Her son Xavier had lost his place at the centre, which he attended four days a week.

“If I don’t have childcare I’ll have to give up work,” she said.

With three other children to care for, that was not an option.

However, after talking to staff at the centre, Kellie was told she would most likely have a place for her youngest son at ABC Golden Square.

“It sounds like they’re going to look after us,” she said.

The national child care union yesterday said banks had cherry picked the best ABC Learning Centres in the country and burdened taxpayers with the rest. “Some 4000 children are going to be impacted by that decision, that’s a lot of families that will be affected,” LHMU national secretary Louise Tarrant said. She also expressed concern for workers, saying she would like to see all jobs protected.

“No job loss is a good outcome. We don’t accept that any jobs need to go,” she told reporters in Sydney.

“We’ll be talking to the receiver and Government over the next few days.”

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the Federal Government and Education Minister Julia Gillard had given up by allowing some centres to close.

“It seems as though the minister had given up too easily to allow 55 centres to close,” Senator Hanson-Young told reporters in Melbourne.

“There is no guarantee for the children that are in these 55 centres that they will be given another spot before the end of the year.”

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard did not rule out small private providers running the business in the future, and blamed the former government for “letting the market rip”.

“Here we are with the biggest provider of for profit childcare organisations in the country moving firstly into voluntary administration then into receivership affecting more than 1000 centres so it’s a big mess.”

She said the Government had worked hard to sort out the situation and ensure continuity of care for children and provide reassurance for parents.