The privatisation/marketisation of ECEC debate : social versus neoliberal models

In the four decades since the introduction of the Child Care Act, 1972, Australian childcare has transmogrified from a public, notfor- profit and community-based sector to a predominantly commercial enterprise. In the context of such significant policy transformation surrounding the provision of Australian childcare, we consider Nancy Fraser’s (2013) assertion that ‘the movement for women’s liberation has become entangled in a dangerous liaison with neoliberal efforts to build a free-market society’ (n.p.). Neoliberal economics provided the initial impetus for the Australian Government to marketise childcare provision in the 1990s and now the neoliberal ethos appears to be generating new discourses in the way that childcare is perceived, transforming it into a commodity for (women’s) private benefit rather than as a public good.