In this election, a lot of attention has been paid to the school years. But the preschool years are equally - if not more - important. Too few realise a once-in-a-generation chance to improve childcare quality across the nation is in jeopardy. The agreement on national standards reached through the Council of Australian Governments has been an exhausting process unlikely to be repeated in a hurry if the agenda comes unstuck.

The reforms include a 1:4 staff to child ratio for infants under two, changes to ratios in other age groups, minimum staff qualifications, employment of an early childhood trained teacher, and proper monitoring. As well, a new rating system for childcare centres is to be introduced (though not under a Coalition). The reforms will be introduced according to a timetable over 10 years, starting next year in NSW, in 2012 in most other states. In some states, existing regulations on aspects of care already equal or surpass the new national standards. NSW already has a trained early childhood teacher in bigger centres but not the 1:4 ratio; others have the 1:4 ratio but not the teacher. In a federal system, it has always been a dog's breakfast. So it was nothing short of a miracle to get the agreement.

Extensive consultations had preceded it: 19 forums around the nation, 1700 people. Access Economics was commissioned to cost the changes, and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations refined the calculations to estimate the financial impact on fees in all the states. It concluded a family on an income of $80,000 would pay, after government subsidies, an extra $3.54 a day in NSW in 2014-15 when most reforms were in place; in Queensland, the extra cost would be $2.30 a day. On an income of $160,000, the extra costs would be $7 a day in NSW and $4.59 in Queensland.

Previous attempts at reform have always come to grief after scare campaigns by groups representing private childcare operators. Cost is always the sticking point. How much more will parents have to pay for higher quality? Having failed up to now to derail the reforms, an industry group representing private operators - in particular a group in Queensland - is using the election in a last-ditch effort to spread alarm. It has employed a lobbyist. And it has costings from its own economic consultants that show fees in Queensland could rise by $13 to $22 a day. Parents were polled on how they would feel about such increases. Not surprisingly, parents were alarmed. And so was the Coalition; it's the same Coalition that thought Eddy Groves's ABC Childcare was the answer.

But whose costings are right? Queensland is a special case for technical reasons I won't go into here. Its anomalies were taken into account in the negotiations, and allowances were made. Even if the Queensland consultants are vaguely on the mark - and the government disputes some assumptions - the cost impact would not be felt until 2014, not next year as implied in media reports. Queensland already has a 1:4 ratio for infants and minimum staff qualifications; under the agreement no changes need to be made until 2014. And in that year a review into the impact of the reforms is to be held.