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继彻底取消隔热层安装计划之后，工党继续违背上次大选承诺，于昨日宣布停建222所 Childcare centres
http://www.smh.com.au/national/i ... -20100422-tg2e.html
Insulation, childcare pledges axed as poll looms PHILLIP COOREY CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
April 23, 2010
THE Rudd government's reputation for breaking promises has been enhanced by decisions yesterday to abandon the construction of more than 220 childcare centres and to dump the home insulation rebate scheme.
Further fuelling speculation the government is preparing for an election as early as August, the changes were announced while the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was campaigning on his health reforms in Tasmania.
The decision to scrap 222 of the 260 childcare centres Labor promised before the last election was buried on page two of a press release by the Childcare Minister, Kate Ellis. The centres, to be built on school, TAFE and university grounds, aimed to end the ''double drop-off''.
Ms Ellis justified the move by citing a changed landscape after ABC Learning's collapse and the sale of its childcare centres, and new data showing vacancies in 90 per cent of services in cities and 98 per cent of services in remote areas.
''The injection of more centres could threaten the viability of existing services and cause disruption for Australian families, just as the market is settling after the collapse of ABC Learning.''
Last year's budget allocated $114 million to build 38 centres. These will go ahead.
As revealed in the Herald yesterday, the Energy Efficiency Minister, Greg Combet, scrapped plans for an insulation rebate program starting on June 1.
It was promised in February after the Government dumped the original $2.45 billion home insulation program, which was part of the stimulus package, because of rorts, deaths and poor installations. The decision to abandon the rebate scheme followed a scathing assessment of the original scheme and warnings about embarking on a new one. The report was conducted by the former bureaucrat Allan Hawke.
About $900 million is left over from the old scheme. This was supposed to fund the new rebate and pay for fixing the problems created by the old scheme, primarily inspections and remediation work on 200,000 homes. But Mr Hawke warned ''significantly more houses may require inspection and potential rectification'' and ''these demands may leave little available funding for the renewable energy bonus scheme''.
The decision will most affect installers who have stockpiled insulation and whom Mr Rudd promised in February would be looked after in the new scheme.
The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, said it ''will go down as probably the worst single government initiative in Australian history''. He said the childcare decision was ''a colossal breach of faith with working families''.
''This really is a government that is worse than Whitlam when it comes to delivering programs.''
Prue Warrilow, the national convener of Australian Community Children's Services, which represents not-for-profit childcare centres, said the data used to justify the decision was ''superficial'' because it was not clear what days or hours vacancies were available, or for which ages.
But Gwynn Bridge, the president of the Australian Childcare Alliance, covering private centres, said the sector needed ''settling down time'' after ABC's collapse, and new centres would threaten the viability of existing ones. |
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参加活动：15万6买花冠 (2013-6-11) cheapers2003 
发表于 2010-4-23 08:50
