The Government is investing $4.7 billion over 4 years from 2022-23 to make early childhood education and care more affordable for Australian families. The Government's reforms will mean 96 per cent of families with children in care are better off and no family is worse off.

From July 2023, Child Care Subsidy rates will increase up to 90 per cent for eligible families earning less than $530,000. Families will continue to receive existing higher subsidy rates of up to 95 per cent for any additional children in care aged 5 and under.

The significant cost of early childhood education and care can prevent parents, particularly women, from working as much as they want. It is estimated these reforms will increase the hours worked by women with young children by up to 1.4 million hours per week in 2023-24. This is equivalent to an extra 37,000 full‑time workers.

The reforms will also support children's learning and development and their readiness for school.

The Government is investing $531.6 million over 4 years from 2022-23 to expand the Paid Parental Leave scheme and provide greater support to families. In 2026, families will be able to access up to 26 weeks of Paid Parental Leave.

This expansion is the biggest reform to the scheme since its introduction in 2011. It will enhance economic security, improve gender equality and increase participation and productivity. It will support parents to spend more time with their children and share caring responsibilities more equally.

The modernised scheme will include reserved 'use it or lose it' weeks for each parent, to encourage both parents to take parental leave. Either parent will be able to claim Paid Parental Leave first and both parents can receive the payment at the same time as any employer‑funded parental leave. The reforms also improve flexibility, with parents able to take leave in blocks as small as a day at a time, with periods of work in between.

The Women's Economic Equality Taskforce will examine the optimal model for 26 weeks of Paid Parental Leave including the number of weeks that parents can access at the same time and the mix of 'use it or lose it' weeks. This will ensure it delivers the best outcomes for families and encourage more shared parenting.

Australia is facing acute housing pressures and too many Australians do not have access to affordable housing. At the same time Australia has a low level of institutional housing investment and the world's third largest pool of capital in our superannuation system which is hungry for investments that will deliver stable returns over the long term.

A target of one million new homes under a national Housing Accord

The Government is bringing states and territories, the Australian Local Government Association, investors, and representatives from the construction sector together under a new national Housing Accord. The Accord sets an aspirational target of one million new, well-located homes to be delivered over 5 years from mid‑2024 as capacity constraints are expected to ease.

Under the Accord, the Government will provide $350 million over 5 years, with ongoing availability payments over the longer term, to deliver an additional 10,000 affordable dwellings. States and territories will also support up to an additional 10,000 affordable homes, increasing the dwellings that can be delivered under the Accord to 20,000.

Planning for the future of Australia's housing

Beyond the Accord, the Government will develop a National Housing and Homelessness Plan to set out other actions and longer-term reforms. The Plan will be developed in close consultation with the states and territories and other stakeholders.

Investing in social and affordable housing

The Accord builds on the Government's $10 billion investment to establish the Housing Australia Future Fund. Returns from the Fund will be used to build 30,000 new social and affordable dwellings over 5 years.

The Government is expanding the remit of the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to allow it to more flexibly use $575 million of existing funds. This will help unlock a projected 5,500 new dwellings.

Helping more Australians to realise their dream of home ownership

Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee

The Government is helping 10,000 eligible first home buyers a year in regional Australia to buy a home by guaranteeing up to 15 per cent of the purchase price.

Supporting veterans to purchase a home

The Government is committing $46.2 million to expand the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme. This will support veterans and Australian Defence Force members to purchase a home through monthly subsidies on mortgage interest payments.

Help to Buy

Under Help to Buy, eligible home buyers will have access to an equity contribution to buy a home with a smaller deposit and a smaller mortgage.

Helping older Australians who want to downsize

The Government is extending the exemption of home sale proceeds from pension asset testing by 12 months and is expanding access to make downsizer contributions to superannuation for people aged 55 to 59.

The PBS general co‑payment will be lowered to $30

The maximum cost to general patients for PBS medications has doubled since 2000. These high costs meant that close to one million people delayed or did not fill their medications in 2019-20. Some Australians are having to choose between filling prescriptions for potentially life‑saving medicines and providing other essentials for their families.

In this Budget, the Government is cutting the cost of medicines to ease cost‑of‑living pressures. From 1 January 2023, the Government will decrease the maximum co‑payment under the PBS from $42.50 to $30 per script, a 29 per cent reduction. Each year, this will save around 3.6 million Australians more than $190 million in out‑of‑pocket costs.

More cost‑effective medicines

The Government is providing an additional $1.4 billion for new and amended listings on the PBS and other medicines programs. This will allow greater access to affordable and life‑saving essential medicines and includes treatments for various types of cancer and growth hormone deficiency in children.

Jingera!

The end of another busy but rewarding year supporting our families in nurturing our little people! Our extended gratitude to all our families and their commitment to the quality education and care of their children. As we enter the new year that is 2023, I would like to thank our new and returning families for putting your trust in Kidi Kingdom Child Care Coomera to care for and educate your children.

Our annual children's christmas party was an amazing celebration. It was so great to see all the children's smiling faces excited to participate in Christmas experiences with their families. A big thank you to our families for joining in on the fun and our devoted educators for making it extra special for our children.

The future is bright for Kidi Kingdom Child Care Coomera and I look forward to ensuring that we deliver the same high quality care for your children as we have delivered for many years.

We invite our families to please feel free to contribute to our Quality Improvement Plan, this is available for our families at reception. We value your contribution and feedback.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas, Summer and everything in-between! Kind Regards.

Please like our Facebook page and we always appreciate our loyal families helping our centre by sharing your positive experiences to the local community by writing a quick Google, CareForKids or Facebook review. Thank you for the families that have already taken to the time to write a review.

Kind Regards, Sarah Piccolini Centre Manager	Click here to visit our pages at Facebook and Instagram

Welcome Valued Families of Kidi Kingdom Child Care Coomera,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our current and new families for choosing our service and I am excited to continue my role as Educational Program Leader at Kidi Kingdom Child Care Coomera in the New Year of 2023.

My goal is to continue ensuring all children are receiving the best high quality education and care by collaborating with all of our amazing educators to improve their pedagogy and practice, creating an inspiring environment that enhances each individual child's interests, strengths and needs.

I feel the most important responsibility of an Educational Leader is to advocate for all children's rights to quality education and care. To deliver on this responsibility, I will lead, support and mentor educators to be professional, intentional and engaging in their program's and practices. What I love most about this role is witnessing special moments spent exploring and discovering new learning experiences as much as I enjoy professional discussions and the mentoring sessions I have with all the educators at Kidi Kingdom Child Care Coomera.

All of these special moments combined recharge me as a leader and mentor making everyday working at Kidi Kingdom fun and exciting.

I look forward to helping make this year another great and a memorable one!

Kind Regards, Ms Stephanette Educational Program Leader.

Dear Valued Families of the Early Learners Room.

A big warm welcome to all our new and existing families. Our Early Learners have had a fantastic start to the new year! This quarter we have been focusing on our 3a games, conversational reading and enriched caregiving from the Australian Abecedarian Approach (3a). Our first learning game of the year is Game 29: Hi and Bye; Why is this important?

By waving and saying hello and bye-bye to your baby at appropriate times, you provide a model of social behaviour. By responding joyfully to their attempts to communicate hello and bye-bye, you encourage them to try and repeat those actions. Because the gesture of waving is widely understood. It provides them with an opportunity to communicate with people outside of their immediate family.

We also celebrated international penguin day, kite day and recognising Australia's native plants and animals. Moving forward we plan on extending our penguin exploration as the children have shown an emerging interest in this topic, we are doing this by looking at the arctic and learning about all the different animals that live there.

Your trash is our treasure! Please donate cardboard boxes to our Early Learners room as we are planning on building an igloo for the babies to explore, to match our arctic theme!

Kind Regards, Miss Rachel and Miss Gracie.

Dear Valued Families of the Junior Early Years Room.

Happy New Year!

We would like to welcome our new friends Aoife, Axel, Amari, Ruby, Harlow and their families to our toddler room! To our existing families, welcome back! We hope you had a safe and happy time over the Christmas season.

The month of December was filled with Christmas celebrations and joy. Each day we dedicated a craft for Christmas and the children were enthralled. From stockings to candies, Christmas trees to ornaments everything was shiny and sparkly. We sang carols, read numerous Christmas books and explained to the children the meaning of being caring, giving and the joy of the Christmas spirit! We hosted a family Christmas party where families participated with their children in a range of Christmas activities and experiences. That was definitely a highlight of the month and the perfect way to part ways with the year that was 2022.

January is full of excitement as we embrace new hope and positivity for the new year. We celebrated 2023 by making a "welcome 2023" firework craft. We are looking forward to the celebration of Australia Day and Chinese New Year. As India's Republic Day is also celebrated on the same day as Australia Day we will celebrate both! Diversity and culture is so important in our room so we love to plan experiences for children to explore more cultures as well as celebrating their own. To start the year off with strong foundations, we decided to work closely with our families and started the "family goals" and "what we did on the weekend" so we can acquire more information and knowledge about the children and their families. This is great to build a sense of being, belonging and becoming amongst the children and a trusting community environment in our classroom space.

We introduced 3a games this month as it helps children to develop their vocabulary, widen their imagination through their own experiences. These games encourage them and develop their confidence.

These websites below are very helpful for children's development.

www.coolaustralia.org

www.funwithmama.com

www.funlearningforkids.com

Kind Regards, Miss Puneet, Miss Harman, Miss Mia and Miss Lulu.

Welcome to the Early Years Classroom,

We would like to welcome back all of our new and existing families for 2023!

We are super excited for a great year with lots of fun and adventures. This month we have been focusing on belonging and becoming by building relationships between educators, children and families. All our families are different but all very special!

The first thing that you will see when you enter our Senior Early Years classroom is a wall with our belonging tree. When children and families come in and see their own handprints on the wall, they know that the early years classroom is a place where they belong. Children feel safe when they see familiar things around them, and by having their own handprints on the wall, not only do we build a sense of security for them in the physical environment, but their sense of self-esteem is also developed.

We will continue to promote and celebrate the confidence and identity of the children. We encourage all family feedback as this information can be used in our curriculum. Feel free to speak to any of our educators.

Kind Regards, Miss Bec , Miss Amber, Miss Courtney and Miss Amie.

Dear Valued Kindergarten Families,

In the Kindergarten room the children will be encouraged to participate in a variety of circle games to promote positive friendship and a sense of belonging in their new learning environment. For the next month our morning group times will include activities to support new children in identifying their first name and Surname, and through songs and reciting experiences we will encourage the children to develop basic literacy and numeracy skills. Our table top activities will include a variety of writing and drawing activities to support the children in developing confidence in their pencil-grip skills, and some experiences may include the use of writing and literacy support stencils, and you may find lots of great literacy and numeracy stencils and practicals experiences to do at home as well with the children on this website: www.pinterest.com.au

Our number songs will encourage the children to become confident in their counting skills and identifying numbers one to twenty. As part of our program in promoting positive friendships and a sense of belonging, the children will enjoy a variety of practical experiences that will encourage the children to engage in shared play experiences, and that will provide them with opportunities to explore in pairs and in small groups at a time. Our practical experiences for the next few weeks include arts and crafts, such as creating puffy paint and allowing the children to explore with their artistic imagination as they use the puffy paint to create their designs. You may find a simple puffy paint recipe and other fun activities to do at home also at www.activelittles.com/how-to-make-puffy-paint

As children enjoy working with their hands and many children in our group have a strong interest in construction experiences, another practical activity we have planned for the children this month is creating towers using a variety of resources, and not just blocks. One of the tower building activities includes "creating a cup tower", and in this activity the children will be encouraged to count cups as they work together to build a tower of paper cups as high as they like. This type of activity and many more practical ideas for the children to learn and have fun, may be found on www.education.com

Kind Regards, Mrs Antonietta and Miss Simone.

Welcome Valued Families of School Care,

During Vacation Care School holidays the children have been showing lots of interest in exploring with textured slimes and also engaging in group games and challenges. We have planned opportunities for the children to create their own slime and participate in some amazing science experiments. Mental and physical challenges/ games have been a highlight. The children really enjoyed engaging in these experiences as it is a great way to promote positive social skills and friendships!

Kind regards, Miss Naila.