Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, this legislation hasn't taken into account the unique operations and circumstances of Aboriginal community controlled services—not just child care but holistic family supports and cultural strengths. What consideration was given to the impact of legislation on ACCO centres that offer more than child care and are often community and service hubs?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Hodgins-May. And thank you, as the Greens spokesperson on early childhood education and care, for your support for and interest in this legislation and for your significant engagement with my office and, more broadly, with stakeholders on this really important piece of legislation.

This bill is incredibly important. We said that child safety was our top priority when it comes to early childhood education and care. We said we would introduce a bill in the first sitting of this parliament to make sure that we have a new power as the Commonwealth to withdraw Commonwealth childcare subsidy from those providers who don't put children first. That is exactly what we are here to do today—to pass this legislation, to be united as one parliament to do that and to make sure that we can keep children safer in early learning. We know that the Commonwealth childcare subsidy is a big lever that we have to pull, and it is a lever that we intend to use. Our message to providers who are not doing the right thing is that we want you to lift your game. Our priority is to work with those providers and work with our state regulators to do exactly that. We're really proud of this bill. We know that it will go a long way to sending a really strong message to providers across the board that they must invest in quality and safety in early childhood education.

We are a strong supporter of Aboriginal community-controlled early childhood education. We know that early education is an absolute game changer for children. It is particularly a game changer for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, including First Nations backgrounds. We know, even from recent Closing the Gap data, just how much of a game changer early childhood education is in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and we know that culturally safe early childhood education is the key to good outcomes for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We will continue to work with and support the ACCO sector, including in relation to this bill.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A third of National Quality Standard quality assessments are out of date, more than three years old. We have heard that this backlog will make it difficult for the government to rely on quality assessments and ultimately will reduce the effectiveness of the legislation. Minister, how will the government address this issue and ensure that national quality standard assessments are brought up to date? Will you adequately fund the state and territory governments to ensure that they properly assess quality in a timely manner?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill gives the Commonwealth the power, and gives the secretary of the department the ability, to apply sanctions to providers who are not doing a good enough job of keeping our children safe, and that includes suspending or cancelling funding for existing services that they may have if safety standards are not being met. It also includes giving the secretary the ability to ensure that any future services of those providers who are not putting children first will not be approved, so it the prevents their expansion. There's a number of criteria that the secretary will consider when making those decisions, and one of those is a criteria that you've mentioned, which is a failure to meet our National Quality Standards, particularly as it pertains to safety and quality.

The secretary also has the capacity to look at serious incidents and the nature and frequency of those serious incidents. Also the secretary has the capacity to look at providers' legal compliance on a range of related safety legislation, look at complaints and also look at the work with the state regulators, including conditions that they may have already imposed on early childhood providers. So there's a range of criteria that the secretary can look at when considering whether to use this powerful lever. Meanwhile, we continue to work, shoulder to shoulder, with the states and territories. We have a strong and significant package of reform that we're working through with the states and territories. We'll have more to say about that after we hold our urgent, standalone early childhood education ministers meeting in a couple of weeks.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't feel any more reassured about the backlog and the significant delays on those national quality standards after that answer, but I urge you to provide more information as you get it following those consultations with states. What is the threshold in the National Quality Standard assessment that would prevent a provider from opening a new CCS-approved service if they are already operating existing centres? I'm keen to understand a bit more about the threshold.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The criteria are set out in the bill. I've just run through the criteria that the secretary can consider when—in this case with the current secretary of the department—he is considering either removing funding from providers who already have established services, or when he is considering preventing providers from opening additional services.

What we want to see, of course, is all providers meeting the national quality standards. Those standards don't need to be specified in this bill because they already exist and they stand outside of the bill in the National Quality Framework. We want to see providers meet the National Quality Standard. It's really important, in this bill, that we avoid being too prescriptive about the exact thresholds at which sanctions apply. The secretary is looking at a range of measures, including the national quality standards and how providers are going at meeting those standards. They're also looking at serious incidents. They're looking at other legal compliance with other state laws. They're looking at complaints. They're looking at conditions that may have been provided. They're also—and this is clear in the legislation—looking at whether any significant efforts have been made to improve compliance and improve safety. So it's important that the secretary has some flexibility, and, of course, in the meantime we expect every provider to meet the national quality standards.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What framework will guide decisions about whether to publish information— for example, why centres aren't being allowed to open a new centre or are having their subsidy blocked, or decisions along that way? Speaking to the concern from parents that this process might not be as transparent as they hoped, will parents be informed when information is withheld and why? In my home state of Victoria, we're having real issues in getting the government to release documentation about breaches that have occurred in centres. So I would like to provide some assurance to parents.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the first assurance that we should provide parents is that the vast majority of our early childhood education and care providers do meet and exceed our national quality standards, but there is a small group of providers who persistently and consistently breach those standards. Where we have significant concerns, transparency for parents is really important, and it is provided for in the bill. We have greater publication powers with this bill than we've had before. The secretary is able to publish on our enforcement action register when CCS approval is being dealt with under this legislation. The secretary will also have a wider range of powers to publicise the broader range of compliance actions that are being taken in relation to CCS.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To understand that a little more clearly, what framework will guide whether they decide to list those events or those actions?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Importantly, the bill gives the secretary powers that they haven't had before to make actions taken under the legislation public. The disposition will be to publish. We think parents have a right to know about compliance action in relation to the services that their children are in. There is also a broader body of work in relation to that transparency going on with the education minister's process that we've been talking about.

Of course, we need to manage parents' understanding of what's going on in their services and make sure that they're confident. If publication would cause any harm to a service, and, really, to the families in that service, then that needs to be taken into consideration. It's probably also important to note that, if there's any imminent risk to children in an early learning service, the state regulators have the power to close those services down, and they can and do use those powers.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. It sounds like at the moment there aren't clear guidelines but it's at the discretion of the secretary to decide, but I'm hearing that they'll err on the side of disclosure. Is that accurate?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I circle back to my previous question in relation to the threshold in the National Quality Standard assessments that would prevent a provider from opening a new centre if they're already operating centres. Is there some sort of standard by which you're looking at it? If half of the centres, for example, aren't meeting national quality standards, or 90 per cent of services aren't—can you provide any more detail on what that standard will look like and what is being considered in the decision to permit a new centre to open or not?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer you to my previous answer, in the sense that the secretary has the capacity to look at a number of criteria at once, and it's important to do that. For example, if a service is not meeting a quality and safety standard in the National Quality Framework but is making significant efforts at improvement, that needs to be taken into account. The criteria that will be used by the secretary are provided for in the bill.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, how will the requirements under this legislation be applied, if at all, to centres that don't come under the National Quality Standard?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bill covers providers that receive the Commonwealth childcare subsidy. I think you're referring to another dreadful case that came to light, where there are a small number of providers outside the National Quality Framework. If they're in receipt of the Commonwealth childcare subsidy, the bill applies to them.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, what consideration has been given to the impact on the early childhood education workforce incentive with the new requirements?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill is incredibly important. We know that there have been really distressing allegations of abuse in our early learning services. Every child needs to be safe, and every parent needs to have confidence that they are. This bill will go a long way to ensuring that, and it's really important that we have this lever—that we're able to withdraw Commonwealth funding from those providers who are not putting child safety first.

I think you know, Senator Hodgins-May, that you don't have to tell me how incredibly important the workforce is in keeping children safe and providing quality early education because I proudly represented the early childhood educators in their union before coming to parliament. One of the really significant things that we've done to invest in quality and safety outside of this particular legislation is invest $3.6 billion in a really long overdue pay rise for our early childhood educators. That is absolutely critical to quality and safety, because what it's done is help deal with the workforce crisis that had existed over the previous decade when there was a very high turnover of early childhood educators. We know that the safest and best-quality services are services that have long-term, stable, committed, dedicated early childhood educators who know the children, the families and each other and who are committed to a child-safe culture.

Since we started to implement the pay rise, we've had a reduction in job vacancies being advertised by 26 per cent, which is huge and was unheard of over the last several years. That's happened at the same time as we've grown the workforce. So it's a really significant stabilisation of the workforce. It's a stabilisation that respects them, values them and invests in them and their ability to have a child-safe culture and provide that security to children and families.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the committee report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Question agreed to.

Progress reported.

Ordered that the committee have leave to sit again at a later hour.