Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to discuss childcare services in my electorate of Greenway and to outline why it is important that we properly support childcare workers. With 8.2 per cent of the population in Greenway aged zero to five years, making it one of the youngest electorates in the entire country, and with 13,080 children from 9,930 families in child care during 2011-12, the early childhood education and care sector is critical to my electorate. With this extremely young demographic comes a great demand for childcare services and the staff to operate these services. I am currently adding to this demand, with my daughter Octavia beginning child care in Glenwood in a few weeks.

For families in my electorate, child care is of paramount concern. It is often an issue raised with me by my constituents. That is why this government is investing to lift the quality of child care for the great benefit of families across all of Australia, and particularly benefiting my area of west and north-west Sydney. We have driven historic reforms in partnership with the state government. Our reforms are improving staff-to-child ratios so every child gets more individual care and attention. They are also raising staff qualifications to ensure that our hardworking childcare staff are better able to lead activities that help children learn and develop. We are also introducing a quality rating system for all childcare services so parents can make an informed choice.

I do want to discuss in particular the Big Steps campaign. As noted by United Voice, workers in the early childhood education sector are struggling; 180 educators leave the sector each week due to low wages and conditions. That is a staggering number. That is why I recently joined United Voice and the hardworking team at the Goodstart childcare centre on Glenwood Park Drive to lend my support to their campaign for greater pay for childcare workers. I would particularly like to praise the work of Cheryl Kay, the director of Goodstart, Glenwood Park Drive, for her commitment to the childcare sector and for her honest and thoughtful appraisal of the current situation facing childcare workers.

I did have the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to spend some time with Cheryl and her team. I took Octavia along as well. I am sure many other first-time parents are experiencing exactly the same thing that I am: you don't know what is going to happen when you put your child in child care; it is a big thing to give your child over to the care of someone else.

I would like to put on the record and really pay tribute to those staff who obviously take such care and such delight in what they do, and have such passion for what they do. I think what Cheryl said to me was the shortest tenure for any of her staff is eight years. So people want to stay working in the sector. That is why I think it is so important that we give them every incentive to stay and enable them to stay.

When I was scouting around for a childcare centre for Octavia, I visited a few and I talked to some parents in the car park who were picking up or dropping off their kids. I was recommended a couple of places—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Proceedings suspended from 12:10 to 12:24

Ms ROWLAND: As I was saying, I would speak to some of the parents in the car park when they were dropping their kids off or picking them up. All of them would say how much care was taken of their children during the day. You could see that their children were happy. I think it says a lot when you put your trust in these people who you do not know that well and your best indicia is that the kids are happy. When they come home you can see they have learnt something, because there is an early learning framework provided by our childcare centres. I think that is a wonderful thing.

We know that these workers do need higher wages. We also know that the capacity of parents and employers to pay more is extremely limited. That is why the Big Steps campaign is calling on the government to make up the shortfall between award and professional wages in ECEC to the tune of $1.4 billion in recurrent funding.

We all know how important the early years of a child's life are for their ongoing development. That is why I have been pleased to support a number of initiatives, including things like Paint the Town REaD in Blacktown, and participate in things like baby rhyme time, which is vitally important to teach children early literacy and numeracy skills. David Gonski stressed the importance of a child's early years in their development in his review of funding for schooling. A crucial part of this is their time in child care. That is why I support United Voice's Big Steps campaign and will continue to do so. (Time expired)