2025-08-11
The Greens say Labor’s outsourcing of the Early Education Service Delivery Prices Project to Deloitte falls short of actual progress towards real reform to make early education universal and high-quality.
The Greens have been calling for a shift away from the troubled childcare subsidy funding model for months, and took a bold plan to the last election to establish an independent national commission to do just that. The commission would enforce national quality standards and lead the transition to universal, free, high-quality early learning by providing expert research, evaluation and policy advice.
Lines attributable to the Australian Greens spokesperson for early education and care, Senator Steph Hodgins-May:
“Our early learning sector is in crisis. The shocking headlines of abuse and neglect we’re seeing as recently as today are just the latest reminder of why the reforms educators and families have been calling for for years are so urgent.
“In typical fashion, Labor is funnelling public money to the private sector to fix problems of its own making. We know the marketised approach to childcare does not work. If the government genuinely wants to move towards universal early education, they should stop outsourcing and start working with us to make it happen.
“The Greens have already put forward a sector-backed plan for an independent early learning commission to act as a watchdog and to drive the transition to universal, high-quality early learning, just like primary and secondary school.
“While the Prime Minister inches towards progress at glacial speed, families, educators and the sector are pleading for legacy reform and strong national leadership to give our kids the start to life that they deserve.”
Lines attributable to Australian Greens spokesperson for the public sector, Senator Barbara Pocock:
“On such a fundamental piece of policy such as this, why wouldn’t we keep the design and architecture in the public sector? This move contradicts the Strategic Commissioning Framework by outsourcing policy formulation to an external workforce like Deloitte. This is a key example of core work that must be done by the public service. We should have the capability. ”
“This contract with Deloitte is worth at least $7.5 million. Labor has previously said it wants to reduce its outsourcing of public service work to the Big Four consulting firms yet, once again, this government is choosing to outsource rather than invest in the public sector.”