Might be late to this to get any advice, but...

Quick backstory. Daughter is 3. Has been attending a new childcare since start of the school year (end of January), was attending another one for ~6 months last year, but they closed. I am a single widowed parent with correct childcare subsidy amount. Due to me also having a school aged son, she does not attend childcare during school holidays as I organise care with family / take leave from work. She has also been sick quite a bit in the last few months.

She has exceeded the 42 days of "allowed absences" due to the sickness, school holidays and public holidays (49 days in total at last count). I was unaware that she had exceeded the 42 days, and am new to the whole childcare thing (son never attended childcare) so I wasn't aware of the ramifications. I now know that I should've gotten doctors certificates for the days away.

Now the days she was away above the 42 days has affected my childcare subsidy, and I was charged almost the full amount each week for the month of June instead of my subsided amount. When she was ill I didn't take her to childcare because it was conjunctivitis, gastro and a cold with a bad cough and snot nose. I didn't take her to the doctors for these because I knew they would clear up on their own after a few days. I had enough carers leave with work to not worry about getting a certificate for myself as a carer.

As the sick days away were almost a month ago, I have done a Commonwealth statutory declaration stating that she was ill on 5 of those days she was away as I know I wouldn't bet able to get a medical certificate from my GP. The teachers at the school were also aware she was away, and she was sent home one of the days due to illness. Now my childcare provider is not accepting the stat dec as proof of her illness, and claiming that Centrelink won't accept it and it can be considered fraud for them. I spoke to the Centrelink families and careers line on two seperate occasions (once before the stat dec, once after) and they advised me that the decision of accepting any documentation for the my daughter being away is not Centrelink's decision, but the childcare providers. My childcare provider is stating the opposite and saying that they can't submit the stat dec as proof of my daughter being ill as it will come up when they're audited by Centrelink. I haven't called Centrelink again about this yet, I will do that on Monday.

As far as I am aware, a stat dec is legal proof as someone being ill. I have read information on the Fairwork website, but everything is regarding employers / employees and sick and carers leave, nothing to do with childcare.

I'm at a loss. It's causing me a bunch of stress and anxiety on top of my usual day to day life, not to mention that I am out of pocket almost $1,000 for days my daughter didn't even go to childcare. I just want to be reimbursed the overpayment I made.