There’s a curious twist to Australia’s education system: the youngest participants are the most exposed to market forces.

While for-profit education is rare from kindergarten to university, for most under-5s it’s laissez-faire; almost 70 per cent of Australia’s daycare centres are run for a profit.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese framed improvements to childcare reform as an economic reform.Credit: AAP

This free-market experiment in early childhood care and education was decades in the making. In the early 1970s the Whitlam government began funding not-for-profit providers to expand the supply of childcare, especially for disadvantaged children.

But as women’s workforce participation steadily grew during the 1980s and 1990s, the focus shifted to subsidising parents with fee relief; in 1990 the Hawke Labor government extended government support to parents using for-profit childcare, attracting greater business involvement in the sector. Several Howard government policies, especially a taxpayer-funded childcare rebate introduced in 2004, also helped pave the way for the current corporatised childcare sector, underpinned by a growing pile of Commonwealth cash.

Childcare is now big business, with several large providers listed on the stock exchange and childcare facilities an attractive asset class for commercial property investors.

By 2021-22, federal childcare subsidies had reached $10.3 billion, nearly as much as the Victorian government spent running its whole public school system that year ($11.2 billion, according to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting........

© Brisbane Times