NSW has never run a long-day childcare centre. Minns says Labor will open 100 of them on school grounds if it wins in March

NSW Labor has made childcare an early front in the state election campaign, promising on Saturday to open 100 publicly owned long-day childcare centres if it wins a second term in March.

Premier Chris Minns said the centres would provide about 5,000 places, which the government expects to serve roughly 8,000 families. They would be the first long-day centres owned by the state, which has until now left the sector to private and not-for-profit providers.

Where would they go?

The government says the centres would be built on existing public primary school sites and in areas it describes as childcare deserts, where families struggle to find a place at all. Mr Minns said the government would not be indiscriminate about where they go, and that he expected many to open in Western Sydney and regional NSW.

Long-day centres take children from birth to about four and usually open from about 7am to 6pm, the hours working parents need.

Why is the government doing this?

Mr Minns framed the promise as an economic one: parents who cannot find or afford care after having a child are kept out of work. Deputy Premier and Education Minister Prue Car said putting centres on school grounds would end the “double drop off”, where parents take an older child to school and a younger one to care somewhere else, and would make it easier for parents to return to work.

For a family with a baby and a school-age child, that means one stop in the morning instead of two, and one less reason to cut back hours.

What has not been said?

The announcement came without a price tag. The government has not said what the centres would cost to build and run, what families would pay, or how it would staff them. It also has not said when the first centres would open.

How does this fit with the preschool promise?

The centres would be on top of Labor’s existing pledge to build 100 new public preschools, which the government says will be open to students from January. That promise has drawn questions about whether every preschool will be ready on time, and the government has not said how many will open on the first day of term.

On the same day, the government moved to settle a row with community preschools. Not-for-profit operators had warned this week that the new Universal Preschool Funding Program, which replaces the Start Strong arrangement from 1 January, could leave some of them worse off. The government now says it will guarantee their funding for two years at no less than last year’s level and extend the transition period. It says 10,000 families are missing out on community preschool places.

What does it mean for voters?

Childcare costs and access are among the most pressing household budget pressures for young families, and the promise puts the state government directly into a market that has long been funded by Canberra and run by others. Whether it delivers places quickly, and at what price to families, is the question both sides will now be pressed on.