Just been thrown into the wayback machine: what's the go with the au pairs?

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You'd have to ask Peter Dutton. You'd remember he was the minister in charge when two au pairs were about to be deported and he intervened.

What's an au pair? Usually a young woman who helps with the kids. Around the edges she may also cook and clean. A bit more on this later.

Two newish lobby groups, Childcare Choice and For Parents, are campaigning for the childcare subsidy to include care outside childcare centres. It would involve funding child care options such as payment to au pairs, nannies, grandparents etc.

Is there a worse idea than that? Sadly Angus Taylor says he plans to adopt this ludicrous plan as policy.

I called his office to see if there was any actual development of how it would work. Yeah, nah. A spokesperson said: "The leader has only spoken broadly about expanding childcare instead of forcing families into the same universal system."

So when Taylor said he planned to move ahead with it, it was more of a vibe. No formal policy has been developed and realised at this stage.

We have spent years and years in this country working to make sure our children are cared for in centres with standards. We already know what happens when childcare centre proprietors fail to uphold those standards. Child sexual assault. Other kinds of physical endangerment. God knows what will happen to the kid who was repeatedly slapped while the slapper laughed.

But at least there are several sets of eyes on our prized babies, not some person magicked up from a WhatsApp group who knows nothing about kids.

Now, in Childcare Choice and For Parents, we have Duttonistas and fellow travellers, former and present, lobbying to make sure they can get money for having nannies and au pairs. Who is working to ensure those nannies and au pairs are doing the right thing by the kids in their care?

A very good question so I asked Marg Rogers, an associate professor in early childhood at the University of New England. She fears unqualified people will be looking after those kids. Teenagers with absolutely no idea. Carers really need to have qualifications. "It's just going back to this idea that if you are a mum or a girl, you will intrinsically know how to work with children."

It's the idea, says Rogers, that women have a natural affinity for caregiving. But as she points out, if you are going to be looking after someone else's children, you also need to have a grasp of child protection issues, of first aid, of learning, language, child development; of the need for kids to get outside amongst the grass and the trees and the sunshine. And if the nation is allowing you to get a subsidy for someone in your home, then the nation's people are going to expect their taxes are funding the right person for the job. Also, not funding someone to do your cooking and cleaning.

Now these lobby groups are doing their lobbying on screen, on radio, and on social media - and aren't too pleased with Labor rejecting these ideas.

We all got a press release criticising that most moderate of Labor ministers, Jess Walsh, the Minister for Early Childhood. Apparently the CC/FP were displeased when Walsh's staffers started deleting social media posts from women claiming to be ordinary mothers. Turns out those "ordinary mothers" have about two decades of working for Liberal politicians including Peter Dutton, such a friend to women.

I asked Walsh's office for a humorous response to the accusations - but no go. Way too serious. But Jason Clare, earlier this week, did not mind having a go: "What looked like grassroots now looks like it's rooted in the Liberal Party ... it looks a lot like fake grass to me."

"I don't think most Australians would like the idea of taxpayer-funded au pairs for millionaires. That seems to be where the Liberal Party is headed."

Back to the au pairs. It's a fact that the Liberal Party has a real penchant for household help. We can't forget Peter Dutton intervening to stop the deportation of a couple of European nannies set to work for those with links to wealthy Liberal Party donors.

What was the go with the au pairs, we all wanted to know. Now they are back on the Liberal menu again this time with added vouchers, which were trialled 10 years ago and did not work then either.

I asked Von Hosking, one of the founders of For Parents, if she had further details of the policy her group was proposing. Details aren't on the website but I am sure they will eventually end up in my inbox. She says the group is not proposing nanny vouchers, so to speak, but is advocating for more choice, including paying grandparents, nannies and au pairs. Sounds good in theory.

I asked Victoria Whitington, an adjunct associate professor in early childhood studies at Adelaide University, what she knew about the pilot of vouchers back in 2016. "If a trial was held and it wasn't implemented in a full way, that tells you something about the results," says Whitington.

And then she freaks me out entirely.

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"There are already considerable issues in early childhood education and care and to come up with a new system of funding which doesn't address the issues we've got is concerning. I'm worried about opening doors for perpetrators to come into people's homes.

"And it's not about training. If you are a first time perpetrator but you've done all the right training, that training's not going to stop you."

Horrific. Don't go with the au pairs or the nannies. Go where there are other sets of eyes watching.

Of course, it's not infallible as we've discovered through Adele Ferguson's reporting. But just imagine if there was never anyone else watching.

Jenna Price is a regular columnist.

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