An article that appeared in today's edition of The Australian newspaper about the Child Care Management System is misleading and fails to mention critical facts.

The vast majority of payments to child care centres are being made as usual through the Child Care Management System. In fact there are a record number of Australian families using child care and they are receiving more financial assistance from the Government than at any time before in our nation's history.

However there have been some recent problems with the system’s ability to handle a large volume of transactions at peak times, which has resulted in some payments not being processed as quickly as usual.

I have told the Department that these failures are unacceptable. They are working as a matter of priority to resolve this issue and all necessary resources are being deployed.

Where child care centres are experiencing difficulties with the system, alternative arrangements have been made. Child care centres can access continuity payments from the Department to minimise disruption and manual payments are currently being processed within 24 hours.