The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) is a not-for-profit, member-funded organisation advocating for the future of Australia's children.
We work on behalf of long day care owners and operators to ensure families and their children have an opportunity to access affordable, high quality early learning services throughout Australia.


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Financial support for early learning services affected by the Coronavirus

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Early learning sector-specific funding

Early Childhood Education & Care Relief Package - Transition Arrangements

On Monday 8th June Education Minister Dan Tehan announced that “the Early Childhood Education and Care Relief Package, introduced on 6 April, had done its job and would be turned off on 12 July".

In summary from 13 July:

  • the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) will return.
  • service providers will receive a Transition Payment of 25% of your fee revenue during the ECE Relief Package reference period (17 February to 1 March) until 27 September.
  • Activity Test exemptions will apply until 4 October.
  • ECEC Relief Package to continue until July 12.
  • Fees to be capped until September 28.

JobKeeper will cease for CCS-approved providers from 20 July.

Child Care Community Fund (CCCF) Special Circumstances grants will also be available to support services experiencing viability issues. This support will be targeted at services in areas of limited supply, and ensure families in regional, rural, remote areas and areas of disadvantage continue to have access to care.

Conditions
There are some conditions to be met in order to receive the Transition Payment:

  • Service providers must maintain employment of their team of staff, and they cannot increase fees beyond what they were charging in February.
  • Service providers must maintain employment levels. (Further details yet to be announced on this detail.)

 For more information visit the DESE webpage here. 


Broader general business funding

Boosting Cashflow For Employers
Additionally, the Australian Government has made available a Boosting Cashflow For Employers initiative, which provides up to $25,000 back to business, with a minimum payment of $2,000 for eligible businesses. The payment is aimed to provide temporary cash flow support to small and medium businesses that employ staff, and is tax free.

You can read about the Boosting Cashflow For Employers initiative here.  

Additional measures

The Federal Government has also made available the following measures: 

 
You can read more about the Australian Government's Coronavirus business support initiatives here. 


ATO Relief Options
Meanwhile the Australian Tax Office (ATO) has implemented some additional relief options for businesses experiencing financial difficulty as a result of the Coronavirus. You can read about them here. 

Insolvency and bankruptcy rules relaxed
The package also contains measures to temporarily relax insolvency and bankruptcy laws, in particular an increase of the threshold at which creditors can take action to initiate insolvency from $2,000 to $20,000 and gives companies and individuals six months instead of the usual 21 days to respond. Personal liability of directors has also been suspended for the next six months.

Banks to defer loan payments for 6 months
The Australian Banking Association announced on Friday, 20 March 2020, that Australian banks will defer loan repayments for small businesses affected by COVID-19 for six months.

Banks are already reaching out to business customers about the assistance available. The Assistance Package will apply to more than $100bn of existing small business loans and could put as much as $8b back into the pockets of small businesses.

Small businesses are encouraged to reach out to their banks about whether or not this applies to them. The Assistance Package applies as of Monday 23 March 2020.

State/Territory government financial support 
All State and Territory Governments apart from South Australia have released stimulus packages designed to support business and households impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.

You can read about each of these here.  


Please be aware that ACA will continue to engage with the Australian Government about how these financial measures are affecting our sector, and the outcomes they are producing. Should you need any particular assistance or if you would like to provide feedback, please contact your ACA state body.   

 

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