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The Nordic countries are well-known for their high standard of living, and Australia could look to Finland as an example of a country that’s long achieved a system of universal childcare. This report by Stephanie Zillman and Xanthe Kleinig.
JENNA NORTHEY: We are in the Hills district. So it's a very up and coming area. Lots of new developments, lots of houses that are being built, apartments being built. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN, REPORTER: This is a familiar routine for Jenna Northey and her son each weekday morning in north-west Sydney. JENNA NORTHEY: I genuinely don't understand why it's so hard to get childcare. There are so many childcare centres popping up around my suburb. On the way to my son's childcare, I would past 10, 15 childcare centres, and they're all full. I've been on the waiting list for all of them for two years. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: Jenna’s commute to work into central Sydney is made longer by a 25-minute drive to her son’s childcare centre. JENNA NORTHEY: I think the biggest impact has been on to my son, because of that extra commute in the mornings, and in the afternoons and then getting home it's dark. If he wants to ride his scooter around, after he gets home from daycare, it's too late. It's time for dinner and bed. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: Jenna’s in the process of moving to a new area in order to access childcare closer to home. JENNA NORTHEY: When the lady on the phone said that there was a spot, the first thing I pictured was not having to be stuck in that car for the commute for almost an hour out of our day.EMMA DOUGLAS: My employer held the job for me for six months and in the end, I had to just forfeit the job so that they could actually find someone else to put in that position. And I just gave up on working until I got a daycare spot. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: Emma Douglas and her family moved to Broome in early 2022 not realising the challenge they’d face in accessing this essential service. EMMA DOUGLAS: There is four centres in Broome. So I was ringing them, you know, once a week, once a fortnight, popping in several times, just to try and say, hey, any movement on the list. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: With no indication of how long her family would wait for a spot, they were left with pursuing informal babysitting options, often with backpackers. EMMA DOUGLAS: There’s not very many people around to do private babysitting so it was very difficult for that, for term four of last year and I was doing lots of juggling and working from home and taking leave. I always had in the back of my mind the issue around duty of care and not having any sort of policies and contracts in place to fall back on if some sort of incident happened. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: After over two years on waitlists and just as the family considered leaving Broome over the issue, Emma’s daughter Lulu finally got a place. EMMA DOUGLAS: Now that she's got a place, I don't have to think about it again and I don't have to every few months be posting on the Broome babysitting Facebook pages, begging for a babysitter that can fit in with the days that I needed. And for Lulu's benefit as well, something that you know, she can actually have that's consistent for her, that she can actually get used to and start to enjoy. JAY WEATHERILL, FORMER SA PREMIER: There are just too many families that have to engage in ridiculous struggles to try and find a place for their children and some of them just give up because it's too expensive or too hard. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill is now chairing an initiative of the Minderoo Foundation, calling for an overhaul of the childcare system. The philanthropic foundation promotes change to entrenched social problems.It does belong in the education system; we've got to take it simply out of a system of workforce participation. This is too important to just leave to the market. We need a strong public managed system, and we need the government to step up and provide that. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: On the other side of the world, a weekday scene that could be any Australian home. RIIKKA PIRINEN: Normally children wake up maybe around 7am. We get them ready, we wash our teeth, and we put our clothes on and then it's maybe about 8am when we are ready to leave. The daycare is about 700 metres from our home, so the way is pretty short and well, because it’s wintertime at the moment in Finland, and now it’s like almost 15 Celsius degrees below zero so then we go by car but sometimes we also walk. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: In Finland, the way early education services are funded, run, and accessed by families is very different to Australia. RIIKKA PIRINEN: I had very high expectations because I knew how the daycare system in Finland works and I knew that it works very well, so I was pretty sure to have my children at a daycare that is very near to us and that everything would go smoothly. DR HEIDI HARJI-LUUKKAINEN, PROF. OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF JYVASK: So in Finland, we would have the subjective rights for children to get early childhood education, which means that the parents are guaranteed a placement for the child in early childhood education whenever there is a need for that one. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: In Australia local councils operate limited childcare services, but in Finland the sector is majority-run by local government. Monthly fees depend on a family’s income. Fees are capped at 300 euros for the wealthy, the equivalent of just under $500. The lowest income families pay just 28 euros which is less than $50.RIIKKA PIRINEN: Yeah, you would say that there’s like one day care centre in every corner. HEIDI HARJI-LUUKKAINEN: The municipality tries to place the children as close to the home as possible and that's for the benefit of the child as well as for the family. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: Finland isn’t immune to the global shortage of early childhood educators or achieving pay equal to schoolteachers. HEIDI HARJI-LUUKKAINEN: We do have the same challenges and we do have the same problems but it's in the smaller scale, I would say. So we do have a problem, like the lack of early childhood education teachers in Finland, just like you have in Australia, the attractiveness of the workforce. STEPHANIE ZILLMAN: Last year the Treasurer tasked the Productivity Commission with setting out a path to achieving universal early childhood education and care. The final report will be released mid-year with the goal of charting a system that’s as universal as Medicare and superannuation. JENNA NORTHEY: We have a right to send our kids to primary school and high school in an area that's close to home and I don't see why childcare should be any different. JAY WEATHERILL: I don't think it's any accident it was front and centre at the last federal election campaign. I don't think it's any accident that the Prime Minister has committed himself to this reform. I think the next step is delivering it, making it real. The Nordic countries are well-known for their high standard of living, and Australia could look to Finland as an example of a country that’s long achieved a system of universal childcare.
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