As I was saying, the Paid Parental Leave scheme will now also mean that governments will pay a 12 per cent contribution into the parent's superannuation, which is something that had been campaigned for for many years. It's a huge step in closing the gender gap when it comes to retirement savings, because it is still women who are disproportionately impacted when there's a new baby in the family in what is often called the motherhood penalty. Women who tend to be the primary caregivers are forced to give up or hold back their careers in order to take up long-term caring duties for the new baby. These changes will mean that families can be financially secure now and into the future. It's about protecting mothers who want to be mothers rather than penalising them.

For many families, perhaps for the majority of families, early childhood education services are an important part of their experience. Families choose early childhood education for many reasons. For some, it's about ensuring their children get the best possible start to education through access to a professional teacher. For some, particularly where the child is an only child, it might be about ensuring the child has the opportunity to socialise with other children. And, of course, for many, it's about ensuring that parents are able to return to work to continue their careers or to provide for their family. No matter why families choose to access early childhood education, it's important that it is quality education with quality providers and teachers.

The AIHW data consistently shows that early childhood education and care significantly improves a child's cognitive, social and emotional outcomes as they enter school and progress through life, and that is what we want for Australian children. We want the best possible cognitive, social and emotional start to life for them. That only happens when we have quality providers, quality workers and quality teachers. This bill is about creating an early childhood education and care environment that further supports families with children. It recognises that the first few years of a child's life are perhaps the most critical in terms of their intellectual and emotional development.

You wouldn't know it, given our historic treatment of this sector, but early childhood workers are some of the most important people in a family's life. For too long, early childhood education was seen as babysitting, and the workers were paid what used to be called, somewhat derisively, pin money—a pittance because the assumption was that it was women and they didn't really need the money. But early childhood education is a profession, and we want to attract and retain the very best people who have a passion for teaching our next generation. We want early childhood education to be a profession of choice. We want people with a passion for early childhood education to be able to choose it as a career, to train and qualify and to know that they have a rewarding and valued career ahead of them. We want them to stay in the sector.

It makes sense that the professionals with the skills to provide this education and care are given the support they need, and by support I mean wages appropriate to their professional qualifications and the importance of the work, and work conditions that support their retention in the sector and the best outcomes for the children in their care.

I've spoken a bit in this House about my rather unusual experience of family life. Having triplets is not a common experience, and it does bring its own challenges—specifically, being completely outnumbered from the start. I returned to work on a very part-time basis when my babies were four months old, and I can assure you it wasn't for the money, as I was bringing home about $20 a month after expenses. It was very much for my sanity. As a new mum who, frankly, didn't know what I was doing and was outnumbered by my children, it was very comforting to know that my children were being cared for, socialised and educated by professionals who were dedicated to the education of the next generation. I know my children had a lot of different play equipment, educational toys, social experiences with other children and early learning experiences that were as a result of the quality early childhood education centre that they attended. As a result, when they started school they already had a head start on language and maths, with an understanding of the world around them which set them up for schooling.

This bill is about higher pay for workers, lower fees for families and stronger standards in the early childhood education and care sector. It is about relieving cost-of-living pressures and providing predictability and stability to families.

This bill builds on the government's record in providing more affordable, flexible and high-quality early childhood education and care. We have built more early education and care centres. Since 2022, this has meant 1,200 more services, 95,000 more children in early education and 48,000 more early childhood workers. With our $1 billion Building Early Education Fund, we are committed to expanding these services to in-need areas such as outer suburbs and regional Australia. We have consolidated the childcare subsidy. More than 100,000 families are now guaranteed at least three days of access to subsidised education and care, meaning that, if your family is earning between $50,000 and $100,000, you will save on average $1,460 every year. The Albanese Labor government's cheaper child care is overall benefiting more than one million Australian families and helping relieve cost-of-living pressures.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 strengthens the government's support for the early education and care sector and for families who use these services every single day, because wage justice for early education and care workers is about ensuring that these essential workers, trained professionals, are paid the wages they deserve. It's about ensuring that the people who have been entrusted with the heavy responsibility of overseeing our children's growth and ability to thrive are appropriately valued for the work they do.

Historically, early childhood workers have been paid less compared to workers in similar sectors and with similar qualifications. Early childhood teachers, for example, received a median wage that was 20 per cent lower than their primary school counterparts. The early childhood sector became trapped in its own vicious cycle. Because the sector was undervalued—in large part because it was considered a woman's profession—workers were underpaid, forcing them to rely on partners, family or second jobs to be able to sustain a basic living, and the work itself became an unattractive proposition. Early childhood workers departed the workforce in their multitudes. The attrition rate was as high as 40 per cent, and the flow-on effects were predictable. Services were forced to delay extension plans, close rooms and limit enrolments because of staff shortages, and families and children were directly impacted. That is why, in 2024, the Albanese Labor government invested $3.6 billion to support a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers.

This bill cements the government's commitment to ensuring that our early childhood workers are paid fairly and squarely for the essential work that they do. Currently, over 80 per cent of eligible services are now receiving the payment. That's 215,000 workers and 11,600 centres across the country. In my electorate of Boothby, that's 68 services and a thousand workers. The bill invests another $3.6 billion to extend the pay rise for early childhood workers until 2028. That means full-time educators can expect $255 more in their pay packet every week, and early childhood teachers can expect $410 more every week.

Since the government legislated the first pay rise in 2024, we have seen job vacancies go down by 31 per cent, job applications go up by as much as 30 per cent and the early education and care workforce increase by eight per cent. That's 20,000 additional workers. The Albanese Labor government is changing the narrative around early childhood education and care, making it more valued, more paid and more attractive. I'd like to really recognise the excellent work of the United Workers Union for their long-term campaign, which has made such a difference to these workers, to the sector and to Australian families.

The funds that will be distributed to services will be conditional on two things. The first is that services and providers will have to commit to limiting fee increases for families, because while early childhood workers rightly deserve the higher pay for the work they do, families should not have to bear the financial costs of that. Services will not be allowed to increase their fees if they want to receive this payment. With this condition, families will save around $1,500 over the next two years. The second is that services must meet the national quality standard or risk termination or suspension of their payment. Currently, a record 95 per cent of early learning services meet this safety standard, but there is still room for improvement. This obligation will now also be extended to other services like in-home care.

This is part of the Albanese Labor government's comprehensive $226 million suite of safety reforms. Since last year, the Department of Education has taken compliance action against 119 centres that have failed to meet the standards for at least five years. Fifty-five of these centres have now fixed their problems. Seven centres have decided to voluntarily close, and in June the department cut off the funding to a service for the first time. With its ability to now make unannounced visits to childcare services since November, the department has made 1,300 cold-call visits. Earlier this year, the government established the National Early Childhood Worker Register, collating workforce information into a central database, including working-with-children checks, qualifications and identifying information, and facilitating the tracking of workers across centres and state jurisdictions.

The government has introduced mandatory child safety training for early educators from staff all the way up the chain of command to CEOs and other executives. This training provides workers with the necessary skills to detect, stop and report abuse. We have also banned personal mobile phones in centres. The government is now currently trialling CCTV in more than 300 services in collaboration with the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Centre for Child Protection and the National Office of Safety. This year, education ministers around Australia began discussing the formation of an early childhood and care commission to further strengthen and improve quality and safety in the sector.

When a parent decides on an early education care centre for their precious child or children, they should be able to expect that their child will receive a high quality of service and care. This daunting stage in a parent's life should not be compounded by the worry that their child's experience at a centre may be fraught with risks. By giving early educators and carers the pay rise they deserve, we are supporting them to be able to stay in these essential roles and ensuring that families and children can be confident that their local early provider is safe and up to the job.

This bill is about higher pay for workers, lower fees for families and stronger standards in the early childhood education sector. It is about relieving cost-of-living pressures and providing predictability and stability to families. Early childhood educators and carers play a crucial role in what is arguably the most critical time in a child's life. They play a crucial role in fostering a child's curiosity, emotional intelligence and intellectual development. The fact that this area has been historically neglected is an indictment on governments across the decades. With this bill and previously legislative measures, the Albanese Labor government has decided to take a lead on this.

As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, and, by recognising the importance and value of early childhood educators and workers, we are determined not to take this for granted. I commend the bill to the House.

Quality child care is essential, and I don't think there's anything controversial in that statement. We agree that parents should have the ability for their children to be safely looked after, and we agree this service needs to be affordable, and, at the same time, the childcare workers doing these essential services need to be properly paid. Safe, affordable and properly paid—they are the three things that people expect from child care, and they are three things that this bill and this government deliver on.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 delivers on the government's announcements on 17 June 2026 to lock in a pay rise for early educators for another two years. The bill amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024, crediting the special account with $3.6 billion and extending the act's sunset date from 30 June 2028 to 31 December 2029. The special account is used to administer the early childhood education and care workers retention payment grant to childcare providers to fund higher wages for eligible workers.

I acknowledge the concerns some may have that providers may use the higher wages for workers as a reason to raise fees. The Albanese Labor government recognised the importance of affordable child care, and that's why this funding extension remains tied to a commitment from services receiving the payment to limit fee increases for families. This funding extension will save the average family about $1,500 over the next two years.

The bill also establishes a new object and condition of funding, building on the government's commitments to strengthen quality and safety in early learning. Services will be required to meet the quality area 2, relating to children's health and safety, under the National Quality Standard. The National Quality Standard is established under the Education and Care Services National Law. Already, 95 per cent of services meet this standard, but, of course, as a government, we want the number to be much higher. From July 2027, if services don't meet the National Quality Standard when it comes to safety, their funding may be cut or suspended.

The bill also includes technical amendments to clarify that, where an approved provider is not a legal person, such as a partnership, the worker retention payment grant agreement can be made between the Commonwealth and the person acting on behalf of the approved provider. The passage of this bill is required by the end of September to ensure that there are sufficient funds in the special account to continue funding higher wages through the worker retention payment grant, and I strongly encourage this parliament to make sure the bill is passed, to help both workers and their families.

Every day, early educators help children learn, grow and get ready for school. It's one of the most important jobs in the country, and they should be paid fairly for that work. That's why, on 8 August 2024, the Albanese government announced it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers. Prior to the government's decisive action, services were delaying extension plans, closing rooms and limiting enrolments because they simply couldn't find the staff. Workforce retention and stability are also critical to quality and safety in early childhood education, enabling children and educators to develop consistent and stable relationships.

Since the worker retention payment was announced in 2024, there have been nearly 20,000 more early childhood education and care workers. That's an eight per cent increase. Job vacancies in early childhood education have decreased by almost 31 per cent. The percentage of services operating with the staffing waiver has fallen from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent. Fees at centres receiving the worker retention payment grew at around half of the rate of centres that had not signed up. The payment has worked to bolster our early educator workforce and keep costs down for families—and this bill will help solidify this commitment. When combined with the government's support for the minimum wage rises, this bill means $225 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. As I already mentioned, funding will continue to be tied to a commitment from services receiving the payment to limit fee increases to families. This will help ease the cost-of-living pressures while delivering better early learning for our children. For the first time, employees in all childcare subsidy approved services will be eligible for the payment. The bill recognises and enforces the expectations that we all have about child care—that it should be safe, that it should be affordable and that workers should be properly paid.

I'd like to give out a shout-out to all the fabulous qualified childcare educators in Werriwa. Every day they strive to do their best for their little charges. Recently I was invited to a Book Week event hosted by Organic Seedlings child care at Edmondson Park. Also there were the extremely talented Liverpool City Brass Band. I can tell the parliament that the Bluey theme and 'Hokey Pokey' sound amazing when they're played by brass instruments and the talented musicians. The children all fully participated. They chose books sold by the preschool to raise funds for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. The preschool raised a whopping $1,310 for the charity, which buys books in first languages for families living in remote communities. Our Liverpool City Brass Band was formed in 1883. The band plays at many events throughout the year, from Anzac Day to Christmas carols, but they were definitely a hit with the preschoolers for Book Week. It's this sort of ingenuity that inspires our next generation and what all our early childhood educators do every day to inspire our kids. Child care is essential, and the Albanese Labor government gives childcare workers and their families the certainty they deserve. I commend the bill to the House.

Every morning across southern Sydney, from Menai to Moorebank, from Bundeena to Bardia, parents kiss their kids goodbye for the day and place them into the care of early childhood educators. Every day these dedicated workers help our children learn and grow at one of the most critical stages of development in their lives. It is one of the most crucial and consequential jobs in our country. For decades early childhood education and care workers were treated as though they were merely providing babysitting services instead of being the skilled educators that they are. They were underpaid, undervalued and expected to deliver high-quality early learning on a pay that barely enabled them to keep up with the rent or the mortgage. The nature of their work meant it was difficult to collectively bargain for a pay rise, as these workers could not pursue the fundamental right of withdrawing their labour to bargain for better outcomes due to the nature of the care that they provide. They were told that their work was of critical importance while their pay cheques told a different story.

This bill, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026, treats early childhood education and care workers like the skilled professionals that they are. Our government recognises that pay is a function of respect and that, if we want high-quality care for our kids, we must pay the educators who teach and care for them what they are truly worth. This legislation locks in a funded pay rise for early educators for another two years. It amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024. It credits the special account used to administer the early childhood education and care worker retention payment grant program with an additional $3.6 billion. It also extends the act's sunset date from 30 June 2028 out to the end of 2029. The funding extension will remain tied to a commitment from services receiving the payment to limit fee increases, ensuring that subsidies do not feed through to higher fees for families. This framework couples wage justice for early childhood and care workers with cost-of-living relief for parents, limiting fee increases as a condition of receiving grant funding, saving the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. Women make up over 90 per cent of early childhood educators. For decades, their contribution went largely without the requisite respect or recognition that they deserved. That's why this bill is also an important step in our mission of promoting gender pay equity.

When our government announced an initial 15 per cent wage increase in August of 2024, there was no shortage of cynics on the other side of this chamber. While they managed to drag themselves into supporting the bill, their additional comments shrieked that the Albanese Labor government was covertly attempting by stealth to unionise the early childhood sector in an effort to appease the unions—the usual chatter from the three right-wing parties opposite who cry that the sky will fall in with every moderate increase to the minimum wage.

Now the results are in. The worker retention payment has delivered 20,000 more educators since its introduction, an unprecedented eight per cent increase in the early childhood workforce. Vacancies have dropped by almost 31 per cent nationwide. The percentage of services forced to operate under emergency staffing waivers due to worker shortages has plummeted from 8.9 per cent down to 4.3 per cent. Agency dependency has declined, with agency staff usage at Goodstart Early Learning having dropped by 69 per cent in the first year following the program's implementation. Fees at early learning centres receiving the worker retention payment grew at roughly half the rate of centres that were not signed up to the program, as our policy intended.

The picture of the early childhood education and care sector prior to the introduction of this reform was not encouraging. Centres across the shire and south-west Sydney were delaying expansion plans, turning away families, closing rooms and capping enrolments because they couldn't find the staff. In many communities, parents can find it exceedingly difficult to access early childhood services affordably or at all. For such a labour-intensive service, the availability of educators and care workers is a critical bottleneck. Worker retention is directly linked to educational outcomes, the quality of care and child safety. When talented educators stay in their jobs, children form consistent bonds of trust with adults who understand their emotional and learning needs.

To date, the measures introduced in 2024 have been overwhelmingly beneficial. They have stabilised the workforce, reduced fee pressure for those providers who subscribed to the grant and enabled the delivery of high-quality care. That's why this bill is not just about wage justice for early educators; it's a supply-side measure to attract and retain more carers in the sector and expand access to early childhood education.

It's not just about the economics of quality care; the bill includes further measures to protect the safety and wellbeing of kids in these services. Under this legislation, from July of next year, services will be required to meet quality area 2 of the national quality standard, the benchmark governing child health and safety established under the Education and Care Services National Law. Providers failing to meet these standards of care will have their access to the worker retention payment suspended or terminated. Around 95 per cent of early childhood services meet or exceed quality area 2.

But, as the minister has said, while 95 per cent is good, parents deserve 100 per cent confidence in the safety and wellbeing of their kids. By establishing a statutory link between grant funding and high standards of child health and safety, every parent deserves the peace of mind that their child is in an environment that meets every health, hygiene, physical safety and child protection requirement. This condition complements a series of strong measures that this government has already introduced.

Our reforms to ensure safety in the sector include statutory powers allowing the Commonwealth department to immediately freeze funding to operators who breach compliance or safety requirements. They include the rollout of mandatory foundation training across the sector, from casual educators up to directors, CEOs and board members. Over 350,000 care workers and leaders have already completed this training, and we have worked with the National Cabinet and education ministers across Australia to establish an independent commission aimed at institutionalising safety oversight and sector integrity.

This bill is one brick in our government's comprehensive reform program to build a better early learning and care sector right across the country. Early childhood education is essential social and economic infrastructure that is a core service for so many working families. It drives workforce participation, enables mums and dads to return to work or take on more hours, and gives children the best start in life at a crucial stage in their development.

We have boosted the childcare subsidy for over a million Australian families, slashing out-of-pocket costs for typical households by thousands of dollars a year. We have abolished the punitive coalition activity test that locked some families out of early education, and we have guaranteed three days of subsidised care per week for all eligible children, regardless of their parents' working status. We are building the pipeline of early educators by funding fee-free TAFE places across Australia. Over 65,000 educators have enrolled in fee-free early childhood education and care TAFE courses since 2023.

We are making it easier for care workers to get a pay rise through our secure jobs, better pay legislation, reforming the multi-employer bargaining framework to give workers in female dominated industries the support they need to negotiate structural wage increases. Whether through training pathways, subsidised fees, safety regulations or wage grants, our government is backing our educators to build a world-class early childhood education system.

We contrast this with the record of those opposite. Under the former coalition government, childcare fees rose by almost 50 per cent, bolting past wage growth and driving working families to the financial brink. There was year after year of wage stagnation, leading to a workforce exodus that forced centres to close and left parents stranded on months long waiting lists. There were punitive activity tests that stripped early learning access away from the kids who needed it the most. When early educators asked for fair pay, the coalition told them to find a better job or trust the market to deliver it. What else would you expect from a party that cited low-wage growth as a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. The coalition and One Nation pay lip service to early educators, but only this government puts its money where its mouth is. Those opposite offer no constructive solutions for modern families in electorates like mine. For the quiet Australians in southern Sydney, they offer only nostalgia and neglect.

Early childhood education is the foundation upon which the future of our country is built. Safe and dynamic childhood and care environments stem from the work of the early childhood educators and care workers who millions of Australians entrust their children with every day. Backing in our early childhood educators and care workers and limiting fee increases isn't just good for these workers and the families whose kids they look after; it's a down payment on the success of the next generation of Australians.

This bill delivers $3.6 billion to extend wage justice for early childhood educators out to 2029. It delivers an average saving of $1,500 for families over the next two years. It establishes high health and safety standards so that every parent can have confidence that their child is safe, and it delivers dignity to a historically undervalued and predominantly female workforce. Failure to pass this bill by the end of the September sitting period would mean a failure to ensure sufficient funds to continue delivering higher wages through the worker retention payment grant.

Early childhood educators across my community in Hughes have waited long enough for the respect, the recognition and the remuneration that they deserve. This bill is supported by peak bodies, service providers and parent organisations. Treating early childhood educators like the well-paid professionals that they should be is good for workers, it's good for kids, it's good for families and it's good for the future of Australia. I'm so proud to stand as part of an Albanese Labor government that values care and carers, that values education, that values safety and that is acting on these values by delivering real relief for educators and for working families. I commend this bill to the House.

It is a great pleasure to follow the very thoughtful contribution of the member for Hughes. He and I are both Sydney based MPs and understand the experience of the people we're proud to represent, for whom this type of bill does have a meaningful, concrete impact. Where we find ourselves in this day and age, early childhood workers have become essential workers. The push has been on to increase workforce participation, to increase the number of women in the workforce, to be able to satisfy the demands of businesses for more talented workers in our workforce.

The way that house prices have gone, most households need two incomes being brought in, not just one. The days of being able to rely on a single income are the stuff of nostalgia. We require both parents out working and, if they've got kids, being able to work out the type of care that will be provided for very young families. Early childhood educators are some of the first people outside the family to shape a child's life, and they are very important. Those early childhood educators are there providing such an important, valuable role in not only supporting the development of children but allowing parents to be able to go out and fulfil their ambitions.

Many of them in my part of Western Sydney are doing so while building a new home, with two parents out working. In my part of Western Sydney, they are forced to travel from the outer edge of the Sydney Basin into the CBD. That trip will sometimes take 40 to 50 minutes, but on some days it would be easier for a person to drive from Western Sydney to Goulburn—a two-hour trip—than to do the commute from Western Sydney to the CBD. If traffic is not working or if there's a public transport snarl, that has a big impact on families and chews up a large part of their day, but they do it with the confidence of knowing that an early childhood educator is looking after their kids and giving them a great start in life. We trust those early childhood educators to set our children on the right path, to be able to care for our youngest Australians. It's really important work, and it's work we've got to back. That's what this legislation does.

For too long, that work that was not only undervalued; it was genuinely underpaid. The bill seeks to inject a further $3.6 billion into the wage justice special account and it extends support through the end of 2029. So it locks in wage increases, it helps hold onto those early childhood educators, it improves quality and safety standards, and it helps keep pressure off family budgets. As we know on this side of the chamber, if you want quality learning for young people, we've got to support our educators, and that's what we're trying to do.

Since the worker retention payment was introduced, around 20,000 additional educators have joined the workforce, which is not an insignificant thing to note. Vacancies have fallen by almost a third. Staffing waivers have halved. Fee growth is around half that of centres that aren't participating in the scheme. In the electorate that I'm proud to represent, Chifley, there are at least 900 educators who are benefiting from the worker retention payment, across 82 childcare service centres. This is what happens when a government deliberately backs workers, rather than simply hoping the market will sort itself out. It's really important, again, to emphasise that early childhood educators play such an important role in being able to support the ambitions of young families in the electorate that I represent in the outer suburbs—for them to be able to do their jobs, see early childhood education of a quality standard and ensure that the workers in that system feel valued.

The reality, too, is that, as much as the economy has changed, we've gone from single-income homes to dual-income homes with kids. That isn't going to change any time soon, and we do need to take these types of steps to ensure that essential workers—because I do believe that early childhood educators, due to the nature of our society and economy, have absolutely become essential workers.

These types of direct interventions by government will actually, I think, become more of the same, not less. The reason why, as much as I've reflected on the nature of the economy changing, is that there's something else that happened, and it happened around the time of COVID. If you look at the real value of a $90,000 income back in March of 2020 and look at what happened to its trajectory over two years, the value of that income dropped considerably. I'm not making a political or partisan point, but, when you have a global shock like that ripple through the international economy and our economy, that has a big impact. So, while this bill specifically concerns the wages of early childhood educators, it's important to recognise the impact on living standards of that type of challenge—through a global pandemic.

People are working very hard. There's absolutely no doubt about it. But in most cases they feel like they're working harder than ever, and too many feel they're running just to stand still. As long-time economic correspondent Alan Kohler—someone I hold in high regard—has observed, Australia's real-wage experience after the pandemic has been a 'great, quiet disaster'. In looking at what's happened, he's based his statements on some of the research done by Greg Jericho from the Australia Institute. He talks about the fact that, since that time, Australians have received pay rises on paper while their purchasing power went backwards, and forecasts by the RBA suggest it will take till 2037 to get wages back to the levels they were before the post-pandemic collapse. Greg Jericho describes it as the worst collapse in real wages in living memory.

We as a government have done a lot to address that. I do remember, in the budgets of our predecessors, very confident predictions about the trajectory of real wages that never materialised. That movement never materialised. We've had to do a lot to fix that. We have fought hard for minimum wage increases. You've seen what we've done in terms of improving bargaining power. You've seen what we've done in terms of backing same job, same pay. These have been important measures, but it will take a lot more. Wage growth in times past has repeatedly failed to keep pace with rising costs. Housing costs have been climbing faster than wages for decades. Real per-person disposable income has been going negative for three years.

Because of that—and I think this is something the parliament needs to take note of—the generation born in the 1990s is the first in Australian history to not be better off than the generation before them. They are the first generation in Australian history to not be better off than the generation before them. That puts a big challenge on parliaments here and moving forward, and the test is: what will we do about it?

The other thing that's worth noting is that, for a growing number of Australians, one job is no longer enough. Between 1994 and 2019, the rate of people holding multiple jobs remained roughly between five to six per cent, but as a result of the pandemic, the multiple job-holding rate has risen and it's remained at an all-time high between roughly 6½ per cent and 6.7 per cent since June of 2022. I was startled to see the ABS show that there were nearly a million Australians holding multiple jobs in March 2026—one million Australians holding down more than one job. Some of them may be doing it for the love of it. Some of them may be doing it because they've got ambitions for themselves. Good on them! But I think, in that one million, there are a lot of workers holding down multiple jobs because they feel like they have to.

That rate of multiple job-holding is higher for women. Think about what that means. Almost a million Australians are sacrificing time with family and friends simply to stay ahead of the bills. We should not accept a future where working harder means taking a second or third job just to maintain the same standard of living. That's why we do need to have bigger national conversations about this type of issue. Governments have to intervene in the way that we're talking about here, and they're going to have to intervene more and more to support wage growth to ensure that we help low- and middle-income Australians lift that burden and not contribute to it.

In saying that, I recognise there are no easy fixes and that it will be a challenge, because the pressures will be on. The calls will be on to constrain the growth of budgets. There'll be pressures in terms of what we do to build productive capacity in the economy and to unleash the economy from some of the constraints it's continually seemed to face over decades, particularly around skill shortages. We need to do it in a way, as I said, to lift low- and middle-income earners' sense of confidence that they can not just keep pace with the cost of living but do better than the generation they preceded. That is an important thing.

What we're doing here with early childhood education is one example. Aged care is another. The lesson is that intervention not only works but is critical, because when governments back workers, people stay in the workforce, skills are retained and services improve. But, importantly, the political discontent and friction that is generated when people feel like they're going backwards is addressed. That's why it's important.

Frankly, it'll be this side of the chamber, our political party, Labor, that takes this on, recognising that when it comes to the ratio between profits and wages, it will not be an obsessive focus on profits that tends to dominate the thinking of the conservative side of politics as opposed to doing what's right for wages. I don't genuinely believe that the Liberal and Nationals parties will ever have a serious concerted effort to address this. When I talk about the fact that the value of real wages has dropped, it dropped under their watch, and they had very little to do to fix it. We have tried to move to fix it and been opposed quite regularly by those opposite in terms of dealing with that disparity in incomes.

It's also important that the other conservative force that now seeks to get in government, One Nation, have repeatedly sided with any effort to oppose what we do. One Nation believe it should be easier to sack people, and they want to water down unfair dismissal laws. They couldn't support same job, same pay and believe that contractors and people working for a wage should be on different wages, not the same. One Nation believe that wage theft should not be criminalised. They believe that you shouldn't have strong protections against occupational health and safety breaches by employers.

So that's why I say it's the Labor side of politics that takes this stuff seriously and will lean in to fix people's incomes and their sense of doing better—not just treading water but doing better. We will always do so in the face of bitter opposition by those opposite, be they Liberal, National or One Nation. When we see wage increases for aged-care workers happen, it'll be Labor that backs that. We won't see wage increases for early educators under conservatives. It'll only happen because Labor backs that.

As I said before, since we've come to office, we've advocated for Australian workers at every single annual wage review, five years in a row. We've seen the national minimum wage increase by $6 per hour, or $230 per week or $12,000 per year, a 30 per cent increase. This is the type of stuff that has to happen not just now but well into the future. It's the proper and right thing to do, and it's the challenge that this parliament will continually have to face for the years ahead.

Debate adjourned.