STATEMENTS
Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (18:15): I rise to speak in support of the Early Childhood Education and Care (Strengthening Regulation of Early Education) Bill 2025. Every child deserves safe, high-quality education and care, and, wherever public money is spent, we need clear mechanisms for accountability. Whilst this bill is a measure that the Greens support, it alone will not fix the system, where too many children are being let down.
We've all seen the reports. We've heard the horrendous stories—allegations of abuse, neglect and malpractice in early learning settings. We've seen the courage of journalists and whistleblowers, the tireless work of amazing educators, and the pain and anger of families who entrusted their children to a system that failed them.
These are not isolated incidents; they point to a broader systemic problem. They reveal what many in the sector and many parents already know—that the current system is just not built to guarantee safety or quality for every child. And that is an indictment on us all.
It should never take headlines like the recent ones to get action. So, yes, we support this bill, but let's be honest: it's not a silver-bullet solution. It's a necessary step, but it is far from sufficient.
Tinkering with the payment system will not keep our kids safe, because the truth is that the real problem lies deeper in a funding model that treats early learning like a marketplace, not a public good, in a system where the childcare subsidy actively incentivises profit over quality care while failing to guarantee high standards, failing to guarantee access or inclusion and failing to guarantee fair conditions for those important educators.
The CCS funnels billions of public dollars into private, for-profit providers, including some owned by offshore corporations. Money meant for children's education and care is leaking out of the system into the hands of shareholders with no interest in the future of Australian children, only an interest in lining their pockets. Data shows us that these for-profit providers who consistently and routinely score lower when it comes to quality standards are the problem.
Right now around 11 per cent of all long day care centres across Australia are rated as working towards the national quality standard. That's over 1,000 services. These are services still allowed to operate and receive public subsidies despite failing to meet baseline standards for education, health, safety and wellbeing.
We actually have world-leading national quality standards in place in Australia, but we have no national body responsible for enforcing them, no independent oversight and no long-term vision for a system that better serves families. Instead, we rely on underresourced state regulators to do the heavy lifting. These agencies are stretched thin.
One in 10 childcare operators doesn't even yet have a quality rating. Serious complaints just fall through the cracks. All the while, children are clearly being put at risk.
At the same time, educators, the very people tasked with implementing those quality standards, are being pushed to breaking point. New research shows that early childhood educators are working, on average, nine hours of unpaid time every single week. That's on top of already low pay, high turnover, chronic understaffing and stress.
We're asking educators to do one of the most important jobs in our society, and we're refusing to treat them properly, respect their expertise or resource their workplaces. It's no wonder that so many are leaving the sector and that quality is slipping in so many places. For families, the situation is dire.
In my electorate of Ryan, families are crying out for more accessible, affordable, high-quality early learning. There are only 0.6 long day care places available for every child in Ryan. In suburbs like Brookfield and Kenmore Hills, families are paying an average of $98 out of pocket each week just for three days of care.
Many pay even more than that. That's at least $5,000 a year for services where we cannot guarantee the safety of their children or the quality of their education. For many, especially single parents, families with multiple children or those doing it tough with rent or mortgage stress, these costs are simply unaffordable.
Families are being forced to make impossible choices, delaying their return to work, pausing careers or turning down study or training. For children, this often means missing out on the critical learning, care and social development that happens in those early years—the kind of development that lays the foundation for everything that follows. We can't call this a functioning system.
We can't keep tinkering around the edges in search of a fix. The Greens believe it's time to fundamentally rethink the way we approach early learning in this country. We took a bold vision to the last election: a plan to deliver free, universal, high-quality early childhood education and care for every child, just like primary and secondary school.
It was a plan to move away from the troubled and deeply flawed childcare subsidy model and replace it with direct public funding for services and funding to increase services in areas without enough supply to meet demand. Under this plan, we also proposed more funding for inclusive services for children with additional needs as well as to properly fund and support Aboriginal controlled organisations.
We would lift pay and conditions for educators. We would give families real choice, real access and real quality no matter their income, postcode or background. Perhaps the most crucial and most urgently called for requirement is the creation of a new, independent, national early childhood education and care commission.
The commission would serve as a strong, independent, sector-wide watchdog with teeth. It would be responsible for cracking down on dodgy private operators who are not meeting standards. It would be a single central point of coordination and research and it would steward our way towards a high-quality, universal early learning system, because right now there is no accountable body.
The passing of the buck needs to stop. This commission would be a national brain and backbone for the sector. It would help coordinate across states and territories, lift standards and hold to account providers that are taking public subsidies.
Let me be clear: this isn't some distant idea; the plan is ready to go. It's backed by stakeholders from across the sector. In light of events recently, my colleagues have been imploring the Labor government to work with us and to sit down with the sector and put this critical body in place.
We're ready to work constructively. We're not interested in playing politics. Families, educators and children just cannot wait any longer.
How we treat our youngest generation says everything about who we are. If we can't keep our children safe and we can't educate and care for them in their most formative years then what good is anything else? Early learning is a great equaliser but only if it's truly accessible, truly safe and truly high quality; only if we treat it as universal, not a market commodity; and only if we put the needs of children and educators above the interests of profit.
So yes, we support this bill, because no service that consistently fails to meet quality standards should be allowed to keep receiving public funds. But this bill is a bit of a bandaid. It's not a plan.
It's not a vision. We need more than the ability to act after harm has already occurred. We need leadership that prevents it in the first place.
We need a system that puts children and families at the centre. Is the Prime Minister ready to make this his legacy, or will we keep tinkering at the edges of a system that is so very clearly in crisis? Let's build something better.
Let's get on with it.