Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Across Australia there are almost two million children who attend child care. The vast majority of these are aged between zero and five and they attend childcare centres before they are old enough to begin school. The first five years of a child's life are the most important, as they lay the foundations for health, safety, development, learning and happiness for the rest of the child's life. Yet early childhood educators are paid one-third less than those teaching and caring for children just a few years older.

It is for this reason that on 8 March I was proud to stand alongside early childhood educators from the Swallow Street Child Care Centre in Inala to show my support as part of the Big Steps campaign. I joined the centre director, Kym Cook, Big Steps' equal pay and leave coordinator from United Voice Queensland, Linda Revill, and dozens of other childcare educators, families and supporters as we marched in unison with over 1,000 other educators across the country to demand a better deal. In particular, despite the incredibly important work they do, many early childhood educators are paid as little as $20 per hour—half the national average wage. Making matters worse is that 97 per cent of educators are female, which only further widens the gender pay gap in Australia. Helen Gibbons, the Assistant National Secretary of United Voice, says:

Educators are walking off the job on International Women's Day to tell Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull it's time he valued their work by funding equal pay for educators.

I am 100 per cent committed to ensuring that we further improve the education and training opportunities for our kids. In particular, it is crucial to make sure that we value early childhood educators as much as we value every child. In my electorate of Oxley, there are 7,000 families whose children are in child care. That is 7,000 families who place their trust in early childhood educators to care for and teach their children, yet educators' pay and wages do not reflect the true value they add to families and society. I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with early childhood educators, not only at the Swallow Street Child Care Centre in Inala but right across the south-west of Brisbane in my Oxley electorate and throughout the country. All of our early childhood educators do a fantastic job, and it is time we recognised them and paid them what they deserve. We must make sure that child care is both affordable and accessible for Australian families but also recognise the incredibly important work of our early childhood educators by ensuring they are paid a fair and just wage. It is time for the wages of early childhood educators to reflect the essential role they have in shaping the future, one child at a time.