I'm really glad to have this opportunity to speak in continuation on this important piece of legislation, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. Our government believes that early childhood education and care is essential work. It is one of the most important jobs in the country, and people in the sector should of course be paid fairly for that work.

We know that, prior to the Albanese government announcing that it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers, the sector was doing it really tough. Services were delaying expansion plans, closing rooms and limiting enrolments because services couldn't find staff, and workforce retention was a real issue.

I spoke previously about the survey that I had undertaken with my electorate on the importance of education and care for children in our wonderful community. I hosted a forum with the minister and made a submission to the Productivity Commission on behalf of my community based on the feedback that I had received. Education is a really important issue for the people that I'm so lucky to represent. They know, as do I, that education opens doors. As the Minister for Education has reminded us here in this chamber previously, those who need early education the most are the least likely to be able to access it, and paying our educators and carers what they deserve ultimately does help improve access.

It is worth pointing out—and this is something that I have highlighted previously in this place—that those opposite historically have not supported employment measures such as those that we're putting forward today and historically have not supported universal access to early education for all Australians. That is a really significant point of difference in this place.

I'm really proud to be part of a government that is building a future through investing in the next generation, through education. In my very first speech, I spoke about the importance of education, and, since I first had the privilege of representing the people of Chisholm, I have seen the commitment of our government to improving access to education for everyone in this country, whether that be through early education, through school education and funding schools fairly in every state and territory, through vocational education or through higher education at universities. In government, we've gotten on with making some big and, at times, difficult but important reforms for our next generation of learners, and that reform starts with early childhood education. Our government is committed to making sure that everyone can realise aspiration and opportunity through education, and this bill is of course, another example of how we're doing this.

All children in this country deserve to have early educators and care workers who are paid well, have secure work, can build relationships with children, and get to stay in the jobs they love. This is so good for children and families. A stable workforce, we know, is the foundation of quality early learning, giving children a great start in life. We should be really proud of the work that we're doing for the country in this place. It is a gift that we have the opportunity to deliver to the next generation of learners, and I'm really proud that we as a government have continued to step up when it comes to giving kids the best possible start in life.

This legislation is so important, locking in a historic 15 per cent pay rise for hardworking early childhood educators. This marks an important step for better wages for the dedicated professionals who help give children a great start in life. We know quality early learning starts with valuing and supporting our educators. This investment recognises their work and helps to continue to attract and retain the skilled workforce families and children rely on every single day right around our country, including, of course, in my wonderful electorate of Chisholm. Our government is committed, absolutely, to building an early learning system that is high quality, more affordable and available where and when families need it, and this legislation is significant for us to be able to realise that. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

It's interesting, when you think about child care and regional Australia, to note that, on the cover of the GrainGrowers's annual report of 2022-23, you have a picture of a young girl in a cropping paddock and that the organisation felt the need to push for child care as its No. 1 priority. This, I think, underlines just how vital this is in rural, regional and remote Australia. Then, when you read the GrainGrowers's report of May 2023, its submission to the Productivity Commission on early childhood education and care, it says this, as the very first paragraph:

Lack of access to child care is an issue impacting grain farming parents across Australia. GrainGrowers provided a submission to the Productivity Commission on Early Childhood Education and Care.

…   …   …

GrainGrowers is a voice for Australian grain farmers with grower members across Australia. Our vision is to build a more sustainable and profitable grains industry for the benefit of Australian grain farmers. GrainGrowers welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the public consultation to the Inquiry into Early Childhood Education and Care.

That is all well and good, and it's important. When you have an organisation such as GrainGrowers acknowledging that the most important aspect for its members is child care, you know that something is right, and you know that something is also palpably wrong.

I know the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 deals with the wages and the pay conditions for our early childhood teachers, and I acknowledge that, yes, they should be paid a decent and appropriate wage, because they are looking after our most important asset—that being our children or our grandchildren. I appreciate that work has been done in this regard to ensure that we don't have early childhood teachers leaving the industry simply because they can't afford to sustain themselves in a cost-of-living crisis or because other sectors of the economy are getting paid more for, perhaps, doing jobs that some could argue are not as important as theirs. I do understand that. As I say, we are in a cost-of-living crisis, and it is difficult for anyone, whether it's in a capital city or remote Australia, to make ends meet.

I was talking to GrainGrowers's Dave McKeon at the time—he's no longer with the organisation—when he presented this report and spoke of the importance of child care in the regions, and I must admit I was frankly surprised that there would be this focus from that organisation on this issue. When you are talking to GrainGrowers and other organisations of a like mind, you expect them to talk about transport and roads, and you expect them to talk about the availability of silos, accessibility to ports, the vagaries of the weather and all of those things. You don't expect them, first up, to come to you and say, 'Childcare access is our main focus.' I commend the GrainGrowers for their early childhood education and care policy of May 2023, the work that they did in their annual report of 2022-23 and their ongoing advocacy for child care, because it absolutely underlines the importance of this issue, particularly in regional Australia.

I know many, most or all Labor members who've stood in this debate and who will follow me will talk about wage justice, about the Fair Work Commission and about their advocacy to ensure wage justice and the like, but the access to child care is just as important as anything else in this debate, because, in regional Australia, there is not the access to child care. Whilst I know Labor also talks up the affordability of child care, and they'll talk about Labor's policies in this regard, it is the availability of child care in regional areas which is at the nub of the issue, or should be at the centre of it.

The GrainGrowers report of May 2024 states quite clearly:

Access to quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) services promotes children's cognitive and socio-emotional development, laying the foundation for academic success and fostering important life skills such as communication, problem-solving, and collaboration.

All of that is true—we know that—but I'll tell you what it also does. Access to child care provides parents with choice. Yes, it provides farming families and others who live in rural communities the opportunity to enable their children to be their best selves, but it also allows them to go out and earn a wage, and, if it's possible in their family set-up, ensure they can have two incomes coming in. In the case of a single parent, in some cases it's about having a job at all. If they don't have that access to—access being the important word—and availability of child care, then their opportunities for economic freedom, for getting ahead in the world and for meeting the demands of a cost-of-living crisis are very limited.

The GrainGrowers May 2024 report further states:

Grain growing takes place in rural, regional and remote areas of Australia, where children and families experience more limited access to a range of quality ECEC—

that being early childhood education and care—

services relative to those living in metropolitan centres, and in some instances, have no access at all.

If GrainGrowers can acknowledge that, then the government should also do what it can to support those regional communities where there is market failure. Because—do you know what?—regional communities sustain this country. Regional communities grow the food, grow the fibre, mine the resources and keep the lights on in this country. And yet not a lot of people in metropolitan Australia and not a lot of people in this place readily acknowledge that as much as they should. They just do not. Maybe it's because they just don't understand; maybe it's because they just don't know; or maybe it's because they just don't care. Access to quality childhood education, preschool and, indeed, after-school care when the children get a little bit older is so important in regional Australia. I cannot emphasise that enough.

The GrainGrowers May 2024 report continues:

Access to ECEC supports working parents living within grain growing regions by enabling them to pursue employment and education opportunities, thereby helping to alleviate workforce shortages in the grains industry and broader supply chain, and allows for greater economic productivity for our communities.

Lockhart is famous for having Tim Fischer AC, the late, great Nationals leader and former deputy prime minister as one of its famous sons. He had a property at Boree Creek. He loved Lockhart Shire. It wasn't that long ago that Lockhart's childcare access disappeared and the community was left high and dry when it came to access to child care. The community rallied and the problem was sorted out, but it brought home to many the importance of availability. Affordability is one thing, and it's good that we're talking about it. Wage justice is something that is of critical importance too, and I acknowledge that, but so too is access and availability. I cannot place enough emphasis on that because, if you don't have access and availability, then it doesn't matter how much you pay and it doesn't matter how much the Fair Work Commission might state that a worker in that sector is worth. If you don't have access, you don't have availability, you don't have opportunity and you don't have those parents able to drop those kids off in a safe, good environment—an environment that's even there in the first place.

Interestingly, the report goes on to state:

'Universal not Uniform': Access to ECEC is a universal right for all Australians. Families in rural and remote areas must be guaranteed access to quality ECEC. However, the method of delivery will require a focus on tailored place-based solutions in light of the geographic and economic diversity or rural and remote areas.

Of course, that's important too. As the report goes on to state:

The quality of ECEC in rural and remote areas should be comparable to the quality of ECEC offered in metropolitan centres.

I've been going on about this. It's not just childcare access. Of course, it's everything. It's general practitioners, it's health specialists, it's everything per capita. Why should rural communities be in any way diminished? Why should the opportunities not be there simply because they're a long way from the bright city lights of our major capital cities?

You'd understand this better than most, Deputy Speaker, member for Lingiari. You would understand this because you've got that lived experience. I'm not verballing you; I have great respect for you. I've been to the Northern Territory, and I've been to your electorate. I was just there last week. I understand and I know that the further you get away from the bright city lights, the harder it is for our families to access all manner of services, whether it's health, whether it's childcare access or whether it's transport options. It just makes it immeasurably more difficult. The point of this is that it's our communities, member for Lingiari, that are keeping this nation going. It's our communities that are providing the balance of payments. It's our communities that are putting food on the table of metropolitan Australians who, somehow, sometimes, just don't understand the difficulties there are when it comes to rurality.

The GrainGrowers report states:

The formation of a broader ECEC Workforce Strategy inclusive of initiatives such as wage subsidies, educator professional development pathways, relocation incentives, and professional support.

They're talking about that. They're promoting that. They're advocating for that. I commend the GrainGrowers for their advocacy in this regard. I know, when it comes to early childhood education—I appreciate that the Minister for Education has talked about this and, moreover, done something about this on a national level—there is a great concern about some of the reports that have come out of early learning centres with some of the workers in there doing the wrong thing by children.

Parents need to know that, when they drop their most precious loved ones, their children, off to a childcare centre, they will get the same love, support and respect that they do in their homes. Australian children deserve it and are entitled to it. We must do everything we can, and so must the courts. These nefarious characters who do the wrong thing by children should never see the light of day again, quite frankly. I commend the education minister for what he has done to ensure that, at a national level, we are doing the right thing. I implore the states to also ensure that our children are safe, that are children are protected and that, in the early childhood area, we do everything humanly possible to make sure that they have the best quality of early childhood care, and this bill goes to that.

I'm very pleased to rise to say a few words about the bill that is before us—the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. In doing so, I want to acknowledge the previous speaker, the member for Riverina, and the 180 that his side has done on this issue. It is good to see, and I hope the spirit in which they come to talk about early childhood education continues. I do acknowledge that we do have a challenge with access in the regions, including in parts of my own electorate. We have been working hard at finding local solutions.

In the town of Heathcote, where we had a childcare challenge, it was the local church, the Anglican Church, that put forward a property. They worked with our local mine in the area and Heathcote Health to put together a way in which they could offer affordable, quality child care to the people of Heathcote so that the workers at the mine and their healthcare workers didn't have to travel into Bendigo to access child care. It's also where we run the after-school care program in Heathcote. The buses pick the kids up from school and bring them to the childcare centre which becomes the after-school care. It's a model that works for Heathcote.

I use it as an example because it may not be a model that works in every regional town, but it does require local solutions, the willingness of people to come together and the backing of a system that can support educators in that area. The reason why I say that is I've pitched to the minister—and I know the work is being done—other possible solutions to help ensure that young kids in our regions have access to early childhood education.

It is our side that is coming up with these ideas and models. How do we help ensure that all children in Australia can have access to quality early childhood education? I say that in all seriousness, and I hope that the opposition have seen the light of day on the need and the importance of early childhood education. It's not just babysitting and taking care of the kids while mum and dad return to work. In their time, when they were in government, including when the member for Riverina was the Deputy Prime Minister, there was not one but two national strikes by early childhood educators—walking off the job to say: 'We are losing too many educators. They are being paid too low. We cannot cope with the workloads. Our sector is in crisis.' That was just in the time that the member for Riverina was the Deputy Prime Minister.

But, in the whole time that the Liberals and National parties were in government, there were multiple strikes. Educators were saying that the sector was in crisis. But back then they had a very different view of early childhood education. I'm pleased to see they've done a 180 on this issue, and I hope their position remains the same because we do need to work together to ensure that this change that we are talking about today is locked in and ongoing. Forevermore, our educators will be paid the justice that they deserve in their pay. Every day, early childhood educators are helping young children to learn and grow and be ready for school. Yes, there is the benefit to parents and grandparents that they can return to work or enjoy their retirement. But, equally and more importantly, it is critical for our young minds that they have this opportunity to start engaging in education early. It is one of the most important jobs in our country. It ensures, and we need to ensure, that these educators, teachers and carers are paid fairly for the work that they do.

We know the result if we don't. Educators over the last two decades before this bill came before us, before the election of an Albanese Labor government, were leaving the sector in droves. This was not because they didn't love the job, not because they didn't understand the importance of the job and not because they didn't have the qualifications—they are one of the most highly qualified sectors that we have in our country—but because they couldn't afford to pay the bills. Time and time again, I heard from qualified educators who had studied from their cert IIIs through to their diplomas say, 'I can make more money packing shelves at Woolies.' That was the lived reality. The fact that women—over 95 per cent of the sector are women—workers were saying that they were effectively being subsidised by their partner's wages because they didn't earn more than just a little bit more than minimum wage is why this bill is so important. It continues to lock in the 15 per cent wage increase that was delivered by this government in partnership with the sector and with the unions to ensure that early childhood education staff receive the pay that they deserve.

Workforce retention has stabilised as a result of lifting the pay, and quality and safety standards in early childhood education have improved, enabling more children and more educators to have the consistent relationships required and needed to ensure that young children have the best start.

Since we introduced the worker retention payment, which was announced in 2024, there have been around 20,000 more ECEC workers. That's about an eight per cent increase. Job vacancies in the sector have decreased by almost 31 per cent. Rooms that were closed because of lack of staff are opening, allowing waiting lists to reduce. And the percentage of services that are operating without staff waivers has fallen to 4.3 per cent. I'll just remind the House what we mean by these waivers. If you don't have enough qualified staff at the ratio that you need, you can apply to the department for a waiver if you can prove that you've got people in the centre working towards earning that qualification. By stabilising the sector and by investing in the wages, we are attracting people with the skills back. They didn't leave because they didn't love the job. They left because the pay was too low and they couldn't afford to pay their bills. And that's what we've turned around.

We are seeing the outcomes in our children. In primary schools, prep/foundation teachers are reporting that the kids are ready to learn. In the post-COVID period, we're seeing a real change in the classroom, and it's been attributed to that consistency that kids are receiving in early childhood education. Parents are more relaxed because they know that the educators that their children have are likely to be with them throughout their early learning experience.

I'm in the last six months of the early learning experience. My young son, Charlie, will finish his kinder years at Annie Galvin in Bendigo and will start school next year. For my family, it's been a six-year journey. All of the educators in my children's lives have been extraordinary, from the ones here at Parliament House to the educators at Annie Galvin, and there will be a few tears on those last days—happy tears because that chapter in our lives is ending. But it's tears that lots of families have because these educators and teachers have been with them for many years through the experiences and the opportunities. And there's joy on these teachers' faces when they see young children graduate from their service, from their care, and start primary school. It's a moment that many families remember fondly because of the experience that they've had and the profound influence that these teachers, carers and educators have had.

I want to acknowledge many of the amazing educators at Annie Galvin. They, too, will receive this retention payment. There are people like Bernie. When my son, Charlie, was asked what he wants for Christmas, he said he wants Bernie, his educator, because she gives him big hugs and reads him books. Unfortunately, Santa couldn't deliver Bernie, but Charlie does get to see her every day that she's at Annie Galvin. There's the fact that they have science programs because the children there love science, and there's the fact that they celebrate Book Week every day because children come on different days. The children are ready for school, they're ready to learn and they have a love for learning. That's what our early childhood educators do.

I know, going forward, that the educators not just at Annie Galvin and here at Parliament House but at every early learning centre around the country will all now have access to this payment. All services that sign on, that agree to keep fees low for parents and agree to our new safety standards, will have the ability to access this account to help pay our educators what they're worth.

When combined with our government support for minimum wages, this payment means an extra $255 per week for a typical full-time educator and more than $410 per week for early childhood education teachers. This is the difference that we are making. When we talk about it in terms of our economy, this measure alone is one of the reasons we are closing the gender pay gap. It is the investment that our government has made in early childhood education. And it is the investment that our government has made in aged care that is really turning around the gender pay gap on a much broader scale. These changes are helping to stabilise the sector and, more importantly, ensure that our educators are paid for the work that they do.

This bill also introduces a new obligation and conditioning through the wage justice special account that builds upon our government's commitment to strengthen quality and safety. If you do not meet the standard, your service will have funding cut or suspended. That is how committed we are to reforming the sector to make sure that we are always putting the safety of children and staff first.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge all the activists in the movement that got us to where we are today. The many women and educators and the campaigners in the Big Steps campaign in the United Workers Union. This is a campaign that has been going on for decades, and this bill that's before us needs to acknowledge that this didn't just start with our government. It started a long time ago when educators said, 'We're more than just babysitters.' They've campaigned tirelessly to make sure that the workers in their sector are recognised for what they do—educate and care for our youngest Australians to ensure that they have the best start in education.

I also want to acknowledge the many amazing activists and delegates in my electorate who've been part of this campaign over the years. I can't go past Roe from the Golden Square Goodstart. She has long since retired, but one of her happiest moments and memories was seeing this bill first adopted by this parliament back in 2024, knowing that part of her legacy was to see the current educators and future educators paid what they're worth. I acknowledge Lisa at the centre just down the road from me—another Goodstart centre, Bendigo. She's the director there. She has been working in the sector for more than 30 years, ensuring that all of the kids in her care have the best start in life. She talked of the opportunity that this has given the educators in her centre—women being able to buy their own home in their own right because they now have a payslip that means the banks say, yes, we can give you a loan; and families can put a little bit away and start planning for that holiday that they've never been able to take because one of the wages in the house was minimum wage and didn't reflect the work that they do. I also acknowledge Jenny's Early Learning Centre, who were part of this along with their network of amazing centres and educators. They've got a unique system where they encourage people who might want a career in early childhood education to come on as a trainee, and they support them the whole way through their education journey. Goodstart, Jenny's Early Learning Centre and even the G8s and the for-profits in my area—those educators, regardless of who their employers are, are committed to the education and care of our youngest.

Finally, I acknowledge the extraordinary local community services that we have—the community and not-for-profit sectors, and our council-run centres. I do acknowledge there's a little bit of work to do with the City of Greater Bendigo to make sure that we can finalise the payments and that those educators also get the wage justice that they deserve, but it will happen, because it has to happen. That's what this bill is all about. It is about wage justice. Everything is in the title: 'wage justice for early childhood education and care workers', ensuring that any child in early childhood education gets the care and the education that they need, and that the people delivering that are paid what they're worth. This bill is recognising that they have skills, they have opportunity and that they get to continue to do the job that they love with the pay that they deserve. Not every family will choose early childhood education, and that's their choice, but if they do, we need to ensure that we as a government are supporting the sector. The sector is 95 per cent women, delivering and giving opportunity to our youngest Australians to ensure that they're ready for school and that they're being cared for and educated while their parents are working. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. Last week we marked Early Childhood Educators Day. For families across Warringah and Australia, early childhood education and care is essential to how they organise their lives—whether parents can work, whether the household budget adds up and whether their children have a safe and nurturing place to learn and then attend primary school prepared. In those early childhood years, there is an education. It prepares them for that learning environment. We need a system that families can afford, values its workforce and puts the rights of children at the centre of every decision. This bill makes a contribution to that, but there is much more to do.

The bill supports the extension of the worker retention payment to 30 June 2028. It is by backed by a further $3.6 billion commitment. It sustains the support for the 15 per cent wage increase and enables funding conditions relating to quality and child safety. I welcome that support. Early childhood educators carry enormous responsibility. We expect them to understand child development, support additional needs, recognise risks and build trusting relationships with children and their families. Their remuneration should reflect those skills, and as a society we must value those skills.

Child care is a fundamental workforce capability and early education for children. It is also a sector that needs to attract capable people, train them properly and give experienced staff a reason to stay. Enthusiasm for the work cannot compensate indefinitely for inadequate pay or unsustainable conditions. A stable and competent team at a childcare facility allows educators to know a child, their routines, their communication and what reassures them when something has changed. That continuity matters to learning, wellbeing and safeguarding. We should value the experience that is built up over years. Pay must sit alongside manageable workloads, proper supervision, paid professional development and pathways to progress. We need educators and young people to see a sustainable career ahead of them in this sector, with time and support to do the job well.

There's also a clear economic connection for the future of Australia. Every educator who helps a centre to keep its doors open enables other parents to work. Investment in this workforce supports capabilities across our hospitals, our schools, our small businesses and the wider economy. Childcare affordability should be a central cost-of-living priority. For a family balancing housing costs, groceries and childcare fees, reducing the weekly childcare bill can provide meaningful, ongoing relief. The benefit can go further. Affordable care can make an additional day of work worthwhile, allowing a parent to resume training or help someone return to their profession. It can improve both the household budget and the opportunities available to that family.

In 2022, I spoke in this House about a Warringah constituent working as a physiotherapist in an oncology ward. She told me then that she would have to leave her job because of childcare costs, with just $55 a day before tax left from working. It's just not worth it. Consider what that means—a parent with very valuable skills weighing up continuing in their profession while a health service risks losing someone with valuable skills. The financial settings around child care can have really significant consequences to us as a country well beyond just the family paying the fees. So whilst this bill addresses the pay for early childhood educators, we have to talk about the impact on families and parents around the affordability of child care.

I've also spoken about my own experience juggling child care while studying and practising as a barrister. Like many parents, I relied on different forms of care and help from grandparents. The system just doesn't reflect the realities of working families. Whilst it has improved, it has not come a long way. There are still massive discrepancies in our system, especially in our tax sector. It just infuriated me how those childcare costs, which were ultimately absolutely necessary for me to go and do my work—I simply couldn't be in two places at once—were not tax deductible. I can't tell you how many times male colleagues would joke about the fact that they could go on their surfing trips or their ski trips and organise a couple of lectures for their continuing professional development at the same time, and then the entire trip was tax deductible. Yet that expense of child care, which was essential to me doing my job, was not. This is an area that must be addressed and rectified. When mothers reduce their hours because of care responsibilities—among parents, it is overwhelmingly mothers that end up doing that, but it is changing slowly—because care is so unaffordable, the effects can extend through career progression, earnings and then, as we know, retirement savings. Giving parents a real choice about work and care is an important part of gender equality.

So we should also examine further ways to reduce what families actually pay, including investigating making work-related childcare expenses tax deductible. For many parents, child care is essential to earning an income, and that reality deserves proper recognition in our tax settings. The government should put reform firmly on the agenda and publish modelling of a deduction for eligible out-of-pocket costs, including its effect on workforce participation and household budgets. The objective must be a fairer and more affordable system with practical support that makes working and caring more manageable.

Affordability also requires attention to fees. The worker retention payment comes with limits on fee growth. That is an important way of supporting higher wages for everybody doing an amazing job in this sector but also of protecting families from then bearing cost hikes. However, the limit on increases does not mean fees are frozen or affordable, so government must monitor the out-of-pocket costs parents are actually experiencing.

In March 2025, following the Four Corners investigation, the National Children's Commissioner called for urgent national action on dangerous practices and gaps in regulation. Parents were entitled to expect that those protections were already working. For affected children and families, the harm can be profound, and they absolutely deserve support, accountability and a response that prevents further harm. Reassurance must be backed by changes that work in the daily life of a centre.

So I welcome the national worker register, mandatory child-safety training and stronger transparency measures introduced through the wider reform program. These are important steps. They need consistent implementation, effective information sharing and regulators equipped to act quickly. And that implementation requires care. If a provider fails, government must hold that provider accountable while safeguarding children and safeguarding educators' lawful wage entitlements. A response that drives experienced staff away could make an already struggling service less capable of improving. Again, we must make sure that those standards work and that they are applied consistently, with accountability.

We also need to make sure that educators can raise concerns confidently, with clear reporting channels and protection from retaliation. Safety depends on a culture in which concerns are heard and acted on, including when they are inconvenient for management.

We also need to be consistent in how we approach this question around children. A national framework for the rights of the child embedded in every piece of legislation that affects children is urgently needed. I've been calling for this for a long time. Whilst we have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we have not enacted it in law, and we do not have a consistent system across all our systems that actually embeds the rights of children consistently, fairly and equally across all legislation that impacts their lives.

The Australian Human Rights Commission's 2026 assessment identified the continuing absence of federal legislation that adequately incorporates all children's rights and holds the government accountable for protecting them. We need to close that gap. Australia's commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child provide a foundation. Children's best interests must be a primary consideration. Children must be protected from violence and neglect, and their views must be heard in ways appropriate to their age and maturity.

Those principles should guide the substance of our laws and their implementation. Every bill affecting children should be tested for its impact on their rights, with clear duties for decision-makers and meaningful accountability when protections fail. That approach must extend across early education, health, disability, family law, crime prevention, migration, the digital environment and the justice system. A child's fundamental rights—especially those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children—should be consistently recognised whenever they encounter government or a publicly funded service.

This bill is a worthwhile step. It supports better pay for educators, strengthens expectations around safety and helps give the sector greater stability. But our ambition—I urge the government—should go further. Families need child care they can genuinely afford, educators need sustainable careers, and children need safety and rights embedded at the heart of the system. We should treat early childhood education and care as essential national infrastructure, supporting children's development, parents' workforce participation and the strength of our economy. So I urge the government to build further action on affordability, workforce conditions, safety, a consistent approach and a national framework for the rights of every child.

I rise today to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. Every day, early childhood educators help our youngest Australians learn, grow and prepare for their future. They comfort children when they are upset. They encourage them when they're uncertain. They help them learn how to communicate, solve problems, build friendships and understand the world around them. It is skilled, demanding and deeply important work.

As a former teacher, I know exactly how much education does. It does not begin when a child walks through the primary school gates for the first time; learning begins much earlier. The experiences children have in their first five years shape their confidence, curiosity and development for the rest of their lives. I was reminded of that recently when I visited Discovery Early Learning Centre in Launceston during Early Learning Matters Week. It was wonderful to spend time with children as they built, explored, played and solved problems together. With my background in education, it was particularly lovely to be back in a learning environment and to watch those interactions take place. The children were, of course, having a fantastic time.

Play is not simply something children do to pass time; play is how young children learn. It is how they develop communication skills, that all-important confidence and creativity. It's how they learn to share, negotiate and form friendships. It's how they begin to understand themselves, other people and the extending world around them. At Discovery I moved between wonderfully creative play spaces. There were blocks, a pretend dental clinic, book-making activities and even a fishing hole. To a casual observer, they might look like simple games, but educators know how much more is happening there.

Those spaces do not appear by accident. Educators have spent time considering what children need, what will capture their interest and how each activity can support their learning and their development. The dental clinic encouraged imagination, communication and collaboration. Book-making created opportunities for drawing, early writing and storytelling. The blocks support spatial awareness, problem solving and fine motor skills. The fishing hole encouraged children to explore and work together. Every single element within that space had a purpose, even when, from a child's perspective, they were simply having fun. That takes skill, it takes preparation and it takes professional judgement.

It also takes an enormous amount of energy. Most adults forget that playing and engaging with young children for an entire day can be utterly exhausting. Their energy is truly boundless. Anyone who has worked with young children knows the truth of this. Educators must have patience, creativity, adaptability and stamina. They need to be attentive to the individual needs of each child while creating a safe and welcoming environment for the whole group. They build trusted relationships with families. They observe children's development closely. They plan these meaningful learning experiences. They respond to challenges and very large emotions calmly and professionally.

Yet, for too long, the value of this work was simply not reflected in what educators were paid. Early childhood education and care is one of the most highly feminised workforces in Australia. Over 95 per cent of the workforce are women. Like too many professions dominated by women, this work has historically been undervalued. For generations, we've treated some of the skills traditionally associated with women, such as caring, nurturing, communicating and educating young children, as if these skills somehow come naturally and therefore should not command the same recognition as other professional skills. But there is nothing unskilled about educating a room full of young people. There is nothing simple about recognising changes in a child's development, helping them regulate their emotions, supporting additional needs, communicating with families and creating an environment where every child feels safe enough to learn. This is professional work, and the people doing it deserve professional recognition. They deserve more than our thanks. They deserve fair pay, secure employment and the opportunity to build a lasting career.

That is why the Albanese Labor government introduced the worker retention payment and funded the 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers. For around 400 early childhood education and care workers in my electorate of Bass, that support is making a real difference. That is 400 workers across Launceston, George Town, Scottsdale, Flinders Island and West Tamar whose work is being better recognised and better remunerated. For those educators, a pay rise is not an abstract number. It means some extra breathing room when the electricity bill arrives. It helps with the weekly grocery shop and might help cover rent, mortgage, petrol, school expenses and all those ordinary costs that the households manage every week. Combined with increases to minimum wages supported by this government, this means a typical full-time educator is now around $255 a week better off than they were when the payment began in December 2024. For a full-time early childhood teacher, that figure is around $410 a week. Over a year, that is a significant difference to a household budget.

But this policy was not just about giving people a much-deserved pay rise; it was also about keeping skilled educators in the sector and attracting more people to join it. We now have strong evidence that this is working. Since the pay rise was announced, around 20,000 more people have joined the early education and care workforce. Job vacancies across the sector have fallen by more than 31 per cent. More than 215,000 educators at over 11,600 services are benefiting from this payment. That makes a huge difference on the ground. Services are better able to staff each of their rooms, educators have more stable teams around them, and more children can access that care and early learning that they need.

It means experienced educators choosing to remain in the profession that they love rather than leaving simply because they need a higher income to survive. That stability matters enormously to our children right across Australia. Our young children thrive when they can form consistent and trusting relationships with their educators. But, when staff are continuously changing, children lose those relationships and services lose experience. When educators stay, they know the child. They know the family. They understand their strengths, their interests and their individual needs. Those relationships with parents and carers are critical, and it helps these educators to know when something might change for a child. Providing that consistency and that security allows children to feel safe, to participate and to learn. That workforce retention is not separate from quality; it is fundamental to it.

So, in June this year, our Albanese Labor government announced a further $3.6 billion to extend this worker retention payment for another two years, through to June 2028, and this bill gives effect to that commitment. It locks in that support for higher wages. It gives educators and services greater certainty about the years ahead. It will also expand the reach of the payment. For the first time, employees across all approved service types will be able to benefit, provided that that service meets the requirements of the program. That means more educators receiving the recognition and support that this payment provides.

Importantly, we're also making sure that higher wages are not simply passed straight through to families in the form of higher fees. Services receiving the worker retention payment must limit their fee increases. Since this payment was introduced, fees at participating centres have grown at around half the rate at the centres that are not receiving it. Over the next two years, that fee restraint is expected to save the average family around $1,500, and that is so important. Families should not be forced to choose between fair wages for the person educating their child and affordable early learning. We can and should work towards both.

This bill also strengthens the connection between government funding and children's safety. From July next year, services receiving this wage funding will be required to meet quality area 2 of the national quality standard, which relates to children's health and safety. If a service does not meet that standard, its funding can be cut or suspended. About 95 per cent of our services are currently meeting that standard, which is encouraging, but it's not enough. When parents leave their child at an early learning service, they should be able to do so with confidence that their child will be safe, supported and well cared for. In particular, when taxpayers are investing billions of dollars into supporting the sector, it is very reasonable to expect providers receiving that funding to meet nationally established safety standards. Public funding comes with public responsibilities.

I need to be clear that strengthening those requirements is not about diminishing the professionalism of the educators in this field. The overwhelming majority of educators that I meet and that I have worked with over the past 15 years are truly extraordinary people who care deeply about the children that they work with. But this ensures that providers have the systems, policies, staffing arrangements and workplace cultures that allow those educators to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

Fair wages, workforce stability, quality and safety are not separate ambitions. They reinforce each other. When workers are properly valued, they are more likely to stay. When experienced educators stay, children benefit from these consistent relationships. When services have a stable and supported workforce, they are better able to maintain their strong practices and that positive safety culture. When families have confidence in early learning, more children can benefit from the opportunities of the high-quality early education that is provided.

There's also a much bigger story here about what early education and care means for our communities more broadly. Our early learning gives children the opportunity to build skills and confidence that will stay with them when they begin school and right throughout their lives. It gives parents greater freedom to return to work, increase their hours, undertake training or pursue other opportunities. It helps employers access the workforce that they need. In regional communities like mine, where access to workers and access to child care are often closely connected, that matters enormously. None of this can happen without the educators that make the system work every day.

We cannot say that the first five years of a child's life are the most important while treating the people who work with them during those years as an afterthought. We cannot describe early education as essential while expecting educators to survive on wages that do not reflect the skill and the responsibility that their work requires. And we cannot build a stronger early learning system without attracting, retaining and supporting a strong professional workforce. To the educators I've met right across Bass I want to say thank you. Thank you for your patience, your care, your creativity and your skill. Thank you for the environments that you create, the relationships that you build and the confidence that you inspire in our youngest children.

Importantly, this bill is about more than just saying thank you. It is about backing those words with action. It is about recognising that this is skilled work and paying people accordingly. It is about making it possible for talented educators to remain in a profession that they love. It is about giving families greater stability and keeping early learning affordable, and it is about ensuring that as we invest more public money into this sector the safety and the wellbeing of children remain at its centre. The work our educators do in those early years stays with children for a lifetime, and our communities are stronger because of it. They deserve to be valued, they deserve to be supported and they deserve wage justice. I am proud to support this bill and I commend it to the House.

It's always a pleasure to follow the member for Bass and listen to her elegant words and story. It's magnificent to see her here and the work she's doing. Wage justice for early childhood education and support workers is very important, and I'm proud to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. The bill is designed to support the essential workers who show up every day and make our society better, and the benefits of a bill like this are not only for workers. Doing better for childcare workers means we are supporting young families and creating opportunities.

We know that supporting young families has benefits across our economy. The bill is not about politics or one group in society at the expense of all others. It's about justice. Early childhood educators, who contribute so much to this nation, deserve to be paid fairly. Our government, the Albanese Labor government, is proud to support everyday Australian workers. We are committed to building an early learning system that is high in quality, more affordable and, importantly, available when families need it.

The wage justice bill, at its core, is about financial freedom. Think back to 2022. We inherited a mess. When this government was first elected, the attrition rate for workers in child care was as high as 40 per cent in some places. These were people who loved their job, took a deep sense of fulfilment and pride in their work, but couldn't go on earning such low wages. These are the people that educate and nurture our most precious resource: children. But they were leaving in droves because they couldn't afford to keep doing it. It was a real crisis in this sector.

Two years ago, we made a very conscious decision. We delivered a 15 per cent pay rise for more than 215,000 early childhood educators at more than 11,600 centres right across the nation. 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. Job vacancies are now down 31 per cent. Job applications in some places are up 30 per cent, and there are now 20,000 more childcare workers across the nation.

I'm proud that we've committed a further $3.6 billion to extend the worker retention payment out to 30 June 2028. It's not a pie in the sky press release or a photo op to look like government doing something. It's focused attention on real Australians, compared to the empty media releases that they saw from those opposite—all Insta feeds; no deeds—over nine long years. The coalition gave child care nothing. We even had one disingenuous Prime Minister proclaim during the pandemic that there would be free child care for everyone with a job. We all know how that went, don't we!

We all remember those words at the press conference and the photo op. But, like most announcements from that Prime Minister, it was all conference, no follow up—all pictures, no substance—and Australian workers were worse off. In fact, the most outstanding feature of that government's free childcare system was the number of people who were actually locked out of free child care. What did that mean? It meant services had to cut opening hours. They had to cut staff, and they had to cut places just to balance their books. It was unfair. But this government's different.

We're proud to have a financially responsible system in place. Our funding extension is directly tied to a commitment from services that they will limit fee increases for families. It means the average family will save some $1,500 over the next two years. We're not just funding more childcare employment; we're funding better standards of care. To receive the funding, services will now also be required to meet a new range of national standards. The national quality standard was jointly developed by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to ensure that we have safety in the sector. It is a standard that services are assessed and rated against by state and territory regulatory authorities. If you don't meet the standard, funding will be cut.

About 95 per cent of services already meet the criteria, but we want that number to be higher. Since the legislation passed, the Department of Education has taken compliance actions against 119 centres. These are the centres that have not met safety standards. It's no surprise that 55 of those centres have now suddenly fixed the problems that they refused to fix in the past. The threat of cutting off their funding has forced them to act. As the Minister for Education put it, that's what parents have a right to expect and it's what our children deserve.

The bill will also allow for equivalent conditions to apply to services that are not regulated by the National Quality Framework, such as in-home care services. The wage justice bill is providing continuity by amending the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024. The sunset date has been adjusted to 31 December 2029.

Being able to use a one-off payment is one thing, but being able to rely on proper support for your future is another, and we're proud that we have delivered both. I've been privileged to see firsthand the good work our childcare centres across McEwen do. From recent trips to Goodstart Early Learning in Woodend and Explorers Early Learning in Wallan, what really struck me was the skill, the dedication, the patience and the responsibility that our early childhood educators bring to work every single day. They're not babysitters, as some might refer to them. They are trained professionals. They help children learn. They help children develop and build the foundations that they need to carry to school and beyond. We know the importance of early learning in children up to five years old, and these workers deserve to be valued accordingly. It isn't just about building wages, because, when good educators stay in a profession they love and enjoy, children benefit, families benefit and eventually our society benefits. This bill is about building and retaining a strong and experienced workforce now and going forward into the future.

Both of the centres I mentioned are providing the care and education children deserve day in, day out. These centres of early childhood educators give parents the peace of mind that they deserve in being able to leave their kids in their care. Across McEwen, there are 67 childcare centres receiving worker retention payments, supporting about 1,000 early childhood educators. I want to use this time to say thank you to the educators that we meet at these centres, and to all our educators, for the valuable work you do. McEwen was rated as one of those areas with a childcare desert. We know that there was a shortage of child care, with a growing, exploding population—a population whose infrastructure and support were neglected for nine years but are now getting the things that they deserve in roads, in mobile phones, in doctors and in bulk-billing, and, of course, we're seeing a rise in early childhood learning centres. With an average age of around 34, young families need to know when they come to our suburbs and our communities and become part of us that they will get the support they need.

We see childcare centres popping up everywhere, and it's fantastic. We have these small, dedicated ones. I look back to when my daughter, Rachel, was young and we would drop her off early. It was literally a converted house with a few big rooms. You know the feeling when you drop a child off. If you don't wave goodbye to them, they get pretty angry and upset, and you don't want to see that. But now when you walk into these new early childhood learning centres you just see a warmth in the way the decor is done and the willingness of the staff to work there and be warm and friendly and helpful, and you see very quickly the rapport that children get with their educators and the fun that they have. The range of things that they do in different learning environments is just fantastic. Quite often we might walk in there, do our bit, deliver flags and talk to them about work, but what you see is a bunch of enthusiastic people who really do value the work that they do and are very proud of their work. We should be very proud of them, and we are proud because the work they do takes a bit of patience, a lot of learning, a lot of care and a lot of effort—and I don't think I could find one person in the sector that doesn't have all of that in spades. We want to make sure that early childhood educators give parents the peace of mind that they deserve, just to be able to leave their kids in someone else's care.

When we look at these things and at the technical amendments in the bill, they make some important clarifications. 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 a person acting on behalf of the approved provider. This bill is a clear step in the right direction. A year and a half into this Labor government's second term, we are getting on with the job of governing for all Australians. It is in stark contrast to what we've seen in the recent past. According to analysis, 25 per cent of early childhood learning centres suffered massive financial losses during COVID. They were losing money every day and they were operating to support the children of essential workers. My question to the coalition is simple: when you were in government, what did you do to help? I don't mean a press release or a shiny new announcement—what did you actually do?

Ours is a government of action. We acknowledged that what our early childhood educators did during COVID was so important, and we thanked them because we know it was hard work and it was painful but they did it. They should be acknowledged for that sort of work. Ours is a government, as I said, of action, making decisions and implementing them. On 17 June this year, the PM announced an investment of $3.6 billion over the next two years to lock in this historic pay rise. Now we're turning our promises into actions.

The bill provides financial support, standards improvements and employment continuity. The Department of Education predicted that, if this legislation does not pass, childcare fees will rocket by about 17 per cent. You would think no-one in this place would want that. Our childcare workers need to be able to keep doing the job they love and to foster our next generation of Australians. You don't need to be a childcare provider to feel the benefits. You don't even need to be a parent. A better childcare system underpins our economy. It means more people can work and every child gets their best start. This bill is about justice, and all Australians can get behind it. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. At its heart, this legislation is about respect. It's about properly valuing the educators who help our children learn and grow and help prepare them to be great learners when they go to school. Every day, they bring skill, patience, care and professional judgement to one of the most important jobs in our country. For too long, that work, performed overwhelmingly by women, was underpaid and undervalued.

This matters everywhere, but it matters in a special way in rural, remote and very remote communities. In places across my electorate of Braddon and in other rural and remote parts of Australia, an early learning service is not simply another business on the main street; it's critical social infrastructure. A small centre may be the only service of its kind for many kilometres. An entire town can rely on one service. Parents rely on that service so they can take a shift at the local hospital, aged-care home, school, farm, factory, mine or small business. Employers rely on it so they can find and keep workers. Children rely on it for consistent relationships, learning and support.

When a small service has to close a room, shorten its hours or turn families away because it cannot find educators, the effects travel right through that community. In a large city, families may have another option nearby. In a rural or remote town, there may be no practical alternative. The next service may be a long drive away, and that distance adds cost, stress and time to a family's day. In very remote communities, losing educators can put the future of the whole service at risk.

These centres also offer good, meaningful jobs close to home. They create career paths for local people and give workers the chance to build their skills while contributing to their own community. But the importance and responsibility of the work was not reflected in the pay. Skilled educators were being asked to stay in jobs they loved while struggling to make ends meet. Services were losing experienced staff, delaying expansion, limiting enrolments and in some cases closing rooms because they could not recruit enough educators.

We can see the importance of this in communities right across Braddon. In Queenstown, new funding for early childhood education and care will help strengthen local capacity at a time when demand is expected to surge. The reopening of the Mount Lyell copper mine after many years is expected to bring major investment and up to 300 jobs to the West Coast. As workers and families come to the region, access to early learning will be essential if Queenstown is to make the most of this opportunity. A mine cannot build a stable workforce without the services that allow families to live and work locally. That means housing, health care, schools and child care. But a building alone cannot care for a child. Queenstown will also need qualified educators paid fairly and supported to stay so additional places can become reliable care for local families. In Devonport, the Devonport childcare centre Malangenna will receive $4 million through the Albanese Labor government's Building Early Education Fund to expand and refurbish.

The project will provide up to 70 additional places, almost doubling the service's capacity, and create a modern early learning environment that's collated with the TasTAFE Devonport campus. Those additional places will make a real difference to Devonport families, and the expanded centre will need workers. Labor's free TAFE places are supporting new educators to join the workforce that will be needed to staff that centre.

Parents in Latrobe, just a bit further along the road, recently faced the loss of a vital local service after St Patrick's Child Care Centre closed. The Albanese Labor government provided $334,000 from the Community Child Care Fund to Lady Gowrie Tasmania to secure an interim service which protected continuity of care for local children and families. A temporary centre opened in February this year, with capacity for those 55 children who came from St Patrick's. Instead of facing a severe local shortage, Latrobe now has a service that is operating and is on a pathway to expand, with a new purpose-built centre almost completed by Lady Gowrie. That means more places for families and greater confidence that parents can remain in work, training and the community that they call home.

Securing and expanding the building is only part of the answer. The 15 per cent pay rise will not only help retain those dedicated educators already serving Latrobe, it also creates good opportunities for new educators, who will be needed. It means local investment can translate into dependable, high-quality care, not empty rooms waiting for staff.

In rural and remote places, fair pay is a workforce and service continuity measure. Recruiting qualified educators to remote locations is difficult at any time, and losing even one worker can affect the number of children a centre can safely care for. The 15 per cent pay rise recognises the value of educators and gives centres a stronger chance to attract and keep their workforces. These are the reasons why the Albanese Labor government funded a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood education and care workers.

Now, we're acting to lock that pay rise in for a further two years, backed by an additional $3.6 billion. This investment is already making a difference. Since the payment was first announced, around 20,000 more people have joined the early childhood education and care workforce, and job vacancies have fallen by almost 31 per cent, which is a really good sign. That means more educators in centres, more stable relationships for children as they bond with their carers and a stronger chance that services can keep rooms open and welcome more families. When combined with the government's support for minimum wage increases, a typical full-time educator will be $255 a week better off, and an early childhood teacher will be $410 a week better off compared with December 2024. That is a real difference to household budgets.

It is also a clear message. These are skilled professionals. Their work matters, and they deserve to be paid fairly. They look after the most precious people in our communities, and they should be recognised fairly. A 15 per cent pay rise also sets people up for the future. It means better superannuation and a more secure retirement income. I've seen what a difference the pay rise can mean in the lives of people in Braddon. Emma, who works at the Discovery Early Learning Centre in Ulverstone, has a husband, Jamie, who is a disability care worker in Devonport. Because of the 15 per cent pay rise that Emma received, together with their first home buyer assistance, they were able to buy land and build their very first home—a home of their own that they did not see before this 15 per cent came into play. That is what good policy can do. When governments open the door to opportunity and when pay properly recognises the value of people's work, lives can change. For Emma and Jamie, it meant greater security, a place to call their own and a chance to build their future in the community where they work and contribute greatly.

The legislation also protects families. Government funding for pay rises is tied to a commitment from services to limit fee increases for parents. The extension of the 15 per cent pay rise is expected to save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. Funding for the 15 per cent pay rise also strengthens quality and safety because it's tied to national safety and quality standards, as it should be, because parents deserve to have confidence that their children are safe, supported and receiving high-quality early learning.

For regional communities, workforce stability is not an abstract policy goal. It can be the difference between a centre opening or closing a room, between a nurse returning to work or staying home, between a small business filling a roster or cutting its hours and between a family remaining in a town or actually moving away to somewhere else. When we back early educators, we back children, families, local employers and the future of our towns. We make good local jobs more secure, we help small services keep their doors open, and we give rural, remote and very remote communities a fairer chance to thrive.

Child care has changed significantly. I remember, over 40 years ago, I used to drop my twins off at the Humpty Dumpty centre in Ulverstone. Things have changed a lot since then. That was almost just an opportunity for me to go and do a few things by having a bit of a babysitting centre. That is no longer the case. Early childhood education sets our children up for a life of good learning and great opportunities by the time they get to school. These early educators deserve more than our thankyou. They deserve our respect and they deserve our recognition, but they also deserve decent pay. This bill delivers that while supporting affordable, safe and reliable early learning for families. I commend the bill to the House.

I add my support to this legislation and also endorse so many of the comments that have been made by my colleagues who have spoken in support of it as well. In fact, when I stand here after listening to all of them, it is difficult to add anything further that hasn't already been said. Even just now, the member for Braddon, when she was speaking about her experiences, again summed up why this legislation is indeed so important, and why this whole sector—that is, the childcare sector—is so important to our society and our economy today.

As other speakers have pointed out, this legislation also delivers on another Albanese government commitment that was made earlier on this year. Importantly, it locks in the worker retention payment for childcare workers for another two years. that is critical because, for too long, what we were seeing was people working in this industry having to leave the industry because they were not being paid fairly, as so many other speakers have said.

The reality is that we do live in a very much changing society. When I look at what was happening many years ago and at what I would refer to as the workforce participation numbers of women, say, 50 years ago, I see that around 50 per cent of women aged between 15 and 65 were what I would refer to as in the labour force some 50 years ago, compared to today where the figure is around 77 per cent. What we have seen over that period is an increase of women in the labour force of around 50 per cent, and that has arisen for a number of reasons. It dates right back to the days of the Whitlam government, where the Whitlam government recognised the importance of increasing women in the workforce both for their own ability and because it was good for the national economy. In doing so, one of the things that was recognised at the time was the need to increase support for how children would be looked after if their mums were going back to work or entering the workforce. That initiated what I would call the support for the childcare sector, more broadly, right back then.

Over the years, that has continued to change. I understand that around the country today we have some 15,000 or more childcare centres. That includes 9,700 long day care centres and a workforce of around 268,000 people in the sector. I can say from my own experience that was not the case when I was at school and growing up, because childcare centres were almost non-existent. It just demonstrates how much society has changed, and again it's a change for the better. I say that because, as so many of the other speakers have made the point, children in those early years are very much at a critical stage of their lives, but they're also at a stage where, if we set up a centre that provides them with every opportunity not only to be cared for but to increase their knowledge and to begin to educate them, it makes an incredible difference to their years ahead. We've seen that in initiatives by previous governments, where the people who work within these centres are now not only simply caring for them but actually educating them along the way.

Over the years, I have visited several of the childcare centres, and I have seen the kind of work that the childcare centre workers do. I've also seen the pressures that they come under. Unfortunately, in years gone by, we had a situation and a system where there were too many operators that were not only running their centres on a shoestring and providing inadequate staffing levels, which meant that the children were not getting the support that they were needing. The workers were also being underpaid. That has changed as a result of initiatives of particularly past and present Labor governments. So today we have a much better system in place. That doesn't mean to say that it is perfect. Again, from my experience, I know that the turnover of staff in many of those centres a few years ago was incredibly high and even the sector itself was somewhat insecure because of that. Other speakers have referred to the fact that during the COVID years it was incredibly difficult for some of the centres to continue to provide the services et cetera.

This Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account)(Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 now tries to ensure not only that there is security within the sector and the workers are paid fairly and commensurate with the work that they are doing but that there is stability across society more broadly to enable the mums and perhaps even the dads, in cases where there is shared responsibility, to get back into the workforce if they want to do so. If they're going to do so, we need to ensure that the centres are properly resourced and supported, and that's what this legislation does.

I note that the legislation provides a 15 per cent pay rise for the next two years, and I believe that will stabilise the sector for that period. I also note that there has been an incredible amount of support for those childcare centres, particularly by the United Workers Union, which has campaigned over the years for better remuneration for the workers that that work in the childcare centres. I believe it is largely because of those campaigns that we have got the support for them that we now have. As other speakers have said, this now means that, over the next two years, parents will be on average some $1,500 better off because of the increase that the government has provided to the childcare centres per se.

Having said all of that, I am concerned that there are still some centres that do not provide the level of care that most parents would expect. In recent weeks in South Australia, we saw several centres closed because of that. That is a concern because parents entrust their little children to these centres, and there is nothing more precious to them than their little children. We need to ensure, as governments and as a society, that when those children are entrusted into a system, they are properly cared for and looked after and that parents can get on with their work without having to worry about what is happening to their children. So I simply make the point that in this sector it is not simply about wages; it's also about ensuring that there are standards and that those standards need to be adhered to.

As I said earlier, over the years I have visited several of the centres, and I commend not only the people that work there but also some of the operators who go out of their way to ensure that the children are looked after. The workers that I have spoken to over the years genuinely care for those kids. The level of care that I have seen gives me confidence that we do have a sector out there that is doing what we would like them to do. But we also need to ensure that there is proper oversight of how those centres are run.

We saw over the years an explosion in the number of childcare centres around the country. I've seen centres open and I've seen centres close. It is essentially because there have been changing trends. We're now seeing parents that are working from home a lot more than in the past. Again we are seeing changing trends. One of the other things that has occurred as a result of more women participating in the labour force is grandparents looking after kids a lot more than we might have seen in years gone by. I've heard of requests from grandparents that maybe there should be some level of compensation provided to them for providing the very service that the childcare centres are providing. That tells me that we live in a society that is constantly changing.

When the Rudd and Gillard governments came into office, we also instituted policies whereby we expected childcare workers to also increase their own education so that they were then considered to have additional qualifications. It was also important, if we're going to ask people to be more highly qualified, that they also be properly compensated for that in itself. I believe that this legislation is in keeping with the faith that if you're going to be more highly educated, then of course you should be compensated appropriately.

We all talk in this place, almost on a daily basis, about cost-of-living pressures. They're real and they're out there. We know that that has a number of effects on families. The first effect is that, particularly where there's a husband and wife and children in a family, it almost compels both parents to go out and work. It also means that those families are having to pay out money for child care or whatever other services they need for their children. For them to be able to go out and work, they need support. It's not going to happen unless families are supported through legislation like this, which effectively provides income to the centres which are providing the service so that, in turn, they can keep their own costs down a little. As a result of the Albanese government's legislation, which provides additional payments to those centres, we have seen that those centres have managed to keep their fees down. If they do that, that in turn allows more parents to go out and work and try and cope with the cost of living.

There is another important element to all of this. It allows both parents to enter the workforce. For too long, our country and many other countries were missing out on the contribution those parents would be able to make to society, to our economy, by being in the workforce. We now have, certainly in this country, opportunities for women to get into the workforce that simply did not exist in years gone by. That is a good thing for the nation, it's a good thing for the individual and it's a good thing for the families.

By supporting early childcare centres through this support to the people that work within them, we're providing not only stability within the centres but opportunities to get the best out of the people of this country by enabling them to enter the workforce and pursue the careers and opportunities that they would otherwise not be able to. With those remarks, I commend the legislation to the House.

There are some jobs which, if you've never done them, it is very easy to underestimate just how hard they are. Early childhood education is one of them. Looking after a room full of three-year-olds is not just about putting out some crayons, singing a few songs and making sure nobody eats the glue. Although, to be fair, making sure nobody eats the glue is probably part of the job. Early educators teach children to communicate, regulate their emotions, play with other kids, follow routines, become independent and get ready for school. They comfort children when they are upset. They deal with scraped knees, tantrums, allergies, illnesses and the occasional spectacular disagreement over the ownership of a plastic dinosaur. They keep children safe and they do all of this while communicating with parents, documenting children's development and meeting professional and regulatory requirements. It is skilled work, it is demanding work and it is enormously important work.

However, for far too long, the pay did not reflect that. That is why I rise to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. This bill does three important things: it locks in higher wages for early educators for another two years, it continues protections against excessive fee increases for families and it strengthens the connection between Commonwealth funding and the safety of children. That is a pretty good day's work for one bill.

I have spent most of my working life around wages. I was an electrician before becoming an industrial lawyer. One thing you learn pretty quickly in workplaces is that people eventually get tired of being told how valuable they are when their pay packet tells them something completely different. You cannot pay a mortgage with a thank you. You cannot buy groceries with applause. Your bank is generally reluctant to accept 'You're doing incredibly important work' as payment on a home loan.

For years, that is effectively what we were asking early childhood educators to do. We told them their work was essential. We told them that the first five years of a child's life were incredibly important. We told parents that access to early learning was essential. Then we tolerated a system where many of the people doing that work could earn more somewhere else. Unsurprisingly, many left. Services struggled to recruit workers, rooms closed, expansion plans were put on hold and enrolments were capped. Some services had space for more children but could not take them because they could not find enough educators. That is what a workforce shortage looks like. It is a parent being told that there is no place for their child. It is an educator working in a service that is constantly short-staffed. It is a centre director desperately trying to fill another roster, and it is another trained worker deciding they cannot afford to stay in an occupation they love.

In August 2024, the Albanese Labor government announced funding for a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education care workers, and then something remarkable happened. When you pay people properly, more of them want to do the job. Who could have possibly predicted that? I suspect not those opposite, who were too busy fighting over a pot of clag. Since the worker retention payment was announced, there have been about 20,000 more workers in early childhood education and care. Vacancies have fallen by almost a third. The proportion of services operating with staffing waivers has fallen substantially. More than 215,000 educators at more than 11,600 services are benefiting from the payment.

This is not complicated economics. If an industry cannot attract enough workers, wages are part of the equation. If governments believe a service is important to the country, sometimes a government has a role in fixing the problem. That is what Labor did, and it worked. The next question was obvious: what happens when the original funding ends? There would not be much point spending two years rebuilding the workforce and then saying: 'Great work, everyone. Now back you go.' So, in June this year, the Albanese government announced another $3.6 billion to lock in the pay rise for a further two years. This bill gives effect to that commitment. It credits more than $3.6 billion to the early childhood education and care workers special account. It extends the operation of the 2024 act until 31 December 2029, which allows the extended grants to be properly administered.

For the first time, employees at childcare subsidy approved services will be able to access the payment provided their service meets the grant requirements. That means greater certainty for educators, providers and families. When combined with this government's support for increases to the minimum wage, the typical full-time educator will be about $255 a week better off compared with December 2024. For an early childhood teacher, it is about $410 a week. That is real money. That is groceries. That is fuel. That is electricity. That is a child's sport registration. That is money going into the household budgets of people who go to work every day and do one of the most socially useful jobs imaginable.

I am a Labor member and I happen to believe that the people who work for a living should be able to make a decent living. This is radical stuff, I know! This policy was deliberately designed so that the benefit did not simply disappear into higher fees. Services receiving the payment have been required to limit fee increases, and that requirement will continue. The result is that fees at participating centres have been growing at about half the rate of services that have not signed up. Over the next two years, the extension is expected to save the average family about $1,500. That is important because we cannot have a serious discussion about early childhood education without talking about affordability. Parents know exactly what child care costs. You do not need to produce a Treasury graph for them. They see the direct debit, and for a family with two young children those numbers can get serious very quickly.

The policy does two things at once. It increases wages for workers without simply handing the cost to parents. Workers should not have to choose between fair wages and affordable services. Parents should not be told that the only way their child's educator can earn a decent income is if their childcare bill goes through the roof. The Commonwealth is stepping in to help with the transition. That supports workers, families and services trying to recruit and retain staff.

There is another reason retention is so important. Children need consistency. Early education is built on relationships. Children develop trust with the people caring for them. Educators learn how individual children communicate. They learn routines. They recognise when something is wrong. They build relationships with families. Constant staff turnover damages all of that. Anyone with young children knows how important familiarity can be. A four-year-old does not particularly care that an organisation has successfully completed its workforce restructuring strategy. They care that Sarah is there in the morning, they care that the person they know is at the door and they care that when their mum or dad leaves there is someone familiar there to greet them. That continuity helps children feel safe, and a stable workforce therefore does more than improve staffing numbers. It improves the quality of care.

That brings me to another important part of this legislation. This bill strengthens the relationship between Commonwealth wage funding and child safety. Services will be required to meet quality area 2 of the national quality standard, which deals with children's health and safety. About 95 per cent of services already meet that standard. That is encouraging, but, when we are talking about the safety of children, 95 per cent is not where we should stop. The goal should be a hundred per cent. The Commonwealth is putting billions of dollars of public money into this sector, and it is entirely reasonable to say that if a provider receives that funding the provider must meet basic safety standards for children's health and safety. Where those standards are not met, consequences under grant agreements can include suspension or cessation of funding.

This is not a punishment for educators. It's quite the opposite. Good educators want strong safety standards. Parents expect strong safety standards. Good providers already comply with them, and there is a simple principle here: government funding comes with responsibilities. We're investing in higher wages because we want a professional, stable and respected early childhood workforce, and professionalism must sit alongside quality and safety. The two reinforce each other. A service constantly losing experienced educators will find it harder to maintain quality. A service that retains experienced staff builds knowledge, relationships and stronger workplace cultures. Wage justice and safety are not competing objectives. They are connected.

There is also a broader point about how Australia has historically valued different kinds of work. Early childhood education remains a heavily female dominated workforce. For generations, occupations associated with caring have too often been treated as though the work is somehow less skilled because women traditionally performed it. We should reject that thinking. There is nothing unskilled about teaching a young child, there is nothing unskilled about managing the developmental needs of a room full of children and there is nothing unskilled about recognising behavioural changes, managing allergies, responding to emergencies, communicating with families and providing education at one of the most important stages of human development. If anything, I suspect there are quite a few members of this House who would last approximately 45 minutes in a room full of toddlers before requesting urgent assistance from the Sergeant-at-Arms. I include myself in that assessment. We should value the work accordingly, and wage justice is part of that.

Early childhood education also makes the rest of the economy work. If parents cannot access care, they cannot work the hours they want to work. Businesses lose workers, families lose income, and workforce participation suffers. Early childhood education is not simply a service provided to children; it is economic infrastructure. A mine needs roads and power. A business needs telecommunications. Working families need childhood education. If a nurse cannot care for her child, the hospital loses a nurse. If a teacher cannot care for his child, the school loses a teacher. If a sparky cannot care for their child, the job loses a sparky. And, if the childcare centre cannot find enough educators, all three families have the same problem at once. That is why fixing workforce shortages in early learning has effects far beyond the sector itself.

When Labor came to government, we inherited major workforce shortages in early education. One option would've been to shrug our shoulders and wait for the market to sort itself out. Eventually, I suppose, something would've happened. That is often the great promise of doing nothing. Give it enough time, and something will occur. Instead the government acted. We funded higher wages, we put conditions on fee increases, we expanded access to payment and we measured what happened: 20,000 more workers, vacancies down nearly a third, fewer services relying on staffing waivers and lower fee growth at participating centres. Now the policy is delivering results, and we are extending it. That is how government should work. Identify the problem, do something practical about it, measure the result, and if it works build on it. I have never had much patience for talking endlessly about problems when there is something practical we can do to fix the problem—and this bill is practical.

The title of this legislation is quite a mouthful, and I suspect no toddler will be successful in saying it before lunchtime, but what it does is straightforward. It says to early educators, 'We value your work, and that should be reflected in your wages.' It says to providers, 'We will help fund those wages, but public funding comes with responsibilities.' It says to parents, 'We are going to continue putting downward pressure on fee increases.' And it says to families, 'When you leave your child at an early learning service, their health and safety must come first.' This government has delivered the 15 per cent increase because Australia's early educators deserved it and because the sector needed it. The evidence shows it is working. More workers are joining the sector, vacancies are falling, staffing pressures are easing and families at participating services are seeing slower fee growth. This bill locks in those gains for another two years. It also makes clear that higher public investment must go hand in hand with higher expectation for child safety, fair wages, affordable care, a stronger workforce, safer services and a better education for Australian kids. I commend the bill to the House.

I just love getting out in my community, meeting local families and talking with local workers about all the different ways our government is helping them. One thing I really, really enjoy is popping into my local early learning centres, joining in the kids' activities and chatting with our wonderful, enthusiastic early childhood educators and families. During Early Learning Matters Week, I visited the Cornerstone Early Learning Academy in Nowra, where I met Elizabeth. Energetic, young and committed to the children in her care, Elizabeth began her career as an early childhood educator at Cornerstone seven years ago, and she is now the centre manager. Elizabeth and other staff at the centre love their work, and they have welcomed the 15 per cent pay rise for early educators, which she says has helped to attract new staff and retain existing staff. And she welcomes the extension of the pay rise for another two years to continue to bolster our early education workforce. It was so great to hear firsthand how this government is helping our early childhood educators, who play such a vital role in supporting the development and wellbeing of our little ones.

Since the worker retention payment was announced, we've seen around an eight per cent increase in early childhood educators, and job vacancies have decreased by almost 31 per cent, which shows our plan is working. We're getting more educators into the sector and helping families with more access to child care and cheaper child care. It's so important that the pay rise is locked in for another two years so our educators, our centres, our families and, importantly, our children can continue to reap the benefits. The funding extension will save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. When combined with the government's support for minimum wage rises, a typical full-time educator will earn around $255 more per week, while early childhood teachers will have around $410 more in the pocket each week, compared to December 2024. It's great news that, for the first time, employees in all CCS approved services will also be eligible for the payment. Importantly, this funding will continue to be tied to a commitment from services receiving the payment to limit fee increases for parents. This is another way we're helping families with the cost of living.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 also builds on this government's commitment to strengthen quality and safety in early learning. From July 2027, if services don't meet the national quality standard when it comes to safety, their funding may be cut or suspended. Services will be required to meet quality area 2, relating to children's health and safety, under the national quality standard. Around 95 per cent of services already meet this standard, but we want that number to increase because child safety in every centre is vital.

During my visit to the Cornerstone Early Learning Academy, I danced with the children, built block towers and got messy making ice cream in the playground, but early childhood education isn't all about changing nappies and finger painting. Every day, our incredible educators right across Gilmore and around the country nurture our kids and lay the foundations for lifelong learning with some amazing activities and experiences. At Cornerstone, the kids get involved in their community and take part in things like National Science Week, Dental Health Week and R U OK?Day. They learn about thankfulness and global unity on World Gratitude Day, and even try their hands at Auslan on the International Day of Sign Languages. That is so good. Our kids are learning about life, our environment, their health and the big wide world all thanks to our early childhood educators.

The children at Cornerstone have also been exploring the rich culture, language and traditions of the Dharawal people through storytelling, song and dance. These meaningful experiences support children to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of country and culture while fostering respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the world's oldest living culture.

Over 10 weeks, the kids were lucky to be involved in the Ready Steady Go Kids sports program, where they improved their movement and ball handling skills. They learnt about teamwork and fair play while playing golf, basketball, soccer and athletics. Our early learning centres really are beautiful, amazing and inspiring places. As a mum of four young adults, it's incredible to see how much childhood learning has changed over the last two decades. Today, children enjoy all sorts of interesting experiences, with visits from mobile libraries and mobile zoos where they have an opportunity to borrow books and learn about native wildlife, including snakes, frogs and baby crocodiles.

During a recent visit to ECTARC Jerry Bailey preschool at Shoalhaven Heads, I was delighted to join the children for an interactive experience with marine creatures, like starfish, crabs and even a baby shark. It was so wonderful to watch the children listen, touch and discover interesting facts about the animals and gain a sense of respect for the natural world. It's our educators that create these experiences which provide meaningful opportunities for children to learn and to develop a growing sense of curiosity about the world around them. While I really loved the marine creatures, I was invited to Jerry Bailey for their 40th birthday celebrations, and what a great afternoon spent with the kids, their families, community members and, of course, the wonderful early childhood educators celebrating this terrific milestone. I explored their beautiful gardens, and one of the children showed me their native beehive. Our early education centres are always buzzing with interesting, fun and educational activities.

Recently, the children and educators at ECTARC Sanctuary Point Early Education and Care Service sent me some very special messages and gorgeous artwork. The children shared what they love most about preschool, what makes them feel happy and safe, what they enjoy learning and what they would like adults and community leaders to know about early learning. It's easy to see why children's voices are so important. Quality early learning starts with valuing and supporting our early educators that go above and beyond for the youngest members of our community.

Our 15 per cent pay rise is helping build and retain the stable, dedicated workforce children deserve, because a quality workforce is the foundation of quality and safety in early learning. The Albanese government is supporting 600 workers in 54 early learning centres across Gilmore and opening up more places for local families. We're providing security for operators and more jobs, and I'm seeing new centres popping up all around my region which will support working and studying parents.

In fantastic news, Cornerstone, which I mentioned earlier on, has started construction on a second centre at Illaroo, and new Little Zak's centres have also opened their doors in Bomaderry and Kiama. The Cullunghutti Aboriginal Child and Family Centre at Nowra is so popular with local First Nations families that they're also looking to expand and open the second centre at Bomaderry. Cullunghutti provides an Aboriginal community controlled early childhood education and care service where young ones are being taught by educators who share their culture. This is a gorgeous, family oriented environment where little people can grow up strong in culture, connected to country and proud of who they are. It's a vital hub that provides culturally safe wraparound programs to support families and strengthen cultural connections.

The educators at Cullunghutti are dedicated and committed to supporting Aboriginal children. I want to give special congratulations to their early years development consultant, the amazing Marg Sutherland. After five decades working in early childhood development, Marg was named the AbSec Practitioner of the Year at the AbSec conference held in Port Macquarie earlier this year. She also won the award in 2021. What a local legend!

Our early childhood educators across the country do some of the most important work—looking after, nurturing and educating our youngest ones—and that's why they should be paid fairly for what they do. They help build vital skills for life, for big school and beyond.

Twice I've had the pleasure of welcoming Minister Marles, both in his capacity as Acting Prime Minister and in his capacity as Minister for Defence, to Gilmore's early learning centres. Earlier this year we visited ECTARC Clipper Road Education and Care Service at Nowra to meet some of the children and talk with staff about our government's historic 15 per cent pay rise. The minister also joined me on a visit to the One Tree Defence Childcare Unit Tingira. With HMAS Albatross close by, Tingira plays an extremely vital role in supporting local Defence families. It's a close-knit community and a fabulous facility, and I just love visiting.

We're working hard to make early education and care more affordable, more accessible and safer. Under those opposite, early education services were forced to delay their expansion plans, because they couldn't get staff. Trained professionals, mostly women, were leaving the childcare industry because they could earn more packing supermarket shelves. We're turning things around. We've also introduced the three-day guarantee, to make sure every child who needs it is eligible for three days of subsidised early learning each week, no matter what their parents do.

A big thankyou to all our wonderful early childhood educators—we want you to know that we're backing you. I want local families in Gilmore to know that I support you. Today I support this bill because building a strong community starts with our youngest, and that is something I'm always passionate about because children are our future, after all.

Debate adjourned.