Cancellation of Childcare Benefit Approval: Koala Family Day Care Pty Ltd and Secretary, Department of Education

This case involved the Administrative Appeals Tribunal considering an application by Koala Family Day Care Pty Ltd (the Applicant) seeking review of a decision of the Commonwealth Department of Education (the Respondent) cancelling the Applicant’s service approval (as a childcare service for the purposes of the family assistance law) under section 200(1)(e), A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999.

The Department cancelled the approval on a number of grounds:

• Inacccurate attendance records resulting in overpayments of childcare fee assistance.
• Breaches relating to the suitability of the service, which involved - child swapping; falsely claiming for 24 hour care; claims while educators and children overseas; reporting absences after the service had permanently ceased providing care to children; late enrolment and attendance reports; and more than seven children in care of educators.
• Breaches of the Education and Care Services National Law. 

 The Tribunal affirmed the decision of the Department, stating that:

...the Tribunal accepts that the serious and repetitive nature of the breaches justify the sanction that the Respondent regulator has imposed.
The matters referred to above are repeated. Also it is recorded that there have been 2420 sessions of care identified as being incorrect. This is resulted in an overpayment of $88,777.61. There have been over 1,608 sessions of care where either the educator or the child was overseas such that the contravention involved providing false or misleading or otherwise inaccurate information. This resulted in Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate payments being made of $40,987.94. They are serious infractions of the conditions for which the Respondent was obliged to act. The sanction of cancellation was fully justified (paras.87-8).