Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of all the workers in the childcare centres across my electorate of Solomon and, in particular, Rebecca Nobel from the Parap Family Centre. Rebecca has worked at the Parap Family Centre for three decades. One of my staff members tells me fondly of the time he dropped his 10-month-old son off to the centre and how, despite the little fellow's tears and the father's stress, Rebecca's pragmatic approach and unshakable smile had little Cameron crawling around with his new chums and smiling in next to no time.

Working in the childcare industry is not an easy job. It is a role that is physically, emotionally and intellectually demanding. Children need to be picked up, they need to be played with and they need their comfort when they are upset. They need to feel safe away from the family environment. On top of all that, they need to learn. They need to have their curiosity nurtured and their questions answered. An educator at a childcare centre is a teacher, a carer, a mediator and a counsellor—and all this to the most innocent and vulnerable in our society. As a mother and a grandmother, I cannot fathom how childcare workers are able to give so much love and attention to so many children day in and day out. They are just amazing people.

It is a really sad figure that the average burnout rate in the childcare sector is around seven to eight years. This makes it even more remarkable that Rebecca has spent 30 years in this one centre. I have no idea how many children Rebecca would have cared for across the three decades in the Parap Family Centre, but it is now possible that she is caring for the second generation of the same families—that is, that she is looking after the children of the children she cared for in the 1980s. So, on behalf of the thousands of children and families in Darwin who have benefited from Rebecca Nobel's dedication, wisdom, amazing smile and endless love, I would like to put on the record our sincere thanks for an incredible three decades of service.