The Morrison government has brought forward an increase in the child care subsidy to start in March next year, four months earlier than originally planned.
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But Labor described the package as a dud, with many families left out in the cold and without getting anything additional.
Education Minister Alan Tudge said about 250,000 families will benefit from the increased subsidy and by more than $2200 per year on average.
"So that is great for families," Mr Tudge told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.
"It is also really going to help the economy as well, by reducing some of those workforce disincentives."
He said the government has been able to work across departments and service providers to make necessary technical changes sooner than was planned.
A family earning $110,000 a year with two children in care, four days a week, will be better off by about $100 each week.
The $10,655 annual subsidy cap will also be scrapped on December 10, 2021 and applied retrospectively for the whole 2021/22 financial year.
"From now, families can have that confidence that this financial year they will not hit that cap and they are not ever going to hit that again," he said.
"So they don't have to ration any child care, which I know that some parents do."
But Labor's childhood education and development spokeswoman Amanda Rishworth said the rehashed announcement from the May budget is a dud and leaves some 750,000 families behind.
"With the government's child care package, only 25 per cent of families are going to get any relief," she told reporters in Adelaide.
"Compare that to Labor's cheaper child care plan, which delivers relief to 97 per cent of families."
For parents with one child they will not get any extra relief from the subsidy at all, she said.
Australian Associated Press
