I'm pretty sure you can get it even if neither parents are working. Your child does need to be 3 & 4 to qualify but some kindy's will take them earlier (from about 30 months) and not charge you for the time spent at kindy prior to 3. From what I understand daycares will charge you right up to the minute they turn 3.
When the child turns 3 years old they are entitled to 20 hours free child care in a centre or home based care or kindergarten.
You can only use 20 hours per week
maximum 6 hours a day.
Our service provides the 20 hours completely freeof course if you do more than 20 hours i.e 30 hours you have to pay cause it's only 20 hours free! some people just don't get that!
I'm not sure how kindy get way with offer it when the child is 30 months. As it's a legal document that is signed by the provider and the parent. By law the child must be 3.
You can't get a subsidy and free hours for the same hours though iykwim. ie - if you're booked in for 40 hours a week you can use 20 free hours and get your subsidy for the other 20 hours.
And yeah it is available for everyone, has nothing to do with whether you're working or how much you earn.
my daycare introduced 20 free hours - great i thought. but also said that kids could no longer do half-days - 9 hours only (8-5). Now the free 20 hours is limited to 6 a day. So to get all free 20 hours, I end up having to enrol the boys for 4 full days (36 hours). And rather than the $4 an hour it was before - now is $8 an hour. We get a minimal subsidy so now pay more for those 20 "free" hours. So ask before you enrol!!!!!
BTW - boys would have to go for four full time - ish days anyway, so that wasn't such a hardship
Also watch out for having to pay the difference, ie if the childcare charges $5.50 you might have to pay $1.50 an hour for those 20 supposed free hours.
our kindy only does mornings or full days for DD age and because we can't afford full days and dont need it we can only use up 15 hours a week and at the moment I'd love to be using that extra 5 hours do all kindies do this?
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20hrs free child care
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