$6bn black market in nannies
Au pair Jana Borchard with Emma Staats and her mother Jackie Orchard.
Photo: Jacky Ghossein
Working parents desperate for affordable child care are hiring au pairs and unregistered nannies, and fuelling a black market worth an estimated $6 billion.The unregulated nanny industry is being investigated by the House of Representatives standing committee into balancing work and family.
The committee is concerned parents may be using unqualified and inexperienced staff in a bid to cut costs.
Committee chair Bronwyn Bishop has calculated the black market care industry is worth $6 billion.
Families can pay a nanny $15 an hour by finding one through their local paper and negotiating a fee, instead of $20 an hour if they hire through an agency.
An estimated three in four families who hire a nanny do so under the radar of the tax office, said Trish Noakes, director of Just for Kids.
"When employing a nanny privately, many families try and negotiate the lowest wage and pay no superannuation, sick leave, holiday leave or insurance protection," she wrote in a submission to the inquiry.
Mrs Bishop has backed calls for ABN-registered and qualified nannies to be eligible for the 30 per cent child-care rebate, or be tax deductible for families, as a way of making the black market less attractive.
Opposition spokeswoman on child care Tanya Plibersek said the expense and shortage of child-care centre places was to blame for the growth in the black market in nannying and the surge of interest in au pairs.
Couldn't have seen that one coming.
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