Childcare subsidy changes have put money back in parents' pockets but might do little to increase access to early education, experts say.
Families have saved almost $50 a week on average since an expansion of the subsidy came into effect in September 2023, data from the federal education department reveals.
The savings came after the threshold for childcare subsidies rose to as much as 90 per cent for families earning up to $80,000, with the income cap also rising from $356,000 to $530,000.
Yet the subsidy adjustments may not go a long way to address the issue of childcare deserts or areas lacking early childhood services, Mitchell Institute director Peter Hurley says.
"It may have a positive impact on childcare deserts, but the government has limited ability to get involved as to where centres operate ... it's all left up to the market to decide where to operate," he told AAP.
"Providers will charge more in advantaged areas and providers will choose to operate in those areas, and it is problematic of the design of the system."
While families were better off under government childcare policy changes, those benefits would more often be cancelled out by centres increasing their fees to parents, Associate Professor Hurley said.
"The price of childcare for out-of-pocket costs to households has not gone up as much as other items," he said.
"But there is a story here of continuing a subsidy and having it eaten up by increased fees."
Operating expenses and cost-of-living pressures had given centres no choice to hike fees but it was only done as a last resort, Australian Childcare Alliance NSW president Lyn Connolly said.
"We have to put fees up or we close the door," she told AAP.
"Smaller centres don't have the economies of scale like the corporations do.
"We know our families and we have a close relationship with families and what we do is we wait until (the government) puts up their money for families before we put fees up so it's less of a financial increase on families."
Wages for workers in the sector are being boosted by 15 per cent over two years under laws that passed parliament in November.
But it will only apply to centres that agreed not to push up fees by more than 4.4 per cent.
Asked how many childcare centres had pushed fees up to the cap, Education Minister Jason Clare said it was too early to tell.
"I suspect that most centres will increase their fees somewhere between zero and up to that four per cent over the next 12 months," he told reporters at a Goodstart centre in Jerrabomberra, near the ACT-NSW border, on Tuesday.
"The key thing is, they can't get it beyond that and that's a big part of this deal. We want to make sure that the money goes to the worker, not the centre."
But Ms Connolly said the 4.4 per cent cap may not be enough for smaller centres to keep up with growing expenses for the industry.
Mr Clare said the government's policies were making a real difference for families by allowing them to keep more of their money.
"When we were elected two-and-a-half years ago, childcare workers were leaving the sector in droves. That's the truth of it, and we're now starting to see that turnaround," he said.
Opposition early childhood education spokeswoman Angie Bell said the coalition backed increases to wages, but the extra pay "wouldn't touch the sides" during the cost-of-living crisis.
"The out-of-pocket costs for early childhood education have gone up by 11 per cent in the last 12 months, so these increases in wages are well deserved by the educators," she told ABC Radio.
