issue of ‘unauthorised sporting activities’ again, with his ‘request for a report’. There was no seconder, so the motion lapsed.
  • Penhalluriack requested a report on the discussions and decisions made between council and the MRC over the Caulfield Racetrack. Lipshutz queried whether this was necessary since it might create the impression that councillors did not have full faith in the officers. This was also commented on by Hyams. Forge then stated that perhaps any report need not be made public, but just kept to councillors. Penhalluriack agreed with this and assured everyone that he was not implying anything about officers.
  • Public questions again featured many from the Social Soccer Club. Responses were per ‘normal’.
 

July 13, 2010

Not our responsibility? Ahhhh, puhleese!!!

Posted by gleneira under GE Kindergartens/Childcare
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Last Tuesday night’s Council Meeting provided the gallery with the same old excuses and rhetoric that residents have become accustomed to whenever kindergartens and childcare facilities are mentioned. With shameful predictability nothing in the budget was changed in response to thoughtful and comprehensive submissions by the Save Local Childcare Coalition and the Toy Library. The same old slogans and shibboleths were let loose underpinning a philosophy which simply refuses to accept any social, much less moral, obligation to cater to residents’ needs.

‘It’s not our responsibility’ is the standard catch cry. It’s the state and federal governments’ job to provide for kindas and childcare. On and on, councillors trot out the party line. Last year saw waiting lists of over 150 for kindergarten places; this year it is the imminent closure of the Elsternwick Childcare Centre and the cramped and unsafe working environment of the Toy Library.

None of this is new. It is ‘policy’, set by an administration and countenanced by councillors who either do not have the wherewithal to challenge an agenda designed to rid itself of all ‘costly’ enterprises outside of sport and pavilions or, who simply are incapable of honouring their commitment to the community. How much longer can this go on? And it has been going on for far too long. As far back as 2003, speeches were made in Parliament condemning Glen Eira and its failure to provide adequate childcare facilities. Here’s an example:

Mr Scheffer – 5th November, 2003

I raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Community Services in the other place, the Honourable Sherryl Garbutt. The role of the City of Glen Eira in the steady privatisation of child care has been a growing concern to local parents. In recent days the issue has erupted again with Sunday’s edition of the Caulfield Glen Eira Leader running two separate stories on what it calls the child-care crisis and on the council’s September decision to close the Caulfield Children’s Centre. The Glen Eira council says the centre has to close because the facility would not meet new state government standards. The council says it cannot afford the upgrade. I have called for the council to apply to the Victorian government for a three-year exemption to give it time so that the centre’s 75 children and their families can keep using the service.

A report by the City of Glen Eira states that demand for child care in Glen Eira  currently exceeds places available, and I suspect that the council is prepared to reduce its level of involvement in the provision of child care, because it wants the private sector to fill the vacuum. I ask the minister to provide me with information on what the Bracks government is doing to support local government such as the City of Glen Eira to maintain the role in the delivery of child-care services at a time when the challenge is on to improve operating standards in child-care centres.

Local parents are campaigning to keep the Caulfield Children’s Centre open and are meeting with councillors to press their case. I strongly support their efforts. They want the right to choose community-based child care and they want Glen Eira council to maintain a strong presence. The Glen Eira report states that the total number of children in the 0-to-6 age group in Glen Eira  will fall by about 10 per cent in the next 20 years but also says that demand may be influenced by work force participation levels – and increase.

Local parents say actual birth notifications show a steady increase in recent years and that the percentage of first-time mothers in Glen Eira is significantly higher than the state average. The report also states that the size of the market has expanded rapidly over the past decade and will continue to do so. The council is not especially concerned over the loss of child-care places when the Caulfield Children’s Centre closes. They know the private sector will pick up the shortfall.

While many parents are very happy with privately operated centres, a significant number want community-based care and are appalled by council vacating the field so that right now it provides only 16 per cent of the centre-based places”.

The fact that the Caulfield Centre ‘survived’ has more to do with parents’ outcry than council policy. None of the lobbying, acrimony, and behind the scenes shenanigans should have happened. The failure to facilitate open debate was, and remains evident.

And today, we have Rob Hudson, adding his voice to the ongoing sham:

Rob Hudson – april 13th, 2010:

“To provide just one example, the City of Port Phillip has spent over $4 million on new kindergartens and children’s hubs in the last three years. During the same period the Glen Eira City Council has not made any application for children’s hub funding. As a result of this lack of investment by the Glen Eira City Council the waiting list for kindergarten places in the city blew out in October last year to 146. While that was eventually reduced to less than 30, thanks in part to the state government making Caulfield Primary School available as a kindergarten, this is still totally unacceptable. Every four-year-old is entitled to one year of preschool, and the Glen Eira City Council should ensure that there is a sufficient number of kindergartens in the city for that to occur. ”

Councillors have many questions to answer regarding their consistent failure to act on these issues.

 

July 8, 2010

A Decade of Neglect Continues…….

Posted by gleneira under GE Kindergartens/Childcare
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From yesterday’s Age newspaper

Row over council’s cut in childcare

JEWEL TOPSFIELD

July 7, 2010

THE federal government’s controversial excuse for dumping its election promise to build more than 200 childcare centres has been used to justify a cut to the number of centres in the baby-booming City of Glen Eira.

Parents are angry that the council will not find a replacement facility for Elsternwick Children’s Centre when it closes after its lease expires next year. In a letter to parents, Glen Eira mayor Steven Tang used statistics cited by the government – including that 90 per cent of long day-care centres in Melbourne report vacancies – to help show there did not appear to be a childcare shortage.

Save Local Childcare Coalition spokeswoman Bron Burton said it was nonsensical to use national data to suggest there were plenty of places in Elsternwick. The council’s early-years plan shows the number of births in Elsternwick jumped from 187 in 1999/2000 to 300 in 2008/2009. The report also identified that finding childcare for children under two was difficult due to long waiting lists.

// Dr Burton said many of the 65 families who used the Elsternwick Children’s Centre would struggle to find alternative childcare that suited them, and some parents would be unable to return to work.

The City of Glen Eira, in Melbourne’s south-east, will have just three council-managed childcare centres when Elsternwick closes – Caulfield, Carnegie and Murrumbeena.

”We know of a lot of parents who are currently on waiting lists and have been for some time,” Dr Burton said.

Cr Tang said the council would prefer to continue operating the Elsternwick centre at the current site, but the owner would not extend the lease.

He acknowledged there would not be a vacancy for every child at the other council-managed centres, but said there were plenty of alternatives. ”The equivalent of 60 vacancies per day were identified across Glen Eira … [and] 26 of the 37 services in Glen Eira indicated that they currently had vacancies,” Cr Tang said in the letter.

He told The Age the council’s early childhood priorities in Elsternwick included kindergarten and an upgrade to the maternal and child health centre. ”These services are not being delivered by other providers,” he said.

But Dr Burton said private childcare centres often didn’t take children under 18 months old, and many parents preferred council-managed centres.

The federal government’s statistics – which it used to justify its backflip on building childcare centres on school grounds – have been criticised because they average out all vacancies and do not acknowledge there are chronic shortages in some areas.

The Greens surveyed 56 childcare centres in the inner-city federal electorate of Melbourne and found only 6 per cent had vacancies every day for children aged two and under, while only 11 per cent had vacancies every day for three-year-olds.”

More on this issue and kindergartens in the coming days.

 

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