Family First strongly supports Virginia Tapscott’s renewed call for genuine choice in childcare policy, published in The Australian this weekend.

She advocates what Family First has long argued: that families must be supported to have the choice to raise their own children, not pressured to outsource them into an overstretched and ideology-ridden childcare system.

“Labor gave me several reasons not to vote for it,” Tapscott wrote, “For a start, I don’t want more childcare – I don’t want to see my kids any less than I do.”

She went on to condemn Labor’s push to get more children into a “broken childcare system” as “sickening”.

Family First agrees. Childcare subsidies should not be designed to pull mothers away from their children in the name of economic participation.

They should exist to support families in ways that they choose, not ways government ideologues dictate.

Virginia is right to say, “To be fair and give people genuine choice it would be necessary to subsidise a broad range of care arrangements,” including grandparent and parent carers.

Now that’s real support for real families.

Family First backs her call for income splitting, extended paid parental leave, and support for those who choose to prioritise time with their children.

It’s not about being “anti-childcare” – it’s about giving parents the dignity of true choice.

Tapscott’s voice is one among many who are waking up to the cultural pressure cooker forcing both parents into the workplace, not by choice, but by economic necessity.

As Liberal leadership contender Sussan Ley once rightly said in Parliament: “If economic participation is attributed to women having no other choice than to go back to work to make ends meet then this is concerning.”

Family First couldn’t agree more. It’s time for policy that puts families first.