It was, all too briefly, a glimpse at what parenting would look like if childcare were free. For those still working, it was a temporary weight off the shoulders, a lessening of the burden of household spending, a chance to save a bit of money.

For those in job strife and kids too young to go to school, it was a chance to breathe.

But, as we learnt on Monday, free childcare is about to come to an end.

Announcing the end of the measure, federal education minister Dan Tehan said demand for childcare places was increasing again, prompting the "new transition phase".

"No one imagined two months ago that we would be in the position that we are," he said. "I think most people, most experts, thought it would take at least four to six months for us to be in this position.

"So what we must do is now put in a system, in place, that enables us to transition, to be able to deal with the extra demand that is coming into the system and that is what this package is designed to do."

But that package turned out to be very limited indeed. And the fact remains that childcare in Australia is eye-wateringly expensive and, in some places, not easy to come by.

It's a system that disproportionately affects women, because it has lasting ramifications on the career of whichever parent chooses to take time out of the workforce - most often women.

It's also staffed by a low-paid workforce made up, overwhelmingly, by women - women who nevertheless are expected to study for and maintain particular qualifications.

As has been with the case with many facets of modern life over the past three months, the childcare sector could have been the subject of a period of intense reckoning.

The government had the chance to reassess the system - broken, layered over with the vinegar-and-brown-paper solutions of complicated subsidies, knotted into the already overwrought welfare system, all administered by the giant tangle that is Centrelink. But it didn't.

It's a shame, especially because it's clear that better systems exist. In many European countries, for example, children begin school - and formal education - at the age of three, and all schooling is free.

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