Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last year I had the honour of taking part in the LHMU’s Big Steps in Childcare campaign. Big Steps in Childcare is a campaign to get reforms which provide a higher quality sector and recognise the critical role of childcare professionals. It aims to address key issues in the sector including the severe shortage of childcare staff, high turnover, and poor wages and conditions. Many families now need both parents to work in order to make ends meet, and those same parents are also working longer hours. That means that the demand for child care has never been greater, yet over the years those childcare workers to whom we have entrusted our children on a daily basis have not received the support or recognition that they deserve. Big Steps in Childcare aims to change all of that.

For me, supporting the Big Steps campaign meant taking up a challenge given to me by childcare workers from within my electorate. The challenge was called Walk in My Shoes, and it aimed to give parliamentarians firsthand experience of what it is like being a childcare worker by actually spending time in the childcare centre being one. I undertook my challenge at the Camden Park Child Care Centre, which is at Camden Park in my electorate of Hindmarsh. The director of the centre, Karen Drysdale, and her co-director, Michelle Brock, welcomed me into their workplace to experience some of the challenges firsthand that they face in their day-to-day jobs. I found that there were many challenges.

First of all, I was introduced to just some of the rules and regulations which were to be followed at all times by staff in the childcare centre. Being introduced to the administrative side of the centre really opened my eyes to the amount of behind-the-scenes work which goes on just to keep the centre running smoothly on a day-to-day basis. I know that Karen and Michelle were quite easy on me, but I could see that there was much to learn and many aspects of the job which would take a significant amount of training to fully understand. It was a very powerful example of the many competing priorities childcare workers are faced with every day—I only had to do it for one hour—such as looking after the children, managing the expectations of parents and ensuring all of the relevant paperwork is completed on time and in the right way.

Despite the high level of responsibility placed upon them, childcare workers have historically received low wages and little recognition. After I had completed my shift at Camden, which involved a craft session with the children, story reading to the children and some time helping to supervise in the playground, had I been a childcare worker I would have earned only $14. That is the average hourly rate of a childcare worker who has no qualifications, of which there are many thousands, because the incentive to get qualified is also low. Obtaining a diploma-level qualification will only increase your salary by about $4 per hour, working out to around $37,500 per year.

To add insult to injury, perceptions in the community about what child care involves and, therefore, the recognition childcare workers should be afforded are often wrong. Many people think of child care as simply child care and babysitting. It is not. Child care is a complex, stressful and demanding job—as much as any profession. That is why Big Steps in Childcare aims to have childcare professionals recognised as such. They are just that.

Karen and Michelle told me that one of their main challenges was covering the shifts of new childcare workers who fall sick more often until their immune system builds up, which can take between six and 12 months. As we all know, children pick up all sorts of illnesses. This adds further pressure to an already overstretched system, so I was very grateful to have the opportunity to take the Walk in My Shoes challenge, because it really drove home the need for reform—and soon—in the sector. So I would like to thank the staff at the childcare centre at Camden Park and all the childcare centres right across my electorate of Hindmarsh for the important work that they do on a daily basis.

I am proud that I took part in this childcare incentive for the LHMU and will continue to work hard for the childcare workers in my electorate to ensure that they are supported in doing this very important job. I am also proud that the Gillard government has recognised many of these challenges facing the sector and placed early childhood reform and education at the forefront of our social and economic agenda. Among other things, the government is helping more workers to reach qualifications at certificate III and, particularly, the diploma level. (Time expired)