We know that our government has already taken significant action to strengthen safety and compliance across this sector. Last year, legislation gave the Commonwealth greater powers to respond when operators fail to meet quality, safety and compliance requirements. Since then, the department has taken compliance action against 119 centres. More than half of those centres have now addressed problems they had previously failed to fix. That demonstrates why strong enforcement powers matter. Rules only protect children if they are followed, and standards only mean something if there are consequences when they are not met.

We're also strengthening the ability of authorised officers to conduct unannounced visits to childcare centres. These important initiatives, taken together, are reforms that represent a significant investment in making early childhood education and care safer. The Commonwealth is investing an additional $226 million in child safety reforms, alongside more than $270 million committed by the states and territories. That is around half a billion dollars from governments to strengthen quality and safety.

This bill is another part of that work. It links government supports to the standards we expect services to meet. That is an important principle. If the Commonwealth is helping fund a service, that service should meet the standards that parents and children have a right to expect, and, if it does not, there should be consequences. That is not about making life harder for good operators; it's about backing the vast majority of services that are doing the right thing and making sure that the small number that are not complying cannot simply continue without consequence.

Most early childhood educators and services are doing an extraordinary job. They care deeply about the children they work with. They build relationships with families. They help children develop confidence and independence. They are often among the first adults outside a child's family to recognise when something is not quite right, and they make an enormous contribution to the development of children before they even reach school. We should be proud of that workforce, and we should make sure that workforce is properly supported.

This is why the pay increase matters. It's helping retain experienced educators, attracting more people into the sector and building the stable workforce that children and families rely on. I see the importance of that stability in my electorate every day. I speak with families who are trying to make work and family life fit together. I speak with educators who are passionate about what they do and want to build a career in the sector. I speak with services that are working hard to provide high quality care while managing the realities of staffing costs and demands. They all have a stake in getting this right, and it's why I support this bill.

It recognises the value of the workforce. It provides greater certainty around our government's investment in wages. It protects families from the cost of that investment simply being passed through to higher fees, and it puts the safety and wellbeing of children at the centre of funding arrangements. That is a sensible and responsible approach.

But we know there is no single piece of legislation that can solve every challenge facing early childhood education and care. There is more work to do, and that's why we're also building a stronger workforce with our investment in free TAFE—tens of thousands more Australians gaining the skills needed to work in the sector under the Albanese government's free TAFE program. Free TAFE's national rollout started in 2023, offering places for courses that get Australians qualified to work in priority sectors with skill shortages. Since that time, there have been 65,290 enrolments in free TAFE courses across the country. This is proving to be a game changer for many in the sector, backing more Australians to play a part in educating and caring for our kids.

In closing, I note that, for families in my electorate, this means an early childhood education and care system that is more affordable, more secure and more focused on what matters most: giving children a safe and positive start in life. For workers, it means being properly valued and supported to build a career in a profession that matters enormously to our communities. And, for children, it means stronger protections, better quality care and educators who have the support they need to do their very best work. That's the kind of early childhood system Australian families deserve. That is what the Albanese government is working to deliver, and I'm so proud, having joined with the Big Steps team all those years ago to walk down Flinders Street to shout out for early-years educators, that we now have acted and are supporting them. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise today in support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. This is a bill that's an important part of the Albanese Labor government's broader agenda to make life better for children, families and working Australians. When we came to government, Australia's early childhood education and care sector was in crisis. Families were facing high fees, services were struggling to find enough educators, and workers were underpaid and leaving the sector. That meant fewer people choosing early childhood education as a career, poor retention and, in too many communities, families struggling to find a place for their children. We've been working to change that. We've increased the childcare subsidy to make early learning more affordable for families and introduced the three-day guarantee, ensuring every child eligible for subsidised care can access at least three days of early learning a week. We're also investing $1 billion through the Building Early Education Fund to build new centres and expand existing services, with a focus on underserved communities and areas experiencing childcare shortages.

We recognise that none of these reforms can work without a strong early childhood workforce. That is why we introduced the worker retention payment and funded a 15 per cent increase for early childhood education and care workers. This bill is about recognising the value of work that matters enormously to families. Every day, early childhood workers help children learn, grow, develop confidence and get ready for school. They're there for their first friendships, their first stories, their first songs and their first steps towards independence. It is one of the most important jobs in the country, and people doing that work deserve to be paid fairly for it.

For too long, early childhood education and care workers have been asked to do incredibly important work while being paid wages that did not properly reflect the value of their contribution. This government believes that has to change, and that is why, on 8 August 2024, the Albanese Labor government announced it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers. That decision was about more than a pay packet. It was about valuing a workforce that Australian families depend on every single day. When we talk about a 15 per cent wage increase, we are talking about real people and real household budgets. We're talking about an educator being able to pay the electricity bill without having to worry quite so much. We're talking about a family being able to put more money towards their mortgage or rent, or a worker being able to afford groceries, fuel or school expenses. And we're talking about telling early educators that their work is valued.

The workers who care for our children are skilled professionals. They support children's development and wellbeing. They create safe and nurturing environments. They work with families. They identify children's needs. They help children build the social and emotional skills they will carry with them into school and beyond. Parents know how important that relationship is. When you leave your child at an early learning service, you are placing enormous trust in the people who care for them. You want your child to be safe, you want them to be supported, you want them to be known and you want the people caring for them to have the time, stability and support to do their jobs properly. That is why improving wages and improving workforce stability go hand in hand.

When the government introduced the worker retention payment, the early childhood sector was facing significant workforce pressures. Services were delaying expansion plans, closing rooms and limiting enrolments because they simply couldn't find enough staff. That was a problem for workers, but it was also a big problem for parents because, when a centre does not have enough educators, families can be left without a place for their child. Workforce retention is not just about numbers; it is fundamental to quality and safety. Children benefit from consistent relationships with the adults who care for them. Educators need stability too, and, when educators stay in their roles, they can develop strong relationships with children and families. They get to know each child's personality, strengths and needs.

That continuity matters, and the evidence shows that the government's investment is working. Since the worker retention payment was announced in 2024, there are around 20,000 more early childcare workers, an increase of about eight per cent. Job vacancies in early child care have decreased by almost 31 per cent. The percentage of services operating with a staffing waiver has fallen from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent. Importantly for parents, fees at centres receiving the payment grew at around half the rate of centres that were not signed up. We see the impact in Newcastle. Data from July shows that there are 69 early childhood centres in my electorate and more than 1,000 staff who are benefiting from the continued increase in support. These are not abstract numbers. They tell a story. The workforce is growing and job vacancies are falling. More services are able to operate without relying on staffing waivers, and families are seeing the benefits through consistent care for their children, correct staffing levels and lower fee growth. The worker retention payment has helped bolster our early education workforce while helping keep costs down for families.

But we know that this progress needs to be sustained, and that's why, on 14 June 2026, the Albanese Labor government announced that it would lock in the pay rise for another two years. This bill gives effect to that commitment. It credits the special account with an additional $3.6 billion and extends the act's sunset date to 31 December 2029, supporting the extension of wage funding. That means early educators can have greater certainty about their wages, it means services have greater certainty about their workforce, and it means parents have greater certainty about the early learning services that they rely on. The funding will also continue to be tied to a commitment from participating services to limit fee increases for families. That means the funding extension will save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. That is $1,500 that can stay in a family's household budget. At a time when families are feeling cost-of-living pressures, that matters. So it's not simply a wage policy, as important as that is. It's a policy that recognises the connections between wages, workforce stability, quality early learning and family budgets.

To the educators listening to this debate, I want to make one thing very clear. This pay rise is about recognising the value of your work. When we say we want to build a stronger early childhood education sector, we mean we need to invest in the people who make that sector work; when we say we want more children to have access to quality early learning, we need enough educators to provide it; and, when we say that we want parents to be able to participate in work, we need early learning services that families can rely on. That starts with a workforce that is properly valued. When combined with the government's support for minimum wage increases, this will mean $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers, compared with December 2024, when the government first implemented the pay rise. This is a significant difference to a household budget. And, for the first time, employees in all CCS approved services will be eligible for the payment. This is an important step towards making sure the benefits of this policy are available right across the sector.

For parents, this bill is also about something very practical—having confidence that the person looking after your child is valued, supported and able to stay in the profession. Parents should not have to worry that their child's room will close because the service cannot find enough educators. They should not have to worry about constantly changing educators because staff cannot afford to stay. They should not have to choose between participating in work and finding quality early learning for their children. This investment helps tackle those pressures. It supports a more stable workforce, stronger relationships between educators and children, and more reliable services for families. By limiting fee increases at participating services, it also helps ease cost-of-living pressures. This is what good government should do: improve the lives of working people while strengthening the services families rely upon.

Early childhood education is not the only way this government is supporting children and families. We've extended paid parental leave to the full 26 weeks, giving more families more time with a new child and greater financial security during those crucial early months. And we're paying superannuation on paid parental leave, recognising that time away from work to spend the crucial first months of your little one's life with them should not mean falling behind on your retirement savings. I want to highlight the impact this has had on families in Newcastle. In the last year alone, just under 2,000 locals received the increased paid parental leave entitlement.

These reforms are about recognising that supporting children means supporting the families that raise them, and they sit alongside our broader cost-of-living agenda. We're backing another pay rise for around three million minimum and award wage workers and delivering tax cuts that put more money into the pockets of working Australians. Together, these measures reflect simple beliefs: if you work hard, you should be able to get ahead; if you care for children, that work should be properly valued; and, if you are raising a family, you should have the support you need to give your children the best possible start in life.

There's also a bigger picture here. Quality early childhood education is an investment in our children. It gives children the foundations they need to thrive. It helps parents participate in work, it supports employers who need a reliable workforce and it strengthens our economy. But none of that happens without early childhood educators—the people who open the doors in the morning; the people who comfort a child who is missing mum or dad; the people who read the same story for the tenth time; the people who help children learn to share, communicate and solve problems; the people who notice that something is not quite right; and the people who help prepare our children for their first day of school.

Those workers deserve our respect. They deserve decent pay and a government that is prepared to back that up with action. That is what this government is doing—making early learning more affordable, expanding access, strengthening the workforce, supporting parents and giving working families a fairer go because when we invest in children, we invest in families. When we support families, we're strengthening our communities, and when we value the people who care for and educate our children, we're building a stronger Australia. Every child deserves the best start that we can give them, every family deserves the support to provide it, and every early childhood educator deserves to know that the work they do is valued. That is the better future we are building. And this bill is an important part of it. I commend the bill to the House.

I understand that the member for Pearce would like to present a copy of their speech for incorporation into Hansard, in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 6 November 2025.

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I would like to strongly support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. This bill recognises two essential truths: early childhood educators deserve to be properly valued and paid, and every child has the right to learn and play in an environment that is safe, supportive, and of high quality.

In Pearce, we know the difference great educators make. They are the ones helping children in our suburbs develop language, confidence, independence, and social skills. They support children through their first friendships and new experiences, comfort them when they are upset and celebrate their progress. They also provide reassurance to families across our community. Parents in our electorate leave their children in their care knowing they will be supported, encouraged, and nurtured.

This is work of enormous value. Yet, for too long, that value was not reflected in wages. When this government came to office, early childhood services were losing workers at an alarming rate. Many educators were leaving not because they wanted to leave the profession but because they could not afford to remain. In some centres, annual staff attrition reached 40 per cent. That level of turnover placed pressure on services, disrupted relationships between educators and children and made it more difficult for families to secure reliable care.

People should not be financially better off stacking supermarket shelves than educating and caring for young children. A country that understands the importance of children's early years must also understand the importance of the workforce supporting them. That is why the Albanese Labor government introduced a 15 per cent pay rise for eligible early childhood educators nearly two years ago.

When combined with minimum wage increases, a typical full-time educator is now receiving approximately $255 more each week than before the pay rise was introduced. For early childhood teachers, the increase is around $410 per week. More than 215,000 educators across over 11,600 services are benefiting from this investment.

The results are clear. Job vacancies have fallen by 31 per cent; applications have increased by 30 per cent in some areas, and there are now around 20,000 more childcare workers across Australia. Better wages help attract people to the sector, retain experienced educators and give services a stronger foundation for providing consistent, high-quality care. This is not simply a workforce policy. It is an investment in children, families and the future of our country.

Recognising the success of the program, the Prime Minister announced on 17 June that the government would provide $3.6 billion over the next two years to continue this wage support. This bill gives effect to that commitment. It amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024, provides further funding to the special account, and extends the act's sunset date from 30 June 2028 to 31 December 2029.

The special account supports the early childhood education and care worker retention payment grant. Through this grant, eligible providers receive funding to support higher wages for early childhood workers. All childcare subsidy approved services will be able to apply, provided they meet the relevant conditions. One condition is that educators must be employed under a workplace instrument. That requirement helps ensure government funding reaches the workers it is intended to support. It also provides greater transparency and accountability.

The bill protects families from unreasonable fee increases. Services receiving the payment will be required to limit increases to their fees. Families should not be expected to absorb the entire cost of improving wages in a sector that is essential to our economy and communities.

During the first year of the program, fees at participating centres rose by approximately half as much as fees at services that did not receive the payment. Without this legislation, departmental advice is that fees could rise by around 17 per cent. We do not want that to happen. By continuing wage support and placing conditions on fee increases, this bill is expected to save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. For families in Pearce, that could help with groceries, household bills, transport, rent or mortgage payments. It is real relief for hardworking households in our community.

Affordable childcare also strengthens workforce participation. When parents and carers can access dependable and affordable early learning, they are better able to work, study, and contribute to the local economy. This bill, therefore, supports educators and families at the same time.

However, financial support must go hand in hand with strong expectations around quality and safety. The bill introduces an additional object and condition of funding relating to children's health and safety. Services receiving funding will be required to meet quality area 2 of the national quality standard, which focuses on children's health, safety, and wellbeing. Where a service fails to meet the required standard, funding may be reduced or withdrawn. Approximately 95 per cent of services currently meet this requirement. That is encouraging, but it is not enough. Every parent should be able to expect that their child is safe, regardless of which approved service they attend.

The bill also provides for equivalent requirements to apply to services outside the National Quality Framework, including in-home care services. These provisions build on wider reforms already undertaken by this government.

Legislation passed last year strengthened the department's ability to stop funding services that fail to meet quality, safety, or compliance requirements under the national law. Since those powers were introduced, compliance action has been taken against 119 centres. These services had failed to meet safety standards for at least five years. Of those centres, 55 have since corrected the identified problems. That demonstrates why enforcement matters. Standards only protect children when services understand that noncompliance has consequences. In June, government funding was withdrawn from a service for the first time under these powers. Seven other services have voluntarily closed. These decisions are serious, but children's safety must come first.

The department can now also conduct unannounced visits to early childhood services. Since November last year, Australian government authorised officers have carried out more than 1,300 unannounced visits across the country. State and territory regulators have increased their activity as well. In the most recent quarter, regulators undertook 1,540 compliance actions—more than twice the 735 actions recorded during the same period the previous year. Families must be able to trust that standards are maintained every day, not just when a service has advance notice of an inspection.

On 27 February, two further national reforms commenced. The first was the National Early Childhood Worker Register. The events of last year demonstrated the importance of knowing who is working in early childhood services and tracking workers as they move between centres, employers, and jurisdictions. The second reform introduced mandatory child safety training. This applies to everyone working in a centre, including educators, teachers, managers, chief executive officers and board members. Child safety is the responsibility of everyone in an organisation. More than 350,000 people have completed the foundation training so far, and the next stage commenced two weeks ago.

The government has also banned personal mobile phones in centres, reducing risks associated with inappropriate use and helping ensure educators remain focused on children. A national CCTV trial is underway in more than 300 services. The Australian Federal Police, the Australian Centre for Child Protection and the National Office for Child Safety are contributing to the advisory group alongside other experts.

The Commonwealth is investing an additional $226 million in child safety reforms, while states and territories have committed more than $270 million. Together, governments are investing approximately half a billion dollars to improve safety and quality in early childhood education and care. Last month, education ministers also agreed to examine the possibility of establishing an early education and care commission to further strengthen oversight across the sector. These reforms are guided by a clear principle: children's safety must never be treated as secondary.

This bill brings these priorities together. It supports the workforce that makes early learning possible. It provides educators with better pay and a stronger incentive to remain in the profession. It helps families by limiting fee increases and protecting access to affordable care. It supports parents and carers to work and study. And it links public funding to clear expectations around quality, compliance and child safety. These issues are particularly important for the people of Pearce. Families across our community depend on early learning services so they can participate in work, education and community life. They want their children cared for by educators who are respected, supported and able to build sustainable careers. They also want confidence that every service meets the standards expected by parents, carers and the community. This bill helps provide that confidence. It is an investment in the people who care for our children, in families who rely on early learning and in the safety and wellbeing of every child.

The early childhood workforce have made clear what is needed: fair wages, secure funding, respect for their profession and a safe, sustainable sector. This Albanese Labor government has listened. We are ensuring that the historic wage increase can continue, that families are protected from excessive fee rises and that services receiving public funding meet appropriate safety and quality standards. This bill is an important step towards a stronger, fairer, and safer early childhood education and care system. I commend the bill to the House.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 matters enormously to my community. Across Bonner, we have 101 childcare centres and more than 8,000 local families who receive the childcare subsidy. I want to start by acknowledging that just last week we celebrated Early Childhood Educators' Day and saying a big thank you to the 829 childhood educators in my local community. The work they do is incredibly important to me as a mum of three. I've had all three of my children attend early childhood education. But it's also important to the tens of thousands of families in my local community who utilise early childhood education each and every day. Those workers deserve to be valued, they deserve to be paid fairly, and they deserve a safe and supportive work environment.

My mum was an early childhood educator teacher at TAFE, and I remember as a child, particularly on school holidays, visiting her at work and seeing the development of our next generation of early childhood educators over the more than 40 years that she was in that role. Their commitment to their profession and their love of our kids was just inspiring. Can I say a massive thank you to each and every one of the 829 educators in Bonner and, of course, to all of the educators right across Australia for what you do each and every day supporting our communities.

At its heart, this bill does two really important things. It locks in better pay for early childhood educators while protecting families from excessive fee increases. It strengthens the link between Commonwealth funding and quality and safety of the care that our children receive. When Labor came to government, educators were leaving the sector in droves—not because they didn't love the work but because too many simply couldn't afford to stay. In some centres right across Australia workforce attrition was at a high of 40 per cent—that's 40 per cent of the workforce leaving the job they love in any given year. And it did reach a crisis point.

Labor has acted. We delivered a historic 15 per cent pay rise for eligible early childhood educators combined with our support for minimum wage increases. A typical full-time childhood educator is now earning more than $400 extra each and every week. More than 215,000 educators at more than 11½ thousand services right across Australia are now benefiting. Job vacancies are down 31 per cent. Job applications, in some places, are up 30 per cent, and there are now 20,000 more childhood educators doing this important work right across our country.

In Bonner, over the last 18 months, we've welcomed the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Deputy Prime Minister to centres right across my electorate. More than once, and at every centre, we have thanked our educators for the important work that they do and we have spoken about Labor's 15 per cent pay rise and why it was so important to properly value those educating and caring for some of our youngest and most vulnerable kids.

This is a priority for the Albanese Labor government, and Labor today is again acting to back in our educators. The Prime Minister has announced a further $3.6 billion over the next two years to lock in our historic pay rise, and this bill delivers on that commitment. It amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024, credits the special account used to administer the worker retention payment and extends the act's sunset date from 30 June 2028 to 31 December 2029. For the first time, all childcare subsidy approved centres will be eligible for funding provided they meet the grant guidelines.

This includes a requirement that educators are engaged under a workforce instrument, helping to ensure this investment actually reaches the workers it is intended to support because this is an investment in educators. It is about retaining experienced people in the sector and it's about building the workforce we need as more Australian families access early learning.

We also can't talk about wage justice in this sector without talking about gender. Nine in 10 early childhood educators are women. For too long, the low wages in this sector were treated as just the way things were. Labor does not accept that. This bill locks in a 15 per cent pay rise for a workforce overwhelmingly made up of women, and that makes it an important part of Labor's work to close the gender pay gap. A pay rise doesn't just make a difference on payday, it compounds over a career through higher wages, higher super and greater economic security. When we properly value the work of early childhood educators, we are also challenging the outdated idea that caring work should somehow be worth less.

The other side of this is affordability. For more than 8,000 families in my community of Bonner who receive the childcare subsidy, the cost of early learning isn't an abstract policy discussion, it's part of the family budget each and every week. It affects whether a parent can return to work, increase their hours or take on another shift. Last year, when I welcomed the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to Goodstart Early Learning in Wishart, we talked about making childcare more affordable, expanding access and delivering better pay for educators. All of those things are connected, and there is no point expanding access to early learning if we don't have the educators to staff our services. We can't retain great educators if we don't pay them properly, but we also shouldn't improve wages by simply passing the cost onto parents.

That is why services receiving the worker retention payment are required to limit fee increases. Over the first year of the program, fees at participating services increased by around half as much as fees at services that didn't sign up. This bill continues that protection. It is expected to save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. That's money back in the pockets of local families. The Department of Education has warned us that, without this legislation, childcare fees could increase by around 17 per cent. Families shouldn't have to choose between fair wages for the people educating their children and affordable early education and care. We can do both, and this bill does do both those things.

There is another critical part to this legislation, and that is safety. I recently visited Active Kids Early Learning Centre at Mount Gravatt East. Whenever I visit an early learning service, I am reminded of the enormous trust parents place in these services and their educators. When you drop your child off in the morning, you expect them to learn; you expect them to be nurtured and cared for; but, above everything else, you expect them to be safe—and that, of course, is a non-negotiable.

This bill puts that principle into practice. It establishes a new object and condition of funding under the act that puts service quality and children's safety at the heart of the act. To receive this Commonwealth funding, services will be required to meet Quality Area 2 of the National Quality Standard, which relates to children's health and safety. If a centre doesn't meet that standard, their funding can be cut. Around 95 per cent of services already meet the standard. But when we are talking about the safety of children, of course we want that number to be 100 per cent. Parents have a right to expect it, and children, of course, deserve it.

This builds on the significant work our government is already doing to strengthen safety across early childhood education and care. Last year, we gave the Department of Education the power to cut off funding to operators that fail to meet quality, safety or compliance requirements. Since then, compliance action has been taken against 119 centres that had failed to meet safety standards for at least five years. Fifty-five of those centres have now fixed problems that they had previously failed to address; seven others have voluntarily closed; and, in June, for the first time ever, Commonwealth funding was cut off to a service. That sends a very clear message: if you receive taxpayer funding to educate and care for Australian children, meeting appropriate safety and quality standards is absolutely not optional.

We have also strengthened oversight. Since November, Australian government authorised officers have conducted more than 1,300 unannounced visits to services right across the country. The National Early Childhood Worker Register came into effect in February, giving us a stronger ability to know who is working in our services and track workers moving between centres and across state and territory borders. Mandatory child safety training is now required throughout organisations, from educators right through to CEOs and board members as well. More than 350,000 people have already completed the foundation training. Personal mobile phones have, of course, been banned in centres, and a national CCTV trial is underway in more than 300 services—informed by experts, including the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Centre for Child Protection and the National Office for Child Safety. All up, this Labor government is investing an additional $226 million in child safety reforms, because expanding early childhood education and care must go hand in hand with strengthening confidence in the system.

Labor knows that paying educators properly isn't separate from building a high-quality early education system; it is absolutely fundamental to it. And making sure our children are safe isn't negotiable. This bill locks in better pay, it protects families from excessive fee increases and it strengthens quality and safety requirements for services receiving Commonwealth funding. I'm proud to support this bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

I rise as well to support this very important bill, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. Few professionals have a greater impact on our children's lives and the future of this nation than those who care for and educate our youngest Australians. Every day, early childhood educators help shape the lives of children during some of the most important years of their development. They nurture their curiosity, support learning, build confidence and provide the safe and caring environments that allow children to thrive. Yet for too long these professionals have not received the recognition nor the remuneration that they deserve. That's why this bill before this House is so important.

We know that, when you look at the research of educators and people that research early learning, all the signs are there. The evidence is clearly there that the earlier you start a child in an education program the better off that child will be in the future and the more likely they are to succeed in life. Early education, the first few years that shape that little human being, points to that. That's why, as I said, this bill before the House is so important.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers Bill 2026 delivers on the government's commitment to lock in pay rises for early childhood educators for a further two years to continue to build a stronger and fairer early learning system. It'll also extend the operation of the scheme through to 31 December 2029, which will ensure long-term certainty for workers, providers, children and their families. The bill also recognises a very simple reality. If we want a high-quality early childhood education system, we must invest in the people who deliver it—that is, the people who work in the early childhood education system.

Australia's early educators have long been underpaid despite, as I said, that critical work that they do and the role that they play in children's development and school readiness. They're educators, carers, mentors and role models. They support children through their earliest years of learning and help lay the foundations for future successes. Investing in their wages is not just the right thing to do for workers but the right thing to do for the children that they educate, as well as their families and the broader community, because a good education with good staff means there's a spin-off effect for the entire broader community. When services can attract and retain skilled staff, children receive consistent, high-quality care and families have greater confidence in the system.

Importantly, this additional funding remains tied to the commitment from participating services to limit fee increases. This is a critical element of the policy. As we know, families are already managing significant cost-of-living pressures, and the government has made it clear that increasing wages for educators should not come at the expense of parents. By linking the funding support to limits on fee increases, this measure is then expected to save the average family about $1,500 over the next two years. That means better wages for educators and relief for families with young children. It's a practical measure that supports both workforce retention and affordability.

The bill also strengthens the government's commitment to quality and safety within early childhood education. For the first time, the legislation establishes a specific funding condition linked to quality area 2 of the National Quality Standard, which relates to children's health and safety. This, again, is a significant reform. It recognises that quality education and safe environments go hand in hand. Families rightly expect that, when they leave their children in the care of an early learning service, those children will be supported in an environment that prioritises their wellbeing, development and safety. That's very important, and this legislation helps reinforce that expectation, which is an expectation that all parents would have.

As the federal member for Adelaide, I know how important early childhood services are to working families throughout our community and how important they are for children's education. As a father of two boys who both went to early education centres from the age of two, 2½ or three onwards, I know how important it is to families. Today I'm a grandfather with grandchildren who have all gone through that system. So it is important. I've seen it firsthand, and I've seen the changes over the years, from basically a childcare centre where kids were taken because their parents worked to an early education centre where children actually learn and it becomes part of our education system.

As I said, the earlier we put children through early education courses, the better. All the research that's been done here in this nation and across the world shows the success rate of those kids in going through school and securing good jobs et cetera. It is so important, and it shows that the earlier the better. These services are not simply childcare facilities, as they were once known. They are an essential part of the modern community infrastructure and also an essential part of our education, and they provide families with certainty and opportunity. The educators who work in these services deserve to know that their work is valued, and we are valuing that work with the pay increases. Parents deserve confidence that experienced educators will remain in the sector and have continuity, and children deserve the very best start in life.

So this bill is about fairness and opportunity, including fairness for educators, who have dedicated their careers to nurturing the next generation. We've seen them in all our electorates. We've all visited early childhood education centres and seen the great work and the commitment by these educators. When you look at some of the conditions that they worked in previously, you see that it's through commitment that they were there—commitment because they wanted to do the right thing. I take my hat off to early childhood centre workers. A few years ago, their union ran a campaign, 'Walk in our shoes'. I remember that for an hour I went to an early childhood education centre where we read to the kids, made sure they had their fruit and played games. I've got to say it was only one hour and I was absolutely exhausted after the one hour. So these people deserve a wage rise. They deserve every single cent.

As I was saying, the future of our nation begins in those early learning centres. When we invest in early childhood educators, we invest in children; when we invest in children, we invest in families; and, when we invest in families, we invest in a stronger, fairer and more prosperous Australia. Every day, early childhood educators help children learn. They help them grow and prepare for school. They help shape confidence, curiosity, communication skills and a lifelong love of learning. They are among the first teachers a child will ever have, and they play a critical role in supporting families during some of the most important years of a child's development.

Yet, despite the importance of their work, early educators have historically, as I said, been undervalued and underpaid. That's why this Albanese government took action. On 8 August 2024, the government announced that it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers, recognising both the importance of the profession and the workforce challenges being faced across the sector. At the time, services right across Australia were struggling to attract and retain staff. Providers were delaying expansion plans, childcare centres were closing rooms, enrolments were being capped and families were finding it harder to access the care that they needed, because services simply could not find enough educators. I had this told to me firsthand when I visited some of the centres in my electorate, like the Goodstart childcare centre in Plympton, Lady Gowrie, Unley Community Centre, Little Oxford (Unley) Montessori and Precious Cargo Collinswood. All of them back then were saying the same thing to me. So it's good to see this turn around and have a go at keeping a stable workforce.

It's not just a workforce issue; it's a quality issue and a safety issue. Children thrive when they can build trust and consistent relationships with the educators who care for them. Parents want certainty that their child will be greeted by familiar faces and supported by experienced professionals who understand their individual needs.

Since the worker retention payment was introduced, Australia has seen approximately 2,000 additional early childhood education and care workers enter the workforce, representing an increase of around eight per cent. Job vacancies across the sector have fallen by nearly 31 per cent. That's a real difference in all of our electorates, in all the early childhood education centres. The number of services operating under staffing waivers has dropped from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent, and, importantly for families, fees at services receiving the payment have increased at around half the rate of services not participating in the program, and that's a remarkable outcome—higher wages for educators, greater workforce stability, improved access for families and lower cost pressures than would otherwise have been experienced. That's why, on 17 June 2026, this year, the Albanese government announced it would lock in these wage increases for another two years, and the bill gives effect to that commitment.

It provides an additional $3.6 billion to extend support through the worker retention payment and extends the operation of the scheme through to 31 December 2029. When combined with the government's support for minimum wage increases, the results are significant. A typical full-time educator will receive around $255 more pay per week compared to December 2024. For early childhood teachers, that increase rises to approximately $410 more per week. They are significant rises, and rightly so and rightly deserved by the people in the sector. This is real support for workers who have been doing it tough for a long, long time in this industry. I'm glad that they're getting fairly recognised for the work that they do every day with the next generation of Australia's young people, who are so important to our nation.

Importantly, these wage increases are not coming at the expense of families, which is extremely important. Funding will continue to be tied to commitments from participating services to limit those fee increases, and this approach strikes the right balance. It supports workers, it supports providers, it supports families, and, most importantly, it supports education for our youngest Australians.

The bill is about recognising the value of those who help give Australian children the very, very best start in life, and it's about supporting a workforce that has too often been undervalued. I've seen this with my own eyes when visiting many of these centres in the years that I've been here in parliament. It's about ensuring that quality early education remains affordable and accessible for families, and it's also about investing in the very important next generation of Australians. These kids that are attending these centres are the next generation. They will be the leaders in our community. As I said, an early start, with all the research internationally and here in Australia, shows that we're giving that child the best chance for their life. When we invest in early childhood educators, we're not simply just funding wages; we are investing in children, we are investing in families, and we are investing in Australia's future. That's why this legislation deserves the support of this House.

I want everyone to think about their earliest childhood memory, and, for many people, that might be a favourite teddy bear or a favourite blanket, which was definitely the case for me, but I'm going to say that I also remember my favourite potty. I think that it was the best potty on the block. The reason why I share this is that what people don't recognise is how young you are when you form some of your earliest childhood memories, and some of those lasting memories happen from the age of three.

The other thing that's interesting is understanding the brain development of children. They say that 90 per cent of a human's brain has been developed by the age of five, so the things that happen during those early years are really important. They are the building blocks for how a person thinks, feels and reasons, and they are largely laid down before they even set foot in a primary school classroom. I have an aunty-in-law, Aunty Bev. She has been a primary school teacher for, I think, three or four decades. One of the things that she said to me, which was a real surprise to me, was, 'Zaneta, I do what I can with what is given to me,' and I'm like, 'But it's only year 1; there should be so much that you can do.' But what she was referring to was those really important early childhood years.

The environment in which a child spends their days during these formative years has a direct bearing on their development, and that environment is shaped by the people who spend their days in it—and whether those people are treated well enough to stay. So today I speak in support of wage justice for early childhood education and care workers and the extension of their 15 per cent pay rise, to create positive working and learning environments for both workers and children.

My children have attended a number of childcare centres in the electorate of Swan—Billabong, Goodstart and also Gowrie Early Learning Karawara, which has an amazing history. Gowrie traces its history back to 1940, when the original Lady Gowrie centre opened in Victoria Park. In fact, it opened on 5 September—so 86 years ago last Saturday. It was one of six centres that the Commonwealth government built in capital cities around the country at the time. They were deliberately built close to industrial areas to reach working families and help address issues like poverty, poor health outcomes and overcrowding for children in those communities. Then, during the war years, these centres gave women who were drawn into the workforce to support the war effort somewhere safe to leave their children while they worked. The centres were built because the government recognised that where a family lived and worked should not determine whether a child had access to a safe, healthy start in life. So, more than 80 years later, Gowrie was caring for my children. I'd say that they provided quality care, and that same principle of quality care should be within the reach of all working families. That's exactly what this bill continues to build on.

It's interesting to think of my own daughter's experience in one of her favourite childcare centres, Billabong. Felicity has developed some really sweet besties—Bella, Ada, Anise and Caitlin—and the friendships that they form are very thick. I remember speaking with one of the educators, and she's like: 'Caitlin and Felicity don't actually have language, but they were sitting in the corner chatting with each other without words and then they were asked to pack away. They turned around and almost glared at the educators and were like, "But wait; I'm in the middle of a chat."' They were speaking in their own language. It's fascinating to see how thick friendships can grow even when you don't have language. What I saw had developed at that childcare centre was a rich, stimulating environment, which happens when staff are valued, supported and paid fairly to make sure that they keep on doing the work that they love. That's what this bill helps make possible more broadly.

In August 2024, the Albanese government announced $3.6 billion to fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood educators. Before that, the sector was in crisis. Some centres had staff turnover as high as 40 per cent a year. Centres were delaying expansion plans and limiting enrolments simply because they could not find the staff to run their rooms. Today, more than 215,000 early educators from across almost 12,000 centres are benefiting from that pay rise. Combined with the government's support for minimum wage increases, a typical full-time educator is now $255 a week better off and an early childhood teacher is now $410 better off compared to December 2024.

An educator in my electorate told me what it has meant for her. She said that it's a hard and tiresome job, but having a fair wage gives her more encouragement to sustain the job that she loves. The payment helped her pay her mortgage and helped her ease cost-of-living pressures like fuel and groceries. This bill extends the 2024 commitment that we made to early childhood education and to care workers, and it extends funding to 2028 so that this pay rise is not a temporary fix but a lasting one that gives time for the sector to adjust. For the first time, employees in family day care and in-home care will also be eligible for this payment. That matters because these workers care for children in some of the most personal and demanding settings in this sector, and they deserve to be included.

The second reason this bill matters is retention. The Productivity Commission's 2024 report into this sector found that low pay and unattractive working conditions were a major factor preventing centres from attracting and keeping staff. Since the worker retention payment began, job vacancies in the sector are now down by over 30 per cent. There are 20,000 more people working in early childhood education and care than there were before, and the fees at centres receiving the payment have grown at about half of the rate of centres that are not signed up. As the Minister for Education stated, if this bill does not pass, these could rise as much as 17 per cent. This matters because affordable child care is what gives a parent the ability to return to part-time or full-time work. Whether that is to keep building a career or to help cover the costs of raising a family, all parents in this country deserve to have that choice.

I think about, after I had my first child, deciding on which childcare centre my son, Lincoln, would go to. It's interesting that I didn't realise how challenging it is just to get into a childcare centre. I remember trying to work out what was the right centre and who I would trust with my child. It's funny because I remember that time and it being very emotional and for me. That journey of deciding on where my son would go to was more emotional than going through IVF. For IVF, the worst outcome was that I wouldn't fall pregnant. The worst outcome of picking the wrong childcare centre, for me, was too difficult to fathom. I ended up speaking to a child who was in primary school at the time. I knew his mum—I used to work with her—and he was like: 'This is the childcare centre I went to. It was excellent.' And I was like: 'Great! I can't pick a better advocate than a graduate of a childcare centre.' So that's the childcare centre that my children went to.

Following on from that, knowing how important that decision is, we need to make sure that we invest in the workers and give them the right pay and the right structures to make sure that we value them. What we see when the structures aren't there, such as when a centre closes or fees climb out of reach, is that choice disappears for a lot of families, particularly for a parent who does not have family nearby to fall back on. Keeping quality childcare centres open, staffed and affordable is what keeps options open for working parents.

Early childhood education and care is a workforce that's dominated by women, and, like many female dominated industries, it has historically been undervalued. Unsurprisingly, this is not an isolated finding. Since 2024, the Fair Work Commission has been running a broader review into gender based undervaluation across a number of priority awards in sectors where women make up the overwhelming majority of the workforce. These include aged care, disability and community care, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers. The Minister for Women has spoken directly to this issue, pointing out that over 85 per cent of both the aged-care and early childhood education workforces are women, and that, as a country, we need to keep challenging the attitudes and stereotypes that have allowed this work to be undervalued for so long.

This government takes that responsibility seriously. For the first time in Australian history, women make up the majority of not only the government caucus seats but also the cabinet. That matters, because a parliament and a government that reflect the community they serve are more likely to properly value the work that the community relies on, including the work of the educators that this bill supports.

In December 2025, the Fair Work Commission handed down its final determination of the Children's Services Award, finding that the work of these employees had been undervalued because of assumptions based on gender and that increases to minimum rates were justified on work value grounds alone, confirming what educators in this sector have known for years: an eight-hour shift caring for children who are not yet old enough to be independent, who need constant attention and care, is demanding work, and it deserves to be recognised as such. One educator who works in my electorate put it simply; she said: 'Early educators deserve the same recognition as schoolteachers.'

Extending this pay rise is one part of closing the gap. It supports higher wages in a workforce that has been asked to do some of the most important work in the country, for too long for too little, and it does so while making care more affordable for the families who rely upon it.

When a parent drops their child at an early learning centre, they are trusting that the centre is going to keep their child safe. Now, for the first time, funding under this scheme is directly tied to safety. A service has to meet the national health and safety standard Quality Area 2 to keep on receiving it. If a service falls short, their funding agreement can be suspended.

Not every service in the sector is assessed in the same way. Family day care and in-home care providers aren't rated under the same framework. So the bill allows the secretary to apply an equivalent safety condition for them too.

And the government has been acting. Over 100 centres—119 of them, in fact—had let their safety standards slip for half a decade or more before the department stepped in. Once funding was actually at risk, half of them fixed what they had been avoiding for years. One of the centres lost its funding outright this year. Seven more shut down rather than lift their game. Unannounced inspections are up, too—well over a thousand since November last year. State and state and territory regulators have more than doubled their own compliance activity over the same stretch. Every person in a centre now has to be on the national worker register, so we know who is caring for our children, wherever they move on to. Everyone on site, right up to the board, has to make sure they complete important training.

This bill establishes recognition for the people who do this work, and it protects the children in their care. A well-paid, stable, experienced workforce is a safer workforce, because children are looked after by people who know them and have been trained properly and paid properly. This is what this bill delivers. I commend the bill to the House.

It is a great honour to be able to rise in this place to talk to this piece of legislation, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. It is something that I have been working on for some time.

I'd like to start my contribution by going back to March 2018, when I stood in front of thousands of early childhood educators in Melbourne. They'd all walked off the job to be there. Every one of them had lost a day's pay that they couldn't afford to lose, and every one of them knew the odds of anything changing that week were close to nil. They came anyway. They were angry and passionate and entirely justified in being both. Their wages at that point were less than half the average wage in this country. They were predominantly women with certificates, diplomas and degrees, running rooms full of two-year-olds and doing the most formative work anybody does with a human being. I said at that time that we paid them a pittance, and we did.

That rally was part of the Big Steps campaign run by educators through the United Workers Union. Some of the women in that crowd had been making that same argument since the 1980s, for 40 years. That is the timeframe this House is dealing with today—four decades of being told the country agreed with them in principle but could never quite manage to do so in practice. This bill, like similar ones before it from our government, did not arrive out of nowhere. It arrived at the end of a very long queue, and there are women who've spent their entire careers in it.

For most of those years, the answer from the coalition never changed: you can have early learning that families can afford or you can have educators paid what they're worth, not both. Anyone who pushed got a lecture about how the economy supposedly works, an attitude that aligned with the notion that this work was simply babysitting, not education. I was on the receiving end of that lecture for more than a decade, first at The Parenthood, campaigning alongside parents wanting more high-quality early learning and care that they could afford for their kids, and then in the union movement, standing shoulder to shoulder with educators themselves.

I watched what that previous coalition government did with its nine years. They never funded a wage increase for early childhood educators—not once in nine years. They rolled preschool funding over 12 months at a time, again and again, leaving 350,000 children and their families in limbo while a whole sector tried to plan a future on a one-year pay cheque. When they finally moved on early learning in 2017, their idea for paying for it was to take money off other families—off paid parental leave, off family tax benefit and out of the NDIS. I remember it very well because I was campaigning against it. I sat with Australian Navy lieutenant commander Sandra Croft, who had been called a double dipper by her own government at the time for seeking to have paid parental leave through both the government's scheme and her employer, the government. That was the posture at the time: families were an expense to be contained and educators were someone else's problem.

Here is what all that had produced by 2022. Some centres in this country were losing 40 per cent of their staff in a single year. Educators were leaving jobs that they loved because they could get more stacking shelves at Coles. Services were closing rooms, capping enrolments and shelving expansion plans because they had no-one left to hire. That churn landed where it always lands: on children and on their parents. An educator learns a toddler's signals and earns a parent's trust. Then she leaves in June and the whole thing starts again with somebody new.

My own daughters were in our early learning system. Gweny and Margot both went through early education and care while Ravi and I did what many families in my community do: two jobs, no village close by, and a week that only worked because an early educator unlocked the doors at seven in the morning. I got to understand firsthand how much of my daughters' lives was happening in those rooms. They learned to share in there. They had adults who noticed things about them. My girls are now in primary and secondary school, and I can see so clearly what those years in early education gave them. They walked into a classroom already certain that they belonged in one. I pay tribute to those incredible educators who cared for and educated my two girls. I thank them dearly for the profound impact that they had on their growth and development and for what they did to help Ravi and me just make life that bit easier. But 'thanks' doesn't pay the bills.

That's why, in August of 2024, our Labor government did something nobody had been willing to do: we funded a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators. I remember standing beside some incredible educators who've been campaigning for so long, who stood there with the Prime Minister when he made that announcement at an early childhood centre in Sydney. It was an incredible moment for those educators. And then we found out whether that old argument had ever been true. It was not.

There are more than 20,000 more people doing this work of early education and care than there were two years ago, an increase of about eight per cent. Job vacancies have fallen by almost 31 per cent. The share of services running on staffing waivers has more than halved, from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent. A typical full-time educator now takes home $255 a week more than in December 2024, and an early childhood teacher takes home $410 a week more. Fees at the centres receiving that payment grew at around half the rate of fees at those centres that didn't sign up. Educators were paid more, and families paid less—in the same centres, at the same time. The trade-off that this country lived with for over 40 years turned out to be just a wrong choice that we kept making.

Early educators, though, knew this long before this parliament and our country did. In my electorate, 65 services receive this payment and around 800 workers are better paid because of it. I've had the pleasure of meeting many of these educators. I have been to Goodstart in Flemington a few times now. I love going there. It's been beautifully renovated and it is so welcoming. When I was last there, the educators were so excited to talk to me about what the pay rise meant to them. They even brought it up well before I had the opportunity to ask.

While this bill is a boost for so many educators, I can't help but think of one educator—my namesake, Jo—who I met at Guardian in Ascot Vale. I've given her a shout-out in this place before, but she has been at that centre for 18 years. She has educated a whole generation of children in our community, and she has seen how this country has undergone a change in how it values her and her career. Now, there is no clause in this bill that creates women like Jo, but what it does do is make it possible for her to stay in the sector and the career that she loves and is committed to. Take Guardian in Essendon, for example; the centre holds the titles of the Guardian Victorian Kinder Educator of the Year and the Cook of the Year in the same building. That is what a settled and properly valued workforce produces.

This bill extends eligibility to workers in every early learning subsidy approved service for the first time. This also includes those who are doing the cooking, who are involved in a child's day as much as anyone in the room. What is also important is that the fee condition travels with the money. Services taking it have to limit what they charge families, and that will save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. The department has been pretty blunt about the alternative. Without this bill, fees could climb by around 17 per cent—17 per cent, across 65 services in Maribyrnong, on families already running the numbers at the kitchen table every fortnight. That is why this bill needs to pass with some urgency.

There are many families in my community that carry a mortgage bill well above the Victorian average, and more of our households than the state average have both parents working full time. A second income in my community is how many pay their mortgages. When early learning gets more expensive, somebody works out that the fourth day costs more than what they earn, and it is almost always the mum who drops it. She drops the day, and then the year, and it follows her all the way to what is then sitting in her super at age 65.

I expect those opposite to support this legislation. They supported the previous bill. They failed Australian families when they were in government. My hope is that they will not fail them in opposition.

Since the Prime Minister announced this pay rise being locked in, it has prompted some debate, including from One Nation. We know many families are doing it tough and they are looking for an alternative, but I will say plainly that what that party offers working parents when it comes to early learning is nothing whatsoever. They have never once come into this parliament to argue that an early childhood educator deserves a professional wage. They call early learning 'babysitting'. They call the subsidy a waste. What they will not say out loud is who they are describing: a workforce that is more than nine in 10 women, who are educating this country's children on wages that sat below half the average for a generation. That was very easy to leave alone for as long as everybody called it minding kids. Then there are the families using these centres in my community. They are the nurses coming off a night shift. They are the tradies at a site in Airport West. They are the woman who is working the check-out in Moonee Ponds. While others are focused on culture wars, we are focused on them.

There is one more part of this bill, and it concerns my community deeply. Last year, families in Maribyrnong learned that a man charged with the most serious offences against children had worked across centres in my community. I stood in this place shortly afterwards and said it was a parent's absolute worst nightmare—it was and it is. Those matters are now before the court, but we must address it because that changed something permanent about how many parents in my community and others affected drop their child off at the door. From July 2027 this bill requires a service to meet quality area 2 of the National Quality Standard to keep its funding. That is the standard covering children's health and safety. Fall short of it and then the money can be cut or suspended. Let's be clear: about 95 per cent of services already meet that standard now. However, it absolutely can be higher. It should be 100 per cent, and it is worth saying that a few harmful humans do not represent the overwhelming majority of early educators, who are kind, compassionate, intelligent, caring and the lifeline to so many working parents. I stand in solidarity with you, as I have for decades.

The strongest protection any child in this country has is an educator who is paid properly, trained properly, backed by enough colleagues and still there the next year. Safety and wages have always been the same argument. The centres where things go wrong are overwhelmingly the ones running on churn and waivers and wherever they might be able to find cuts. I want to acknowledge the Minister for Education and the Minister for Early Childhood Education for how quickly they moved on all of this. I also want to acknowledge the educators and the United Workers Union delegates who carried this campaign for decades, before many of us were in this building. They did not wait around for a government to become interested in them. They made the case for why government should be interested—and our government is very interested. We know there is more work to do. This pay rise is locked in, but it does not yet hand this sector the permanent settlement it has earned, and there is work to be done to fully recognise early childhood education and care as the first rung of our education system.

I want to finish my contribution at a local centre in Avondale Heights. When I visited Nido early learning centre, I was greeted by a group of passionate educators who do incredible work. Mehreen, who manages the centre, showed me around with the help of a little co-guide on the tour, a very determined young boy who made sure I missed nothing—every painting, every book, everything. He was four years old. He did that because of the room he was standing in, because the adults in the building were patient with him, because they noticed him and because they were still there the next morning and the morning after that. Children hand back whatever surrounds them. The little boy is surrounded by care, so care is what he offers. In my first speech here, I said my daughters inspire me by their curiosity and move me with their kindness. That is what this little boy did too. He and the educators that look after him are why I commend the bill to the House.

I rise today to speak in support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. We often say that early childhood educators do some of the most important work in the world, but historically we haven't always followed those words with actions. Some have wrongly and continually referred to this work as 'babysitting' or just looking after the kids while mum and dad are at work, but it is so much more than that.

Early childhood educators are qualified. Their training equips them with skills in early learning curriculum design, child psychology, wellbeing and pedagogy. It helps them do many things in any given day, including planning, implementing and evaluating learning programs tailored to children's interests, strengths and needs. It trains them to create inclusive environments where every child feels a sense of belonging. It trains them to monitor and document children's progress and development, sharing insights with families. It equips them with skills to support an incredibly diverse range of children in developing key skills such as communication, problem solving, creativity and emotional regulation. It teaches them how to effectively collaborate with families and colleagues to ensure children are supported holistically. It's teaching. It's mentoring. It's caring. It's planning. It's leading. It's developing solutions. It's identifying challenges and overcoming them. It's casting a keen eye over the welfare and development of a child. It's all of these things, but what it is not is 'babysitting' or just looking after a few kids. It's hard work.

In 2016, I was living in Sydney, and my sister was living in Canberra. She'd just had a little girl, Caitlin, my niece. Hello, Caitlin, in case you ever read Hansard or watch this speech. You were the first baby in the family. I love being your aunty, and you will always be my girl. When Caitlin was around seven months old, Lisa, my sister, needed to finish her master's in law at ANU by attending a full day of lectures. I offered to take a day of leave, come to Canberra and look after Caitlin by myself for a day. I have a stepdaughter, but she came into my life when she was 5½. Since I don't have my own children, I hadn't had much experience in caring for really little people. I thought, 'Well, how hard can it be?'

I recall getting there, Lisa leaving and Caitlin lying there asleep looking adorable. How hard can it be? Then she woke. We read a couple of books. She had tummy time on the floor. We played with a few soft toys. I jiggled her around in front of the mirror so she could see herself, and I sang a few rounds of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'. Then, I looked at my watch, and I'd had her for 30 minutes and I was already tired and out of ideas. I tried to bottle feed her. She screamed and spat milk at me, and I was done. How hard could it be? Well, it's hard. It's hard work.

I've since looked after Caitlin, who is now 10, and my beautiful nephew Jack, who is now seven, when they were younger. Just like it was when I had Caitlin when she was seven months old—as my niece and nephew hit two years, three years, four years old, it was always a privilege to care for them, but it was always hard work, and these were my niece and nephew, my family. Imagine displaying even more dedication, more patience, more empathy and more creativity for up to 10 children who are not your family, and you're doing this for 40 hours a week.

Early childhood educators who do this do it because they care deeply for the children that they are educating. They care about their welfare, their development, their mental health and their happiness. They do it because they love it. I've met them. I've met them at Goodstart Early Learning on Payneham Road and Grand Junction Road. I've met them at the Wattle Park Kindergarten. I've met them at Nido Early School at Athelstone and Paradise. I've met them at St Peter's Early Learning Centre, and I've met them at Kozy Kids Glenside. This is just a fraction of early childhood educators in just my electorate who do the job because they love it. But the reality is they can't do it if they can't pay the bills, if they're not paid fairly. If they're not paid fairly, they'll leave, even if they don't want to, and as I said, the early childhood workers I've met don't want to, because they love what they do and they know that it is meaningful, satisfying and important work.

Historically, though, attrition rates at some early childhood education centres were as high as 40 per cent, which, frankly, is a figure that means there was a crisis. That has now changed, because the Albanese Labor government not only said that the work early childhood educators do is important, and not only said that we value workers dedicating themselves to educating children, but the Albanese Labor government also followed those words with action, and almost two years ago delivered a 15 per cent pay rise to those workers. When combined with the government's support for minimum-wage rises, this means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator, and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers, compared to December 2024 when the increases were first implemented. We've got the data to prove that this strategy has worked with respect to both recruitment and retention, with job vacancies down 31 per cent and job applications up 30 per cent in that time.

This important bill locks in that pay rise with an investment of $3.6 billion over the next two years, and it works by amending the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024, extending the sunset date for that act from 30 June 2028 to 31 December 2029. It also credits the special account that is used to administer the early childhood education and care worker retention payment grant to relevant providers to fund higher wages for eligible workers. Now, as long as the grant requirements are met, all childcare subsidy approved services will be eligible for funding.

The grant requirements are not just check boxes; they are important and they are deliberately designed. Firstly, all educators must be engaged under a workplace instrument—a legally enforceable document that sets out the terms and conditions of employment like rates of pay, leave entitlements, penalties, loadings and working hours. This requirement is driven by a need to ensure that the investment this government is making is passed on to early childhood educators in the form of higher wages.

Secondly, early childhood education providers have to limit fee increases. Fee increases adversely impact families and fair and reasonable limitations alleviate this. We know that in the first year of the program, providers in receipt of the payment have increased fees at only about half the rate of centres that didn't sign up, so the program will save families around $1,500 over the next two years, which is a meaningful amount of money in anyone's book.

Thirdly, and importantly, the bill links the funding to quality standards. To receive the funding services will be required to meet Quality Area 2, relating to children's health and safety under the National Quality Standard, and if they don't, their funding will be cut. Quality Area 2 of the National Quality Standard is about health and safety, and it includes matters that parents are, frankly, entitled to expect, which is why it's encouraging that around 95 per cent of centres are currently compliant.

Parents like the member for Macnamara, who has brought his beautiful daughter into the House of Representatives, should be entitled to expect that each child's wellbeing and comfort is provided for, including appropriate opportunities to meet each child's need for sleep, rest and relaxation. Parents should have comfort that effective illness and injury management and hygiene practices are being promoted and implemented, and that healthy eating and physical activity are promoted and appropriate for each child. Parents should also have comfort that in every second of every day reasonable precautions and adequate supervision are in place to ensure children are protected from harm and hazards, and that plans to effectively manage incidents and emergencies are developed in consultation with the relevant authorities and then practised and implemented. Parents are also entitled to expect that centre management, educators and staff are aware of their roles and responsibilities regarding child safety, including the need to identify and respond to every child at risk of abuse or neglect. Parents should expect this. Providers should provide this, and 95 per cent do, but we need to lift that to 100 per cent, because that is what parents are entitled to expect and that is what children deserve.

We know that threats to cut off funding work. The Department of Education has taken compliance action against 119 centres, with just under half able to quickly and effectively lift their approach to meet the relevant standards. The threat of cuts to funding works, but it's not just a threat, because this government will act and has, in fact, cut off funding to a service. This government will follow through, and it will act when quality standards regarding a child's health and safety are not being met.

The powers instilled in the Department of Education by this bill to make unannounced visits to childcare centres also mean that services not meeting the quality standards will be exposed and will have their funding cut. Since November last year, Australian government authorised officers have conducted more than 1,300 unannounced visits to providers across the country.

Early childhood educators do some of our most important work, but it's not enough to just say this. The Albanese Labor government has not just said this. It has acted. This bill acknowledges the value we must place on early childhood educators, the value we must place on families who use their services and the value we must always place on children. Without the bill, workers would be at risk of reduced pay, families would be at risk of substantially higher out-of-pocket fees, and children would be at risk of care that is not of the highest quality. This bill is action. This bill puts our words into action, and I commend the bill to the House.

I'm pleased to speak in support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. This morning, I looked at the list of speakers on this particular bill. I know it's got 'wage justice' in there, but, as at this morning, there was one crossbencher and 41 members of the Labor Party speaking on this bill and not one single Liberal or National Party person listed to speak on the bill today. I hoped there could be some sort of Damascus Road conversion experience opposite. I know the Liberal and National parties aren't real good on wage justice when it comes to industrial relations, but I thought, after question time today, there might be some change on this particular bill. At 3.40 pm this afternoon, there were 37 Labor people speaking on this particular bill but not one Liberal or National Party person at all speaking on this bill. I think the title of bill might say something about it—wage justice. That's what this bill is about.

The Liberal and National parties, next time they go to a child care, an early childcare centre or something like that or talk about that—it should be very interesting conversations that they might have with the staff at that particular centre, because none of them bothered to speak on the bill in the House of Representatives. I'll be interested to see how they vote in relation to it.

There are a lot of priorities. It says much about those opposite in terms of their priorities. On this side, we know every parent wants a great early education for their child, and we know that quality early learning starts with something pretty simple: valuing and supporting the people who provide that education for our young people. For years, low wages made it hard to attract and keep these educators. We can't just say we support them; we actually have to do practical things to support them. That's why the Albanese government is locking in a 15 per cent pay rise through this legislation. We're helping build and retain a stable, dedicated workforce for our children, and our children deserve it. We know a quality workforce is a foundation of quality and safety in early learning. It's about recognising the incredible work that early educators do in giving our kids the best start in life. It's part of our plan to build a stronger early education system for families across Australia, including in my community.

The Albanese government has introduced this bill to lock in a 15 per cent pay rise for early educators. Coalition members—the Liberal and National parties—don't like the concept of wage rises; they just don't. Wage justice is not something they really like. We want to strengthen the safety requirements for services, but we want to make sure that we can lock in pay rises for these much-valued workers who do great work.

The bill amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024 and credits the special account with $3.6 billion, extending the act's sunset date from 30 June to 2029 to 31 December 2029. This special account is used to administer the early childhood education and care worker retention payment grant to early education providers to fund higher wages for eligible workers. Every day, early educators help kids learn, grow and get ready for school. It's one of the most important jobs in our country, and they deserve every cent they get.

When we were first elected, the workforce in this sector had been undervalued and underpaid for far too long. Early educators were leaving the job they loved in droves. Something had to be done to turn it around. Fortunately, that's now changing because of the 15 per cent pay rise the government delivered just over two years ago. It's a win-win that has worked to bring more people into the early education workforce, and it keeps costs down for families at the same time, helping with cost of living.

It turns out that, if you pay people more, more people want to do the job. Who knew that was something that we should think? The Liberal and National parties should understand that, but they don't seem to get it. The amendment locks in that funding. When combined with our support for minimum wage rises, this means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early-childhood teachers compared to December 2024 when the government first implemented the pay rise. Over 80 per cent of eligible services are now receiving a payment, and, since the pay rise was announced, there are now 20,000 more early educators in the sector and job vacancies have decreased by over 30 per cent.

At Australia's largest childcare provider, Goodstart Early Learning, the use of agency staff decreased by 69 per cent in the first year of the program. There are a number of Goodstart centres in my electorate of Blair, and it's great to get around and visit a number of these. I visited centres everywhere from Collingwood Park to Brassall and Lowood in recent months. For example, I dropped into Goodstart Early Learning during Early Learning Matters Week last month to speak to the staff and read books to the children. It was great to see the kids playing, learning, thriving and being supported by these dedicated early educators.

I heard from educators about the difference our pay rise is making. They tell me it's helping them stay in the jobs they love, and it's also providing certainty and stability for the kids they care for. In that way, it's helping to build and retain the stable, dedicated workforce that these children deserve. Importantly, the funding will continue to be tied to commitment from services receiving the payment to limit fee increases for parents, and we're making sure that workers can be paid fairly without the cost being passed on to families.

In fact, since we announced the pay rise, fees at centres receiving the payment have grown at about half the rate of those that don't. Going forward, the average family will save about $1,500 over the next couple of years, and this is really important in my electorate, which is one of the fastest-growing and youngest regions in the country. It's where many people come to buy their first homes and start their families, and that's a welcome part of our community.

These savings will make a big difference when it comes to helping with the cost of living. We've not only done that. Over the last year, working with the states and territories, we've done a lot to strengthen safety in early education and care. We put in place a law that requires early childhood education and care services to meet the national safety standards as a condition of payment. As the previous speaker said, over 95 per cent of early learning centres are meeting the safety standard, more than ever. We want that number to be even higher—to reach 100 per cent. From July 2027, if services don't meet the National Quality Standard when it comes to safety, their funding will be cut or suspended. This will help to make sure safety and quality in early education, which is what I think our country needs, what parents expect and what our kids deserve. It means that, by law, if you want a pay rise, you need to meet the national safety standards.

We need to make sure that we pass this legislation by the end of the September sitting period to ensure that there are sufficient funds in the special account to continue funding higher wages through the worker retention payment, so we call on the parliament to do the right thing. I'll be really interested to see how the Liberal and National Party members vote in relation to this bill.

This bill and the policy were subject to extensive consultation. Key early education stakeholders, including providers, educators, unions and advocacy groups, have all been extensively engaged on the worker retention payment grant program. Peak bodies, providers and parent representative groups are advocating for stronger wage funding to be extended, and they are very supportive of the government's commitment. I might add that stakeholders are also supportive of the new quality and safety conditions.

I said before that this wage rise is part of our plan to build a higher quality, more affordable system in terms of early education. That's why I was very proud, back in April, that the Minister for Early Childhood Education, along with the Queensland minister for education, announced $9 million to deliver an early learning service in Rosewood, a country town in my electorate, to improve access to quality early education in this very fast growing region. The new service will be built at Rosewood State School to help local families avoid the dreaded double-drop-off in the morning and help children smoothly transition to school. This $9 million investment will mean more families in the local area will be able to access early learning close to home, and more children can start school ready to go and ready to learn. The new centre is expected to be completed by the end of 2028 and will support the creation of 75 early childhood education and care places.

This is part of a joint federal and state government partnership to deliver five new and expanded not-for-profit early learning centres across outer suburban and regional Queensland. It's part of our commitment of $44.9 million, through the $1 billion Building Early Education Fund, to build new childhood education and care services not just at Rosewood but in other locations around the state.

The $1 billion Building Early Education Fund provides capital funding to build or expand early learning services in areas of need, including regional and outer suburban communities like mine, helping families access quality early learning close to home. That will make a big difference in Rosewood. These investments will support workforce participation and strengthen regional communities and growing country towns like Rosewood to help more children get a better start in life. In addition, the Queensland government will provide funding in these services to expand their free kindy program—a legacy of the former state Labor government—which is delivering improved access in regional communities and outer suburbs. This commitment in my electorate builds on our strong record of delivery. Our three-day guarantee means that every child who needs it can access three days of subsidised early learning a week, no matter where they come from or what their parents do.

As I referred to before, we've introduced the $1 billion Building Early Education Fund to build and expand early learning services. This is also helping deliver places for families in my fast-growing region. We believe strongly that where you grow up shouldn't determine where you can access early education. It's quite literally an important building block of our plan for universal early childhood education. These initiatives build on Labor's cheaper child care policy from our first term in government, which has already helped around 9,000 families in my electorate save thousands of dollars on childcare fees to help with the cost of living. This has been a real game changer for families in my community.

I want to thank the Minister for Education for bringing forward this important legislation and for doing good work to deliver on Labor's early education and broader education agenda. Again, I want to thank the Minister for Early Childhood Education for her passion and commitment to our early education and to improving access to quality early learning across the country, including in my community, and for visiting not just Collingwood Park but also Rosewood, where we made that announcement. The bill confirms the government's commitments to supporting higher wages in a historically undervalued, female dominated care sector. The measure supports cost-of-living relief for families, limiting fee increases in early learning centres as a condition of grant funding. It complements a range of action the government is taking to strengthen safety and quality in early childhood education and care.

At the end of the day, helping our kids grow and learn is one of the most important jobs in the country, and that's why we're giving childcare workers a 15 per cent pay rise. It means that since 2024 a typical full-time educator has been taking home $255 more per week. That's a big help for any family. We're making sure those centres can't pass on those costs, so fees will stay down for families, because every child deserves the best start and every worker deserves fair pay and good conditions. It's all part of our plan to build a higher quality and more affordable system so all children can access the benefits of early learning. I commend the bill to the House.

I support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026, and the reason I support it is that anything that boosts the wages and incomes of early childhood education and care workers is a good thing. Historically, I don't think as a country we have valued the work of our early childhood educators enough. I think they have been underpaid for too long.

Our early childhood education workforce performs vital work for our country and our communities. When you think about it, one of the most important jobs that you can have is giving kids a great start in life. Being an early childhood educator is a very high calling, and we need to be paying our early childhood educators accordingly. They haven't been paid enough in the past. We haven't valued them enough in the past for the work that they do.

I often go into our early childhood education centres, and I see the wonderful things that are happening there. It's one of those jobs where you have to be 'on' all the time. There is no rest. You have to be alert. You have to be attentive. Our early childhood educators perform such an important role in our communities that we need to not only thank them but pay them accordingly what they are worth.

I was recently at Circle Early Learning in Bathurst for Early Learning Matters Week, and we had a great catch up there with the staff and the kids. Katherine Wilson is a director and founder of Circle Early Learning, and she is a leader in early childhood education in the Central West. In fact, she is the founder of the Central West Early Childhood Awards. We were going through some of the issues, besides working with some with some dough, playing some games with the kids, making some sculptures and making some ice creams. We also went through some serious issues that needed to be discussed with respect to early childhood education, and they included issues such as staff retention, with better pay and lighter workloads to stop high staff turnover; mental health, with more resources and support for both children and staff facing stress and trauma; training, with stronger safety training and professional learning programs for all educators; safety and regulation, with national oversight, better tracking of staff history across state lines using national registers; and facility monitoring, with clearer rules and trials for safety equipment like security cameras in centres et cetera. These are all issues that are on the minds of parents and our early childhood educators and leaders.

I just want to thank everyone across the Central West of New South Wales who is working in early childhood education and let you know how much we appreciate everything that you do. It can be a difficult and, no doubt, stressful job at times, but it is absolutely vital that your work continues. Katherine Wilson, as I have said, is a true leader and an inspirational leader in early childhood education in the Central West. When we were at the Bathurst Circle Early Learning Centre, I also caught up with Cheree Powell, who is the centre lead, and some of the wonderful staff members who work there, like Tabitha Austin, Anila Kendra, Angelina Adams, Brooke Common, Bellanna Taylor and Tamsyn McGrath. It was terrific to see firsthand the really positive impact that they are making on our young Australians. They are bringing on the promise of tomorrow, helping to build the future of regional Australia and our nation.

Whilst this scheme is not perfect, and there are some improvements that can be made to it in terms of the administration of this program and making it easier for everyone to understand, it is really important that we support our early childhood educators and give them the remuneration that they richly deserve. I think our community expects that they be paid for the vitally important work that they do. Whilst there is more work to be done in terms of reform in the sector and making it better for our early childhood educators and our centre operators, bills like this are really important. It is vital that our early childhood educators get the pay that they deserve.

As I've said, early childhood education is an extremely high calling, and we need to support our early childhood educators, not talk them down. We need to support them. They deserve the thanks of our communities for all of the work that they do. For those reasons, I strongly support this bill and I strongly support the work of our early childhood educators.

I rise today in support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. In doing so, I recognise the work that the Minister for Education and the Minister for Early Childhood Education, the Labor Party caucus and the labour movement generally, especially the United Workers Union, put into making this happen in the first place and have put into making sure that it gets extended. Of course, it's only going to be the labour movement and the Labor Party that bring about this sort of thing. It's something that we can achieve in a clear and measurable way. Fifteen per cent more in your back pocket is a lot of money, and it will make a clear and measurable difference in the lives of the people that it is going to impact.

In many ways, I think that we have underestimated the 'education' part of ECEC. I'm reminded of that Jesuit saying, 'Give me the boy until he is seven, and I'll give you the man.' Anybody that has sat in a class of hardened and cynical 16-year-olds, as I'm sure all of us have at one time in our lives, knows how much harder it is to get a message through to that cohort than to a bunch of keen, active and energetic three- and four-year-olds.

Among some of the things I've done was try to learn the Japanese language in my early 20s. It's something I came back to in my 40s. I spent thousands of hours doing that. I know that because I ended up taking notes on how much I did. Even after about 2½ thousand hours, I still didn't manage to learn how to have a fluent conversation in Japanese. You can look very jealously at how a child learns either their first language or a second language. There's clearly something going on there. Clearly, it's an opportunity that you miss if you don't get to those kids when they are at that age, because they learn so effortlessly. They don't even know that they're learning. I think that there are figures somewhere around there showing that every dollar that you spend on early childhood education returns $2 pretty quickly but that, over the lifetime, the dollar spent at that time on the three- or four-year-old will be worth $6 or $7. So at the heart of this, and at the heart of everything that this government does, there is a clear economic purpose, which sometimes makes me wonder why the opposition are opposed to these things. There is a clear economic purpose to early childhood education and care. There is a clear purpose to providing it in the first place, and there is a clear economic purpose to making sure that the workers there are properly paid.

In fact, when I was doing a little bit of research for today's speech, I got a text message from Kylie in Norfolk Village, who said to me: 'Us educators are grateful that this has helped with the cost of living. We're feeling heard and appreciated for the work that we do, and we are finally getting recognised as the professionals that we are and not as babysitters like we've been seen in the past.' I think that, for too long in early childhood education and care, there hasn't been the focus that there should be on the 'education' part. I think now we are starting to see that there is a turnaround in that, not only in the language of the government but also in the language of the workers who are there at the coalface. For the first time ever, they are now beginning to be seen as the educators that they are—the stewards of these little kids.

However, I wouldn't say that that in any way diminishes the 'care' part of ECEC. When I think about how important child care is, I'm reminded of a constituent who I saw before Christmas last year, called Alex. Alex came into my office with her autistic child, four-year-old Hunter, and sat in my office desperate to get financial support—through the NDIS, as it happened—in order to pay for the specialised child care that Hunter needed. During our meeting, Hunter was climbing over Alex, biting her and pulling her hair. It was a challenge for Alex to sit there and have a conversation with me. That just made me think how hard it is for Alex from day to day. She needed that funding to get that child care, as she told me, in order to keep her job so that she could pay her rent, because, if she didn't pay her rent, she'd be sleeping in the car over Christmas with Hunter. And that's what happened. She didn't get the funding. Because she couldn't get into child care, she couldn't keep her job, she couldn't pay the rent and she spent Christmas sleeping in the car with her boy, Hunter, with all of the behavioural challenges that he has.

So it should not in any way diminish the importance of the care aspect of this and the central importance of it to our modern economy, because it is just a fact of life that you're doing it tough enough when you're a double-income family but, when you're a single-income family, life is almost impossible. There is almost no chance of owning a home or finding somewhere to rent. So, if you're a single-income family, that work is even more important. For a double-income family, it's important enough. Without the 'care' part of ECEC, that just wouldn't happen. I am 53 years old, and when I was growing up it just wasn't really a feature of our economy, but it is today, and it is important that we have the childcare component of it operating as well as it can and in as good-quality a way as it can as well.

Here we have this legislation, which builds on the work that we did to increase wages in the first place by locking in this 15 per cent wage rise for the next couple of years. It is something which sits at the very heart of the Labor mission: pay and conditions. There is really nothing more fundamental to the Labor Party than pay and conditions.

As to the childcare industry as a whole, a couple of people have given me some interesting facts which I think really highlight how vital it is that the government gets this right. I met the independent schools association and they told me that, across the whole of Australia, in the whole country, there is one high school that is for profit. Every other high school in Australia is either state run or is a not-for-profit, usually associated with a religious denomination. So there is one for-profit high school in the whole of Australia. Yet, in our early childhood sector, something like 80 per cent of operators are for profit. I don't really know quite how we got to this point, but here we are.

It just underlines the importance of the federal government being able to deliver the proper funding to look after wages and conditions in the proper way. What I mean by that is that, historically, it has been up to the shop floor to organise and to try and get the best deal that they can for their workforce, but always within the constraints of the business. In private enterprise, there is always a bit of an opportunity, I think, for the business to grow—but not in early childhood, because, if the ECEC workers tried to organise and to achieve a 15 per cent pay rise without any support and backing from the government, then those providers would just go out of business. So there is an absolute recognition of the vital role that the government plays, as to pay, in the ECEC sector. So we are backing our workers, and backing the union movement that has been involved in the ECEC sector—recognising that, ultimately, it takes a government to deliver that funding. And it is no surprise that it takes a Labor government to deliver it.

The final thing I'd say is that early childhood education is, as I say, central to the Labor mission. It is central to the Australian economy. But it is also a central passion of our prime minister, and, as he says, each thing that we do moves us along the path to universal early childhood education, which is what it should be. It is a Labor government, led by this prime minister with a passion for ECEC, that is taking us down that path.

I think one of the first things that the Prime Minister talked about as opposition leader was cheaper child care—making child care cheaper for something like 1.2 million Australian workers. We delivered on that promise, and we delivered on it in spades. We have saved the average family something like $11,000 as a result of that policy. So we've been focused on making child care cheaper.

We have been focused also on making sure that the services exist, in areas where they don't operate. The government has a policy, which is being developed, to step in and provide those services—ideally, to co-locate them at a primary school, because, if a parent is dropping one child at a primary school and then having to drop off another child across the other side of a suburb or across the other side of a city, it becomes utterly impractical for that parent. The idea of co-locating them at primary schools, though it shouldn't be, is a revolutionary idea, apparently! Again, it has taken this government to do it.

The third thing that this latest legislation does is to lock in the 15 per cent pay rise, because this 15 per cent pay rise is not only a support for the cost of living for the workers. It is about attracting workers to an industry that was struggling to find workers, which was lower paid than a lot of the easier jobs out there. It is also being used to lock in lower fees, and those fees are saving families something like $1,500 a year over the next two years. It is using a mechanism like this to ensure that, if the ECEC centres are going to be able to access this money, they're not going to be able to gouge the family extra fees. It is going to save those families something like $1,500 a year.

It is innovative mechanisms like this that, I think, tackle the immediate problem of cost of living, but it also sets up our economy for the future, with the recognition that women should have an equal place in our workplace, that we should be closing the gender gap and that we should be unleashing the productive capacity of everybody in our community that wants to make a contribution and be paid for that contribution. This is certainly not the end of the Labor story when it comes to early childhood education. It is also not the beginning of the story. It is something that takes us along that path to universal early childhood education, and it is something which this government will look back on in years to come and see as one of our greatest achievements. I commend this bill to the House.

Every single morning across this country—in our outer suburbs, across our major cities and throughout our regional and remote communities—thousands of early childhood educators open the doors to our early learning centres. They do not simply unlock rooms; they literally unlock potential. Every single day these educators help Australia's youngest citizens learn, grow, explore and build the foundational skills they need to thrive at school and at life.

For generations, there was an outdated, misguided perception in the country that early childhood education was merely childminding—a convenient holding pattern while parents went to work. But we know better. Science tells us that 90 per cent of brain development occurs in the first five years of a child's life. What an educator does when reading a book, when teaching emotional regulation, when guiding social interactions and when nurturing curiosity is nation-building work. It's one of the most vital, consequential jobs in Australia. And, for too long, governments treated that dedication as an excuse for poor pay—as with many other feminised caring professions, I might add. Our early childhood educators were being paid some of the lowest wages in the country despite carrying some of the greatest responsibilities, and in effect they were subsidising the system with their own financial security.

This government believes in the fundamental truth that, in all jobs, you should be fairly paid for your work. We remember when, a few short years ago, the early childhood education sector was facing a catastrophic workforce crisis. Qualified, passionate, experienced educators were walking away from the jobs that they loved not because they didn't care but because they simply couldn't afford to stay. They could not pay their rent. They could not meet the rising cost of groceries. They could earn more stocking supermarket shelves than shaping young minds. The consequences of that neglect have rippled through our entire economy and society.

Services were forced to delay expansion plans. Worse still, centres were closing rooms and capping enrolments because they physically could not find the staff to meet their statutory child-to-educator ratios. Parents who desperately wanted to return to work or to take an extra shift were told there was no place for their child.

Workforce retention and workforce stability are critical pillars of quality and safety in childhood development. A child does not thrive when they are met by a rotating door of unfamiliar faces each week. Children need consistency. They need stable, secure, trusting relationships with educators who will guide them. That's why, on 8 August 2024, the Albanese Labor government took decisive action. We announced that we would fund a historic 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers through the worker retention payment. The name says it all: the worker retention payment.

We made a promise to back our educators, and we delivered two years of proven success. There were sceptics when we introduced the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024. Critics questioned whether it would work. Today, the evidence is in: the policy hasn't just worked; it has fundamentally transformed the sector.

Since the worker retention payment was introduced in 2024, there are now around 20,000 more early childhood educators across our early learning centres. That's an increase of roughly eight per cent in our frontline educator workforce—20,000 workers. The job vacancy rate in the sector has plummeted by almost 31 per cent, and centres that were once desperate for staff are now building reliable, dedicated teams. The percentage of services forced to operate under a staffing waiver has also been cut by more than half, dropping dramatically from 8.9 per cent to just 4.3 per cent. Crucially, fees at centres receiving the worker retention payment grew at around half the rate of those centres that did not sign up.

The worker retention payment has achieved exactly what it was designed to do. It has rebuilt our early educator workforce, created stability for children and families and kept downward pressure on fees for hardworking Australian families. The purpose of this bill today is to lock in that progress. You do not build a world-class early learning system by going halfway towards fixing the problem and then walking away. Reform requires continuity, certainty and enduring commitment. That is why, on 14 June 2026, the Albanese government announced that we are locking in this funded pay rise of 15 per cent for another two years to 2028.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 gives direct legislative effect to that commitment. This bill amends the 2024 act in three vital ways: it credits the special account with an additional $3.6 billion to fund the wage extension; it extends the act's sunset date to 31 December 2029, guaranteeing stability for workers and providers over the years ahead; and it expands eligibility so that, for the first time, employees in all childcare subsidy approved services will be eligible for the payment. This ensures that no eligible early learning educator is left behind, regardless of the approved setting that they work in, be it centre based day care, outside school care, family day care or in-home care. More importantly, they are employees, not contractors.

What does this mean for educators and their families? Let's look at what this legislation means, in practical kitchen-table terms, for Australian educators. When we combine the worker retention payment with this government's persistent support for minimum and award wage rises before the Fair Work Commission, the outcome is substantial. A typical full-time early childhood educator is now earning $255 more per week than they were in December 2024, and, for qualified early childhood teachers, that figure rises to $410 more per week. That is not spare change. That is between $13,000 to over $21,000 extra a year in take-home pay. It's the difference between an educator dreading the monthly bills and having financial breathing space. It represents an overdue respect for a vital profession.

Let's examine what it means for Australian parents and families. Under this legislation, funding continues to be strictly tied to fee-restraint commitment. Services receiving this public investment must agree to a limit fee increase for parents. Because of this requirement, our modelling shows that this funding extension will save the average Australian family around $1,500 over the next two years. At a time when household budgets are under real pressure, this bill delivers a genuine double dividend. It provides direct cost-of-living relief to parents while securing high-quality early learning and care for their children.

Fairness for educators must walk hand in hand with absolute safety and quality for children. Parents place their most precious treasures—their babies, their toddlers and their young children—into the care of our early learning and education centres every day. When they walk out that door to go to work or study, they must have total unshakeable confidence that their children are safe, protected and nurtured. This bill introduces a significant forward looking reform. It establishes a new object and condition of funding through the wage justice special account.

From July 2027, this bill empowers the Commonwealth to cut or suspend wage justice funding to any service that fails to meet the National Quality Standard when it comes to child safety. Specifically, services will be strictly required to meet quality area 2 under the National Quality Standard, which governs children's health and safety, including adequate supervision, nutrition, hygiene and emergency preparedness. Currently, around 95 per cent of our services across Australia do meet this standard, and the vast majority of providers do an exceptional job day in, day out, but, when it comes to the safety of Australian children, 95 per cent is not enough. We want to see that number higher. We want it to be 100 per cent—100 per cent compliance with basic health and safety benchmarks. Public funding must reflect public values. If a provider is taking taxpayer funds to subsidise wages, they must meet their fundamental, non-negotiable obligation to protect the health, wellbeing and safety of every child under their roof.

In conclusion, this bill is about the kind of country we want Australia to be. Do we want an Australia where the people who shape the minds and futures of our youngest generations are undervalued, underpaid and burning out? No. We want an Australia that values early educators as the nation builders that they are, where early learning is accessible, affordable for families, of the highest safety standard and built upon a strong, stable and fairly paid workforce. The Albanese Labor government is delivering just that. We promised wage justice, and we're delivering it. We saw the tangible benefits—20,000 more workers, vacancies down by a third, fee growth halved, and room closures averted. Now, with this extra $3.6 billion extension, we are locking in those gains to 2029, lifting pay up by up to $410 a week, putting $1,500 back in the pockets of families, expanding coverage across all CCS approved services and raising the bar for childhood safety across this nation.

I want to commend the work of the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Senator the Hon. Dr Jess Walsh, the Labor caucus and the mighty United Workers Union, who we have listened to. It shows that we have listened and heard, and we appreciate, recognise and value the work of early educators. I'm pleased to say that, as part of the whole package of reform around this area, a new ECEC centre will be built in my electorate, collocated at the Greenmount Primary School, funded by the federal government, built by the state government and to be tendered out to a not-for-profit to run it. Parents appreciate the collocation of these early childhood education and care centres at primary schools, and that's exactly what we're delivering. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise today in support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 because, every day, early educators across this country and in my community of Bennelong help children learn, grow and get ready to start their lifelong love of learning. Their job is one of the most important jobs in Australia. It's good for families, it's good for kids and it's good for our economy.

For too long, this job hasn't been paid to that level of importance. That's why, on 8 August 2024, the Albanese government announced that it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers. It's important that we reflect on what the system was like before that decision. Services across the country were delaying expansion plans, closing rooms and limiting enrolments because they could not find or retain enough staff to keep their doors open. Parents in my electorate of Bennelong told me the same story again and again—waitlists stretching for months, and rooms sitting empty because there weren't enough educators to look after the many children who wanted a place.

The 2024 scheme was really important because it started to reverse those trends and give workers the pay that they deserved, but it's important to note that the 2024 scheme was never designed to be permanent. It was established as an interim measure while the Fair Work Commission worked through its review of gender based undervaluation in a sector staffed overwhelmingly by women, and while the government considered what a longer term funding model should look like. Both of those pieces of work are ongoing.

Early childhood education and care sits alongside aged care and disability support as sectors where decades of undervaluing predominantly female workforces left wages well below what the skill and responsibility of that work actually warranted. The Productivity Commission, the ACCC and Jobs and Skills Australia all separately identified low wages as a central driver of the workforce shortages that were crippling the sector before this payment came into force from 8 August after that announcement. The Fair Work Commission's review has since progressed, and this bill is the next step the government is taking in response. We are extending the funding rather than allowing it to lapse while those longer term structural questions continue to be worked through.

Workforce retention in this sector matters for more than rosters and staffing headaches. Stability in the workforce is central to quality and safety in early learning, because children thrive when they see familiar faces and experienced ones. Educators do their best work when they're not constantly training up a replacement for the colleague who left last month for a better paying job elsewhere. The numbers since that worker retention payment was announced in 2024 tell a clear story. There are around 20,000 more early childhood education and care workers in the sector today. That's an increase of about eight per cent.

Job vacancies in the sector have fallen by almost 31 per cent, and the share of services operating under a staffing waiver, meaning that they did not have enough qualified staff to meet ratios, has dropped from 8.9 per cent way down to 4.3 per cent. Importantly, fees at centres that signed up to the payment have grown at around half the rate of centres which did not sign up to the payment. That last point deserves attention because it shows that this policy has kept skilled, experienced educators in our sector and has helped keep costs down for families who rely on early education and care.

Fast forward to 14 June 2026, and we did what we had to do. We announced that we would lock in this pay rise for a further period to protect and build on those gains, rather than let a temporary scheme expire and leave families guessing. The funding extension in this bill will save the average family around $1,500 in care costs over the next two years. The bill amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024 and adds an additional $3.6 billion into that special account to fund the retention payment. It extends the retention payment itself, which was otherwise due to expire in November this year, through to 30 June 2028. And it extends the sunset date of the special account that administers these grants out to 31 December 2029. That's essential to give providers, educators and families a longer runway to plan around rather than face another cliff edge in a matter of months.

Members opposite have asked what happens when this funding eventually ends. That's a fair question to ask of what is, by design, a temporary scheme. But the answer is not that wage obligations disappear when the grant does. Educators who are now being paid fairly expect that to continue, and providers who have absorbed these wage increases into their operating models know that walking them back is not a serious option. At the current average hourly fee, a family paying for 50 hours of care a week across 50 weeks of the year is already looking at something in the order of $36,000 before subsidies, and providers know full well that trying to claw back educator wages to manage costs would simply push more of that burden onto families. Extending this funding is how the government avoids those extra payments going onto families before the underlying policy settings, including the important work that the Fair Work Commission continues to do, are fully resolved. The government's judgement has been that this payment should continue through the employment relationships that carry award obligations and entitlements, because that is how the wage floor that this bill protects is enforced.

When this wage funding is combined with the government's broader support for minimum wage rises, a typical full-time educator will be $255 better off per week, and an early childhood teacher will be $410 better off per week compared to when this first pay rise came into force. They are life-changing amounts. It has meant the retention of these important, trained and well-loved educators in our workforce. Importantly, this second round of temporary funding comes with a few extra strings attached. The funding under this bill continues to be tied to the condition that services have to limit fee increases for families. That matters because a wage rise for educators shouldn't come at the expense of fee increases for parents already managing cost-of-living pressures. For the first time, this bill extends eligibility to employees in every childcare subsidy approved service, closing a gap that had left some educators out of a pay rise that their colleagues down the road were already receiving. That is a good reform.

Across my community in Bennelong, 1,330 childcare services are receiving support for the pay rise, and 1,300 early childhood educators and teachers are directly benefiting from it. Those are early childhood educators I've met in Eastwood, Ryde and Gladesville. I was out at Lane Cove Goodstart Early Learning the other day, and they were telling me how this retention payment, now to be extended by the passage of this bill, has really helped the centre retain their trained staff and attract more young workers to the sector. Coupled with our reforms in fee-free TAFE, we're seeing more people choose early childhood education as a profession and see a career in there, thanks to this pay rise. I've sat with centre directors in my electorate who've told me plainly that, before this payment, they were losing qualified staff to retail and hospitality jobs that were paying more for less responsibility. Lacking a stable workforce is not a problem any government should accept in a sector this important, and it's not one that families should be left to absorb through higher fees or fewer workplaces.

It's important to note that this bill also broadens the wage justice special account to introduce a new object and a new condition of funding, tying continued support more directly to quality and safety outcomes rather than wages alone. From July 27, services that do not meet the National Quality Standard when it comes to safety may have their funding cut or suspended. Services will be required to meet quality area 2, which covers childrens health and safety under the National Quality Standard, as a condition of receiving this payment. It's important to note that around 95 per cent of services already meet that standard, but enshrining those conditions in this bill is about making sure that our remaining services catch up and sending a message to existing providers to not let their standards drop. Every family in Bennelong and every family across this country deserves confidence that, wherever they drop their child off, that child will be safe and looked after.

Taken together with related state and territory investment, this represents around half a billion dollars going specifically into strengthening quality and safety across the sector, on top of the wage funding itself. Education ministers have also agreed to explore establishing an early education and care commission to keep building on this work over the longer term and giving the sector a clearer regulatory home than it has had until now.

I recognise that some members have raised concern about the administrative burden that these place on small and medium sized providers, and those concerns are worth taking seriously rather than dismissing them. Compliance costs are real, and a family or day-care operator in my electorate running a handful of places out of a home service doesn't have the same back office as a large corporate operator with dozens of centres. The department needs to keep working with smaller providers so that any requirements don't become a reason for these centres to close their doors, but the work is ongoing, and it's important that this parliament backs it.

The alternative to this bill is that this payment lapses, and it leaves workers short changed and centres under pressure. It is good that the coalition has indicated that it will support the continuation of the worker retention payment, and I, for one, welcome that. Certainty for the sector should not depend on which side of the chamber happens to be in government.

This bill asks this House to do something pretty straight forward. It asks us to keep a promise we made to educators in 2024 to extend the certainty they were given and to back it with the funding needed to make certainty real until the end of 2029 when the Productivity Commission and others hopefully finish their work. It asks us to keep faith with families in in Bennelong and across Australia who are counting on affordable, high-quality early learning to help them stay in work and help their children get the best possible start. Importantly, it asks us to hold every service, without exception, to a standard of safety that our youngest and most vulnerable Australians are entitled to expect. I commend this bill to the House.

On 17 June, I was incredibly proud to welcome the Prime Minister, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Early Childhood Education to Goodstart Early Learning in Hampton Park, which is right in the heart of my electorate, to announce that the Albanese Labor government is delivering a further $3.6 billion over two years to secure the historic 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators. It was fitting that such a significant national announcement was made in Holt because our community shows exactly why this investment matters so deeply. Holt is one of the youngest and fastest growing electorates in the country. Almost one in four people in our community is under the age of 14.

Across Clyde, Clyde North, Cranbourne, Hampton Park, Narre South and Tooradin, we see the Australian dream in motion. New homes are going up, and young families are putting their roots down. But those parents are also juggling work, school drop-offs, bills and everything else life throws at them. For these families, reliable and affordable early learning is not a luxury; it is absolutely essential. More than 1,600 early educators call Holt home. They are the backbone of our local communities. They support thousands of local children and by extension thousands of local families, which allows parents to stay in the workforce and contribute to our national economy. I want every single one of those 1,600 educators to know that this government sees your work. We are backing you not just with warm words but with real structural and lasting reform.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 delivers on the commitment we made that morning in Hampton Park. It is built on three simple, non-negotiable pillars: delivering fair pay for our educators, keeping fee increases down for families and making early learning safer for every single child.

As a new mum and a working mum, this is deeply personal to me. Like parents across Australia, I know what it means to place your child in someone else's care. You are trusting that person with the most precious part of your life. You want your child to be safe and happy. You want them to learn, make friends and grow in confidence. That profound trust is carried by our early childhood educators every single day. They welcome a nervous child in the morning. They comfort them when they miss their mum or dad. They help them to learn, share, speak up, solve problems and believe in themselves. This is not babysitting; it is early education. It is highly skilled, demanding and incredibly important work. Early learning is where confidence begins, language grows, curiosity is encouraged and the foundations for a lifetime are laid.

Our economy could not function without these educators, and they deserve to be paid fairly. Yet for far too long they have not been. This is a workforce made up overwhelmingly by women, and for too long their care, skill and expertise were profoundly undervalued. Love for the job does not pay the rent. Dedication does not cover the grocery bill. And a thankyou, however sincere it is, is not a substitute for a fair wage. That is why the Albanese Labor government funded a 15 per cent wage increase through the worker retention payment.

When the worker retention payment was announced in August 2024, the sector had a serious staffing problem. Incredible, passionate and highly trained educators were leaving jobs they loved. They could walk into an entry level retail or administrative job and earn significantly more while carrying only a fraction of the emotional and physical responsibility. Because of this, services could not find enough staff and centres were forced to delay expansion plans and cap enrolments. What does a staff shortage mean in real life? It can mean a room does not open, a child loses its place, a parent cannot take a shift or return to work, or a family is left scrambling with fewer choices and longer waitlists.

The pay rise has worked and the results speak for themselves. Let me tell you what that looks like on the ground. Twenty thousand more workers have joined the sector. Job vacancies have fallen by almost 31 per cent. For a parent in Holt those statistics are not simply numbers on a page. They mean that, when parents walk into their local centre, they can see familiar faces. They mean families are less likely to receive a stressed phone call at 6.30 in the morning telling them that a room cannot open because the centre is short-staffed. That workforce stability is the bedrock of quality and safety. Children do best when they have stable relationships. A familiar educator knows when a child needs a little more time at drop-off. They know that child's routines and personality and they're more likely to notice when something changes. Keeping good educators is good for learning, it is good for quality and it is good for safety.

But, as we correct this historic wage injustice, we also have made a very clear and deliberate choice. Educators absolutely deserve better pay, but families should not be handed the bill. By tying government funding to strict limits on fee increases, we are protecting household budgets. This extension is expected to save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. At a time when household budgets are incredibly tight, that is meaningful support. Together with minimum wage increases backed by this government, a typical full-time educator will be around $255 a week better off than they were in December 2024. An early childhood teacher will be around $410 a week better off. That can be the difference between an experienced educator staying in the sector and that person deciding they simply cannot afford to keep doing the work they love. Today, more than 215,000 educators across 11,600 centres are benefiting from this payment, including around 1,200 educators in my electorate of Holt. This bill opens the door wider. For the first time, workers across every type of childcare subsidy approved service can benefit if their service meets the grant rules. That includes family day care and in-home care. That matters in Holt. Not every family works from nine to five. A nurse starting an early shift, a tradie leaving home before sunrise and a parent whose child has additional needs may require a different kind of care. Those families count too, and so do the educators who support them. The limit on fee increases will also continue, helping ensure that this historic pay rise does not come at the expense of families.

But this bill does something else that matters deeply to every parent. It strengthens the link between public funding and child safety. From July 2027, centres receiving this wage funding will be required to meet quality area 2 of the National Quality Standard. That is the part of the standard dealing with children's health and safety. If a service does not meet that safety standard, its funding may be reduced or suspended. Equivalent conditions can apply to services, such as in-home care, that sit outside the National Quality Framework. Around 95 per cent of services already meet quality area 2. The great majority are doing the right thing, but parents will rightly ask: what about the other five per cent? When it comes to the safety of children, near enough is not good enough. The goal must be 'Every service, every child, every day'.

Recent shocking allegations in this sector have shaken families and educators alike. The overwhelming majority of educators are good, decent and dedicated people. They want strong rules, they want concerns acted on and they do not want the actions of a few to stain a profession built on care. This bill sends a clear message to providers: public money is not a blank cheque. If a service receives this funding, it must meet the safety standards that families have every right to expect. This measure is one part of a much wider safety effort.

The government is also working on a national early childhood worker register, mandatory child safety training, a ban on personal mobile phones in centres, more unannounced visits and a national CCTV trial. No single law on its own can keep every child safe. Safety depends on stronger rules, proper checks, trained staff and quick action. It also depends on stable teams who know the children in their care and feel confident speaking up when something is not right. This is why fair pay and safety belong in the same bill. Fair pay helps the service keep good people. Keeping good people builds experience, stability and trust. Strong funding conditions make providers answerable for the standard of care they deliver.

I would like to say thank you to the more than 1,600 early educators who live in Holt and to every educator across the country. Thank you for helping the next generation of Australians find their voice, build their confidence and take their very first steps into the wider world. You do not just support our children; you support entire families. You hold our local communities together and you are helping to build the future of our country.

I acknowledge the Minister for Education, the Hon. Jason Clare MP, and the Minister for Early Childhood Education, the Hon. Jess Walsh, for their leadership in bringing forward this legislation and for their continued commitment to delivering wage justice for educators, easing cost-of-living pressures for Australian families and ensuring the highest safety standards for our children. This is what good Labor governments should do. They should listen to workers, ease pressure on families, lift standards and ensure that every public dollar serves the public good. This bill backs our educators, it backs our families and, above all, it backs the future of Australia. I am so honoured to commend this bill to the House.

I rise to speak on the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. It's wage justice. It's not just a wage top-up. It's not a bonus. It's not stimulus. It's justice. For decades, the wages that early childhood educators have been earning have not reflected the value and importance of the work that they do: educating and caring for our littlest ones.

I still remember dropping my boys off at day care for the very first time. I remember the anxiety—their fears, my fears, their tears and my tears. We leave them nervously. We trust that they are in good, safe hands and that education and socialisation is good for them in the long term. Our early childhood education system is built on that belief and that trust. The thing that matters most in an early learning centre is not the flashiest new playground equipment, the colour of the paint on the walls or the toys—it's the people. Early childhood educators are professionals. They're qualified. They are trusted with the first five or so years of a child's life.

When we came to government, this sector was in crisis. Educators were leaving the job they loved, not because they didn't love it any more but because the wages they were being paid were so very low that they could no longer afford to stay. They couldn't justify remaining in the role they loved if they could earn more working in the local supermarket, in retail. In some centres the rate of workers leaving annually had hit 40 per cent. That's a 40 per cent turnover annually of the workforce walking out the door. Imagine how many other sectors would be brought to their knees by that figure. We know rooms closed and places were reduced because of a lack of staff. Now job vacancies have fallen by nearly 30 per cent as a result of wage increases. Educators are staying in the jobs they love and train for.

This bill amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024 to lock in the 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators that our government delivered almost two years ago. This is thanks in large part to the decades of advocacy from the mighty United Workers Union and their Big Steps campaign. They illustrated to the Fair Work Commission what we've always known: early childhood educators have been systemically undervalued and underpaid due to gender based inequality in our workforce.

This bill also commits $3.6 billion to the Early Childhood Education and Care Workers Special Account, the account used to make worker retention payment grants to providers so they can fund higher pay for eligible workers. That is the full amount of the Commonwealth commitment credited upfront so that grant agreements can keep being made without providers having to wonder each year whether the money will be there. Importantly, we tie wage increases to a strict cap on centre fee increases so parents aren't paying more.

This bill also makes child safety the centre of it all. To receive the funding, service providers must meet the national quality standard for children's health and safety and, if that condition is breached, funding can be cut. For alternative childcare models such as in-home care, this bill means that equivalent quality and safety conditions apply instead. This bill means that no child slips through the cracks when it comes to safety. We know about 95 per cent of providers meet that standard of child safety, but that number really should be 100 per cent. This bill aims to make that happen.

All up, the Albanese Labor government is investing an extra $226 million in child safety reforms, and we've delivered a number of other child safety reforms in early education. And we're seeing results already. Since those reforms were passed, 119 centres have been subject to compliance action. More than 1,300 unannounced visits to service providers have been conducted by government officers in the past 10 months to ensure centres are meeting the highest level of safety requirements. We have also established the National Early Childhood Worker Register so that somebody who should not be working with children cannot simply move to the next centre or the next state. We have made child safety training mandatory for everyone in a centre—not just the educators but everybody, whether it's your first day on the job or you're all the way up the chain as the CEO. We've also banned personal mobile phones in centres, and a national CCTV trial is under way in more than 300 centres.

By making funding the incentive, this bill puts child safety front and centre, where it belongs. If you want this funding for your staff, you meet the standard for our children—it's non-negotiable. And I know the mums and dads in Dickson would agree that that is how it should be.

More than 1,000 early childhood educators and care workers in my electorate of Dickson are now getting this vital pay rise—1,000 people who are, in the majority, women. I've met many of them while visiting early childcare centres right across the electorate of Dickson over eight years of campaigning, and I also stood with them while they were waving their placards in their Big Steps campaign, begging for higher wages so they could stay in the jobs that they love.

All of the women in these feminised industries have historically been paid a lot less than men in comparable male dominated occupations. Workers in highly feminised occupations experience lower earnings. We know that—particularly in care sectors that have long been undervalued despite their importance to our economy, our communities and our loved ones. Fair wages for early childhood educators recognises the value of care work. It addresses historical undervaluation and helps close the gender pay gap.

Almost two years ago, this government delivered a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators. When you look at this, combined with our recent increase to the minimum wage, that means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers compared to what their income looked like in December 2024. That is the difference between a much-loved educator staying in the job they love and going and getting a job in retail to pay the bills. Pay rises are working. More than 215,000 educators at more than 11,600 centres across the country are feeling the benefits in real time. There are now 20,000 more early childhood educators working than before we made that decision. Job vacancies, importantly, are down 31 per cent. The revolving door of early childhood educators in these centres has finally paused.

It turns out that if you pay people what the job is worth, more people actually want to do the job. When you pay people what the job is worth, they stay. They stay in their communities. They stay where their families are. They stay in jobs that they love. Importantly, the children get to keep the early childhood educators that they love. These wage rises also result in a lot of money going back into our local economy. When our early childhood educators are getting paid properly, they're also spending that in our local businesses.

For my community, 1,000 workers getting paid a fair wage actually means, importantly, centres keeping their staff. It means our little ones will be able to keep the educators they love. It means a parent in my electorate can go back to work on the Wednesday because the centre has the staff to open the room. I heard many stories prior to the pay rise in which parents would arrive at an early childhood education centre and be told that, unfortunately, they'd had to close the room because staff had called in sick or they didn't have enough staff, and then they had to scramble to have a sick day or a carers' day. It was chaos. It also means a young person finishing school in Dickson can look at early childhood education and see a career, not a stopgap. In Queensland, the two most popular free TAFE courses are nursing and early childhood education.

This government values early childhood educators and education, but not all of us in this place feel the same. I was absolutely appalled to hear the comments of Senator Hanson from One Nation in her Press Club address. Why do we now expect these childcare centres to have people with some sort of degree to look after their child? Well, as a parent, we want these people who are looking after our little ones to be trained and to be competent in the work that they are doing in looking after our kids. We put those educators in charge of our kids so that they can have the best start at life. We must value them. We are finally offering them a wage that says, 'Stay.' That is what this bill is about—a person in a room in Dickson who has decided to stay in a job they love because they're being paid appropriately.

This bill isn't just for workers; it's also for families. To receive this funding, a service must limit its fee increases. We don't want parents having to pick up the bill for our early childhood educators being paid appropriately.

The advice of the education department is that, if this legislation does not pass, childcare fees could rise by around 17 per cent, and I urge all members in this House to pass this bill. It's incredibly important for young families and for our kids. For families in Dickson juggling a mortgage, insurance, groceries and day-to-day cost of living, 17 per cent is a lot. That is a decision about whether they can actually afford early childcare education at all. What this bill means is that the average family will save about $1,500 over the next two years. That's a lot of money for a young family—$1,500 over two years. This bill gets a lot done in one go: workers are paid more, parents pay less, and children are safer. Achieving all three at once is what good policy looks like. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise today in strong support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. This bill is about something very simple. It's about valuing the people who educate and care for our youngest Australians, who educate and care for our kids. It's about supporting parents who rely on early childhood education and care so they can go to work. It's about strengthening the early childhood workforce. It's about economic growth, and, importantly, it's ensuring that every child who walks through the doors of an early learning centre does so safely, is supported and is properly cared for.

For too long in this country, we've spoken about the importance of early childhood educators while failing to properly recognise the importance they have in our society. We have asked these workers to take on enormous responsibility, and, every morning, parents across Brisbane and across Australia drop their kids at early learning centres, and they place an enormous amount of trust in those who care for them, the educators who work there. These educators comfort children when they're upset. They teach them to communicate. They help them learn to share, and they encourage curiosity. They support children as they develop their friendships, their confidence and their independence. They identify when a child may need additional developmental support, and they manage the allergies and the health conditions, what they eat and the nuts—everything—so that our children are safe. They also maintain safe environments, and they provide the foundations on which learning is built. This isn't babysitting. It is education. It is skilled work. We heard the member for Dickson mention, just earlier, One Nation's perspective, or at least the leader of One Nation's perspective, questioning why people who educate our young children and care for them in these centres need a qualification.

It really is enormously important work, yet, historically, the wages paid to many of the people doing this work simply haven't reflected that responsibility. When the Albanese Labor government came to office, the consequences were becoming increasingly obvious. Educators were leaving, services were struggling to find staff, rooms were unable to open, and parents were struggling to find places for their children. At some centres, workforce attrition had reached extraordinarily high levels. People weren't necessarily leaving because they didn't love the work; people were leaving because they couldn't afford to stay. That's why our government has stepped in, and that's why this Labor government has acted.

This Labor government delivered a historic 15 per cent wage increase for eligible early childhood education and care workers, and that decision has made a real difference. More than 215,000 educators across more than 11,600 services are now benefiting from that wage increase. When combined with the government's support for increases in the minimum wages, a typical full-time educator is now around $255 a week better off compared to December 2024. For early childhood educators, that figure is $410 a week. That's real money. It's money for groceries. It's money for electricity bills. It's money for clothes. It's money for books. It's money for rent and mortgages. It's money that recognises that someone who dedicates their working life to educating our children should be able to afford to build a life of their own.

Importantly, we are seeing evidence that this investment is working. Job vacancies in the sector have fallen around 31 per cent. Job applications have increased significantly in some areas, and there are around 20,000 more early childhood education and care workers in the sector. That matters enormously because workforce stability isn't just good for educators; it's good for our kids, and it's good for our families. Anyone who's had a child in early learning understands how important the relationships can become between an early childhood educator and their children. Children know their educators. They trust them. They look forward to seeing them. For a young child, particularly one attending care several days each week, the educator can become the most important and trusted adult in their lives next to their parents.

Constant workforce turnover disrupts these relationships. A stable workforce allows educators to get to know the children in their care. They understand their little personalities. They understand their routines. They recognise when that behaviour and what's normal for them changes. They know their families. That continuity helps create an environment where children can feel secure enough to learn, to explore and to develop. This is why wage justice and quality early childhood education are not separate issues. They are connected, and this bill recognises that connection. I want to acknowledge the United Workers Union, the delegates and the members who've spent more than a decade leading the Big Steps campaign and advocating for the recognition and fair remuneration that early childhood educators deserve.

We've committed an additional $3.6 billion over two years to continue supporting historic wage increases for this sector, and this bill gives effect to that commitment by crediting the wage justice special account and extending the operation of the legislation to 31 December 2029. The special account supports early childhood education and care worker retention payments, providing funding to eligible services so that higher wages can flow directly to eligible workers. Under this legislation, eligibility will be expanded. For the first time, workers in childcare subsidy approved services will be capable of benefiting from this funding where the service meets the relevant grant requirements, and that includes an important requirement that educators are engaged under a workplace instrument. Why does this matter? It matters because public money provided for higher wages should actually reach workers. This is taxpayers' money we are talking about. If the Commonwealth is investing billions of dollars to improve wages in early education to ensure more qualified workers are available to care for and teach our youngest children, Australians have every right to expect that funding will reach the educators it is intended to support. That's exactly what these safeguards are designed to achieve.

But the legislation isn't just about educators; it's also about families. One of the biggest challenges governments face when improving wages in a labour intensive sector like early childhood education is ensuring that the cost isn't simply passed straight through to parents. That's why the services receiving the worker retention payment are required to limit fee increases. That requirement is making a difference. In the first year of the program, fee increases at participating services were around half of those that had not signed up. This means something.

The government estimates that continuing these arrangements will save the average family about $1,500 over the next two years. Again, that is significant at a time when families are managing household budgets, cost-of-living pressures and increases in food costs, $1,500 goes a long way. Without the continuation of this support, the departmental advice indicates that childcare fees could increase by around 17 per cent, and we certainly do not want that to happen. This Labor government has made huge strides when it comes to helping support the provision of early childhood education to families across our country, and we don't need huge increases to start having doors closing and families walking away. Parents shouldn't have to choose between educators receiving a decent wage and affordable early childhood education.

There's another critical element of this legislation that deserves particular attention, and that is safety. Nothing is more important in early education and care than safety. Parents have an absolute right to expect that, when they leave their child at a centre or an early learning service, that child will be safe. There can be no qualification around that principle, no excuses, no shortcuts and no tolerance for providers that repeatedly fail to meet the appropriate safety standards.

This is why this legislation establishes a new object and condition of funding that places service quality and child safety at the heart of the wage justice special account. Services receiving this Commonwealth funding will be required to meet quality area 2 of the national quality standard, which relates specifically to children's health and safety. If a service doesn't meet the standard, its funding can be suspended or it can be cut. Around 95 per cent of services already meet the standard, and that's encouraging. But, when we're talking about the safety of children, we need 100 per cent. Our ambition needs to be higher. We should be working towards every service meeting the standard Australia expects. The legislation also enables equivalent conditions to apply to services outside the National Quality Framework, including in-home care services.

These measures form part of a much broader program of reform undertaken by this Labor government to strengthen safety across early childhood education centres. The Commonwealth now has the strongest power to act against operators that fail to meet quality standards or safety and compliance requirements. The department has already taken compliance action against almost 120 services that failed to meet safety standards for at least five years. And what happened when meaningful consequences were introduced? Services started responding. More than 50 of those services subsequently addressed longstanding issues and problems, and that demonstrates something important: regulation needs consequences. Standards mean very little if persistent failure to meet them carries no meaningful response.

Commonwealth officers have also conducted more than 1,300 unannounced visits across centres. States and territories have increased compliance activity. The National Early Childhood Worker Register has also been established. Mandatory child safety training has been introduced across the sector, and that training isn't restricted to educators on the floor. It extends through organisations, including senior executives and boards. More than 350,000 people have already undertaken foundation and child safety training. We've seen personal mobile phones being banned in centres. We see a national CCTV trial underway across more than 300 services, supported by expert advice, including from the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Centre for Child Protection and the National Office for Child Safety.

The Commonwealth is investing $226 million in child safety reforms, with states and territories committing another $270 million. Combined, our governments are investing around half a billion dollars to strengthen quality and safety across early childhood education and care. And this bill adds another important piece to that reform agenda. It establishes an important principle: if you receive Commonwealth funding, the Commonwealth has every right to expect appropriate standards in return. Taxpayers should not be subsidising persistent low performers, and they certainly should not subsidise services that fail to provide a safe environment for our children.

There is a broader economic argument for this legislation: early childhood education and care is essential economic infrastructure. When parents can't access reliable care, their ability to participate in the workforce falls, shifts get turned down, hours get reduced, people delay returning to work, businesses lose experienced workers and families lose income. This particularly affects women, who continue to carry a disproportionate share of caring responsibilities in Australian families. So, when we strengthen early childhood education, we are also strengthening workforce participation. When we help a childcare centre retain enough educators to keep its rooms open, there's an impact that goes far beyond that centre. It means a nurse at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in my electorate can take a shift, a teacher can return to a classroom, a small business can open its doors, a parent can work additional hours and a family can earn more income. That's why good early childhood education policy is good economic policy. It's good workforce policy, productivity policy and equality policy.

For generations, occupations dominated by women have too often been undervalued, and early education has been one of them. The historic attitude of seeing caring professions as requiring fewer skills, as has been said by others, because people don't really need that sort of care is just wrong. That attitude has contributed to lower wages across the sector. Labor rejects that approach. Our early childhood education centres develop the skills that our kids need as foundations in their early years—language skills, confidence, social skills, curiosity, emotional intelligence and a love of learning. Behind those outcomes are people who turn up to work every day as qualified childhood educators. They are the people who answer the endless questions and comfort our frightened children. Importantly, our government is backing them because we need a strong workforce and we need more affordable care for our young people.

It is hard to think of a more important job than that of looking after and educating our young people. Early childhood educators play such a critical role in the early development of our young ones. We know that this period is formative. It impacts how a child learns for many years to come. We also know that early childhood educators are persistent, patient and diligent workers. It is hard work and it is work that deserves to be rewarded. They deserve fair wages. When we first came to government, childhood educators were underpaid and they did not feel valued by the system they were giving so much to. They were leaving the sector en masse. Through consistent work and policy support from our government, this has now changed. The 15 per cent pay rise as well as an increase to the minimum wage are seeing a typical full-time educator earning $250 more per week. This has benefited more than 200,000 educators across the country. Job vacancies due to our 15 per cent increase are now down 31 per cent. There are now 20,000 more childcare workers doing critical work across the country.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 seeks to lock in this pay rise over the next two years through a $3.6 billion investment. We do this because we are the party of working people. Unlike the Liberal-National-One Nation parties, we believe in supporting our workers. We believe in fair wages for hard work. What this government also knows is that, without early childhood educators, mums and dads across the country cannot get to work. Early childhood education is fantastic for childhood development, but it is also important for working families.

We also know that this legislation will also help uplift our women. Women shoulder a huge amount of caring responsibility for our children. They also make up a majority of the early childhood workforce. I want to see our men stepping up in some of these metrics—and I know that this is a big issue, particularly in areas in my electorate and especially out in the bush—but I also acknowledge how important early childhood education is to our women. It is often the difference between returning to work and not returning.

That is why this piece of legislation is so important. It will ensure that the special account, which funds higher wages for workers, remains in place until 2029. All childcare subsidy approved services will be eligible for funding if they meet grant requirements. Part of meeting these requirements is ensuring that services limit fee increases. This is really important cost-of-living relief for our working families, who are already stretched thin. This measure will save families about $1,500 over the next two years. In my electorate of Lingiari, costs are usually even higher than in cities—and there are probably a lot of members from regional areas who could relate to that. If you live outside of our major capital cities, often the cost impact is greater. So all of the savings and subsidisation are certainly hugely welcomed in my electorate.

Another key measure in this legislation is around safety. To receive this funding, services are required to meet quality area 2, relating to children's health and safety, under the national quality standard. Parents expect—I know this from talking to many parents in my Lingiari electorate—that when they drop their children off and go to work, their children will be safe. And we all expect that is the case. Our government takes this extremely seriously, and we will use all measures available to ensure that our young ones are safe. We are beefing up our compliance actions, and we will—we already have—cut services off when they're not meeting our requirements.

While we take firm action on those who do the wrong thing, the vast majority of childcare centres do incredible work. In my electorate, we have brilliant and dedicated staff who give so much to our young ones. In our remote communities, many of these services are delivered by local organisations and by our regional councils. I have been working with some of these services to make sure that the national child safety requirements are met and delivered, and that our remote communities are engaged in this process.

In our bush communities, early childhood education is essential. It is often the first experience of children and families with the formal education system. I just want to talk about a program that is in the bush in the Northern Territory, and I want to acknowledge that, certainly, this program has continued under the CLP government. It was first established under a Labor government and continued under the Liberal government because it is an important program, and that program is called Families as First Teachers. This is a program that helps parents and carers support their children's learning and development.

The core elements of the FAFT program are parent capacity building, quality child and family centred learning, and community engagement. The Families as First Teachers program operates around 38 remote and urban early learning sites across the Northern Territory to support children from birth to five years old and their families. As I said, there are 38 operational program sites embedded within regional and remote Northern Territory communities. The program focuses on play based learning, storytelling and language development—which are really important, particularly for First Nations children where English is probably a second or third language. It also looks at building parents' confidence and skills to act as their child's primary educator. Using parents as an important conduit for the early development of those children is critical. There's cultural and community, with the program combining the local language of the community in which they're operating.

When we're talking about wage justice for early childhood educators—there are many Aboriginal educators that haven't been recognised or given a full-time wage. Through this bill and through the program that Minister Malarndirri McCarthy has brought in, the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program, we can finally see wage justice and also employment for Aboriginal workers. For a long time, for a lot of that work, there was no compensation or payment for the work that they were doing.

The FAFT program looks at engaging those Aboriginal workers so that the local language, cultural activities and learning-on-country concepts are combined in terms of building, making the young ones that are part of that program really strong in their identity and also making sure that their education pathway is one that can be enjoyed, engaging those families as part of that. All of the centres in the 38 locations across the Northern Territory are near or in all of the schools to give easy access to families connecting with government and non-government services that provide support, including early childhood education and development, health and wellbeing, family and parenting support, community and cultural engagement, and referrals to other services. Child and family centres support families and communities so every child can grow up safe, strong and healthy, and be kept safe with the best possible start in life.

In our bush communities, the importance of these early childhood education teams in these FaFT programs is essential because its often the first experience of children and families with the formal education system. That is critical to make sure that pathway is supported for that little one and for their families, and we can see a greater engagement as that child goes through from those early years to years 5 and 6. We see the decline in our education system where a lot of Aboriginal kids, particularly in remote communities who, as soon as they get to year 5, start to have some disengagement happening.

There are places like in eastern Arnhem Land—I acknowledge the Gumatj as well as Barker College. There are parts of my electorate that are now joining and doing these agreements with mainstream school systems to try and get better outcomes for young Aboriginal people. If we don't start at those early years, we know that we would fail. We know that people's experiences in early childhood shape their lives and their broader education journey. Being in early childhood education is hard work; being an educator is hard work. Doing it in a remote environment is even harder. When I go around my vast electorate, I take my hat off to every single teacher. They do it tough.

I remember talking to the member for Bass. She was a young educator in the community of Ramingining. If anyone knows the community of Ramingining in western Arnhem Land, it is tough. There are many young educators like the member for Bass that you've just got to sit down and admire, but we also have to support them and make sure that we can keep them in our communities. Once they go, that knowledge and the way they care for those communities is lost. Our remote staff go above and beyond to care for our little ones.

I've gone into schools in the bush where they have been in tears because they are stretched. Their resources are stretched, but they make it work. For me, locking in this pay rise for our workers will mean a huge amount to people who are giving so much to their work. I'm not saying that educators in our capital cities or our major towns aren't worthy. I think any educator who works in our school system deserves a pay rise, and they should be given that. I think about all of those dedicated workers because one of the key challenges that we face in our remote jurisdictions like the Northern Territory is a lack of early childhood services and recruiting a workforce that we can keep in there.

As I travel the Northern Territory as the member for Lingiari, I meet with many community members facing difficult and enduring challenges. Many of these problems are generational, and they are structural. We're seeing young people disenfranchised, we are seeing generational unemployment and we are seeing people lose hope. The most powerful tool that we have is our education system. That is one of the most powerful tools.

I'm one of 12 children, and I remember my father saying, 'I can't give youse much, but what I can give you is an education.' I and my 11 siblings will be forever grateful for that discipline—the push from my father to make sure that we went to school and got access to a quality education.

One of the things in my role as member for Lingiari is that I go around the electorate talking to young people, to try and get them engaged and back in a system that we need them to be in, because, without that education, their life is pretty meaningless. We need to give them hope that an education can turn their life around. I support this bill.

I rise today in strong support of the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. There are some jobs in this country that we have always said are important, and then there are some jobs that we have actually treated as important. For too long, early childhood education and care has fallen in the gap between those two things. We have told early educators that their work matters: that they're helping children learn and grow, preparing them for school and giving parents the confidence to go to work knowing their children are being cared for. Yet, for far too long, their pay packets have not reflected the importance of that work. This government believes that has to change. There is a simple principle at the heart of this bill. If we believe the work is valuable, then we should value the people doing it.

Every morning, across Australia, early educators walk through the doors of childcare centres and early learning services and take responsibility for something extraordinarily precious: our children. They help children learn, develop friendships, understand their emotions and discover the world around them. Little by little they help build the people those children will become. That is education. It is skilled work, and it is nation-building.

In my community of Petrie—from Redcliffe and Deception Bay to North Lakes, Mango Hill, Bald Hills and Bracken Ridge—thousands of parents begin their working day by entrusting their children to an early childhood educator. Importantly, there are more than 1,600 early childhood educators and care workers in the electorate of Petrie who will benefit from this. That is 1,600 local workers who are going to see a real difference in their household budgets because this government has decided that the importance of their work should be reflected in the wages they receive.

I know what this means locally because early learning services in my electorate have told me. Expeditions Early Learning Journey North Lakes do some amazing work in our community, which I saw firsthand when I visited them on an open day a few months ago. They reached out to my office about this pay rise and told us how much of a difference it will make to their workers. These are the educators that will benefit directly from this investment. They are not just numbers on a spreadsheet here in Canberra; they are people working in North Lakes, educating local children and supporting local families. When a local service contacts my office and tells us that this will make a difference to its workforce, that is what we should be listening to as a government. This is exactly why I fully support this bill and the hard work Minister Clare has done—not to get praise for it, but to make a substantive difference in the lives of some of the hardest-working people in our community.

I also want to acknowledge Sesame Lane, who have been major supporters of my Welcoming the Babies event in Petrie. Through that event, I've seen just how important strong early childhood education services are to young families in our community. Welcoming a new baby into a family is one of the most exciting moments in life, but every parent knows that it also brings enormous change. As those babies grow, services like Sesame Lane and the educators who work there become an important part in the lives of many local families. Those educators will also benefit from this pay rise.

That connection matters to me because, when we debate legislation in this place, it can be easy for everything to become abstract. We talk about billions of dollars, workforce figures and vacancy rates, but, when I think about this bill, I think about the families who are welcoming a new baby into our community. I think about the educators at places like Expeditions Early Learning Journey and Sesame Lane, who will teach and care for many of those children as they grow. This bill is about making sure those educators can keep doing the work that our community relies on.

I've also had the privilege of visiting some of the fantastic C&K services across Petrie, and those visits have reminded me just how special the work of early childhood education is. At C&K Aspley East Community Kindergarten, I had the chance to sit down with some children and read books together. Anyone who's ever read to a room full of children knows that it's pretty hard work to keep their attention, but seeing their enthusiasm, their questions and their excitement was a wonderful reminder of how important those early learning experiences are.

I also visited Griffin Early Learning, where I got to see the fantastic petting zoo they had organised for the children. Watching the kids interact with the animals and ask questions and learn through something that's simply fun showed exactly what great early childhood education can look like. At Griffin Early Learning, they also have some chickens, and the chickens have got the eggs, and the kids go collect the eggs, and then the eggs are gathered, and any of the families coming in to pick up their kids can take some eggs home. It just shows you how early childhood educators and their centres can actually become part of the community. I thought that was really special, and the goats were really cute as well.

At a C&K in North Lakes, I got to sit with the children during some activities. We sat in a circle and played some games, and, through the activities, they were so engaged, and that's truly a credit to the educators. As I was leaving, some of the kids, I would say, crash tackled me. About 15 of them crash tackled me into a big group hug saying goodbye, and that moment is something that I'll always cherish, and it's something I also still chuckle about. It was very fun.

Learning at that age happens through play, curiosity and new experiences, and it takes skilled educators to create those opportunities. These are the kinds of services we are talking about in this debate. They are places where children in Petrie are learning, growing and building confidence every day. The educators making those experiences possible deserve to be valued, and, importantly, they deserve to be paid fairly for the work that they do. Behind each of the more than 1,600 local workers who will benefit is a person paying rent or a mortgage, filling up their car, buying groceries and dealing with the same cost-of-living pressures as everyone else. It may be someone who absolutely loves the profession but has wondered whether they can actually afford to stay in it. For those workers, this debate is not theoretical. It is about their weekly pay packet and whether they can continue to do the work they love without sacrificing their own financial security.

For years, one of the great challenges facing the early childhood education and care sector has been attracting and retaining enough workers. Services across the country were struggling to find qualified educators and putting pressure on enrolments and on the workers who remained. We were asking highly skilled people to stay in a demanding profession while their wages failed to properly reflect the responsibility we had placed upon them.

The truth is loving your job does not pay the electricity bill. Commitment does not cover the rent, and dedication does not fill the shopping trolley. Nobody should have to choose between doing the work they deeply care about and being able to afford their own life. That is why, in August 2024, the Albanese Labor government announced that it would fund a historic 15 per cent wage increase for eligible early childhood education and care workers through the worker retention payment. That decision was about fairness, but it was also about recognising the practical problem and doing something about it. Since the payment was announced, there have been around 2,000 more people working in early childhood education and care, and job vacancies have fallen by almost 31 per cent, and services participating in the payment have seen fees grow at around half the rate of services that are not participating.

Those numbers tell an important story. More workers mean more educators available to teach and care for children. Fewer vacancies mean more stability for services and more certainty for parents. They also mean children are more likely to have continuity, which is so important in their early years. Children develop strong relationships with their educators. A familiar face in the morning can be the difference between a child feeling anxious and a child feeling safe. Parents rely on educators who understand their child's personality, their routines and where they might need extra support. That is why fair wages are not separate from the question of quality in early education; they are part of delivering it.

The evidence tells us that the worker retention payment is working, so this government is extending it for another two years and providing an additional $3.6 billion through the wage justice special account. When combined with the government's support for increases to minimum wages, the typical full-time early educator will be around $255 a week better off compared to December 2024. For an early childhood teacher, the difference will be around $410 a week.

For educators at places like Expeditions Early Learning, Sesame Lane and the amazing C&Ks around the electorate, and all the other fantastic services in our electorate, that additional money can make a substantial difference. It can mean groceries, petrol and an electricity bill, or being able to put something away for an unexpected expense. Most importantly, it gives people greater confidence that early childhood education can be a career they can afford to remain in.

It also sends an important message: we see you. We see the skills involved in your work. We understand the responsibility you carry and we recognise the contribution you make to Australian families every single day. The people educating the next generation deserve more than our thanks. They deserve decent wages and a government prepared to back them.

This policy also recognises the pressures on families. Services receiving the funding must limit their fee increases. The extension is expected to save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. For a young family in North Lakes, Deception Bay, Redcliffe or Bracken Ridge, $1,500 matters. These are families raising young children, paying rent or a mortgage, buying nappies and groceries, and balancing work and family responsibilities. We should not have to choose between fair wages for educators and affordability for families. We can deliver both. If we pay educators properly, we retain more educators. If we retain educators, services are more stable and children have more consistent relationships. If we place sensible conditions on government funding, families benefit as well.

There's another important part of this bill. When the Commonwealth invests billions of dollars into early childhood education and care, we also have a responsibility to make sure services meet the standards families expect. Above everything else, that means keeping children safe. From July 2027, services receiving funding through the wage justice special account will be required to meet quality area 2 of the National Quality Standard, relating directly to children's health and safety. Around 95 per cent of services already meet the standard, but, when we're talking about children's safety, we should be far more ambitious than 95 per cent.

Every parent I meet expects the same fundamental thing when they leave their child at early at an early learning service: they expect their child to come home safe. Whether that centre is in North Lakes, in Redcliffe or anywhere else in the country, parents are placing enormous trust in those services. Government has a responsibility to make sure that trust is backed by strong standards. This bill recognises that supporting educators and demanding high standards are not competing ideas. We can raise wages and raise standards at the same time. We can invest more public money while expecting greater accountability. A strong early childhood education system should respect its workforce, support families and put the safety and wellbeing of children at the centre of every decision.

There's also the broader issue of fairness. For generations, Australians have undervalued the work that has been traditionally performed by women, including early childhood education, nursing, aged care and community services. Those jobs require skill, patience, judgement, qualifications and enormous responsibility. Yet, too often, we have expected people's commitment to make up for wages that did not properly recognise those skills. That attitude has to change. Commitment is not a substitute for fair wages, and care should never be used as an excuse for low pay. A fair economy recognises value and rewards skill. The person educating a three-year-old is performing work of enormous consequence.

For me, one of the things I love most about being the member for Petrie is seeing how all the different parts of the community fit together. At Welcoming the Babies, we'll be celebrating some of the newest members of our community and their families. Organisations like Sesame Lane get behind events like this because they understand that supporting children means also supporting parents and building strong communities around them. Then, as those babies grow, educators step into their lives and become another part of that community of support.

That is what I think about when I talk about the more than 1,600 early childhood workers receiving the pay rise in Petrie. I think about the educators at Expeditions early learning who reached out to tell us what this will mean. I think about Sesame Lane and the contributions they will make to local families. I think about all the educators across our community who quietly turn up every day and do the work that matters enormously.

It's important to focus on what's important here, and it is that children are the future. That's a fact; that's not just a slogan. The teachers, the educators, raising those children, in conjunction with their parents, need to be supported. I commend this bill.

It's an honour to follow my friend the member for Petrie in this really important debate today on the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. She, I know, fights really hard to improve early education for the Queensland community and across Australia as well.

There are a few reasons why early childhood education is so incredibly important. The first one is obvious. Our little ones are precious, and they deserve the best early education and care we can afford them.

Early childhood education also gives families access to choice—the choice for both parents to continue working; the opportunity to earn more income for the household; and access to supports when trying to balance the millions of demands that come with parenthood. As any working family will tell you, the work-and-home juggle is a lot. When you have a dedicated early childhood team supporting your family and guiding your little one through important early milestones, the dedication of those early childhood educators and the support they provide to our young ones and to our families is truly invaluable.

Raising little ones is no easy task, and early childhood education is hard work. These workers are entrusted with our most precious loved ones and do one of the most important jobs in the country. I've spoken to many early childhood educators in my community in Melbourne's western suburbs. These are dedicated workers—often, young women—who choose the job because they absolutely love it. They talk about the small moments: the singing; the laughter; celebrating with families as a child reaches each developmental milestone.

But our local early childhood educators also tell me about the challenges, like workforce shortages, overwork and underpay. And it's not just my local childcare workers. The challenges are being faced by the entire workforce, and at the heart of the workforce challenges is underpay.

For far too long, early childhood educators have been systematically underpaid. When we got elected into government, early childhood education and care workers had been neglected for too long. They were leaving the workforce in droves—not because this wasn't a job they loved but because it was unsustainable and they couldn't afford to live on these wages. With 40 per cent of the workforce leaving the jobs they wanted because they couldn't afford to live—as was the case in some childcare centres—we had a workforce crisis on our hands, and something needed to change. So, two years ago, we introduced the 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood workers. Then, on 17 June this year, we announced a historic pay rise, with a $3.6 billion investment over the next two years. This bill delivers on that commitment.

Early childhood educators are trained professionals. They are trusted. They see to our kids' development, keep them safe, understand our little ones' routines, help them reach early milestones and know when to identify that something might be wrong and early intervention is needed. Early childhood educators are such important people in our kids' lives, and they have the right to expect that their pay should reflect that level of skill, training and trust that is required. Valuing our early childhood educators also means valuing the safety, care and wellbeing of our children.

Debate interrupted.