Q. The Federal Government currently pays parents 50 per cent of money they spend on childcare via its childcare rebate. Which of the following policies would you support most?
| Total | Vote Labor | Vote Lib/Nat | Vote Greens | Men | Women | Age
18-34 |
Aged
35-54 |
Aged 55+ | |
| Maintaining the child care rebate at current levels | 22% | 23% | 23% | 25% | 21% | 22% | 33% | 18% | 14% |
| Limiting the rebate to families earning less than $150,000 per annum | 42% | 46% | 41% | 44% | 42% | 42% | 38% | 42% | 47% |
| Scrapping the rebate and paying the money directly to child care providers to contain costs and improve services | 21% | 25% | 18% | 18% | 25% | 18% | 12% | 24% | 26% |
| Don’t know | 15% | 13% | 11% | 14% | 12% | 18% | 17% | 16% | 12% |
Only 22% favour maintaining the child care rebate at current levels – 42% think it should be means tested and 21% think it should be scrapped and the money paid directly to child care providers. There were no significant differences by voting intention.
Those aged 18-34 were more likely to support maintaining the rebate at current levels (33%) as were people earning over $1,600 pw (31%). Limiting the rebate to families earning less than $150,000 was supported by 55% of people earning $1,000-$1,600 pw.