QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr CLARE (Blaxland—Minister for Education) (15:06): I thank my friend the hero from Holt for her question, and happy birthday to little Ilija, who's turned one just in the last couple of weeks—am I right? Fantastic. Childcare workers do one of the most important jobs in this country, but you wouldn't know it from what they've historically been paid.

When we were first elected a couple of years ago, childcare workers were leaving the job in droves not because they didn't love the job but because they couldn't afford to keep doing it, because you could get paid more stacking shelves than you could educating the most precious things in our lives: our kids. If you want proof of that, look at the data. In some centres the attrition rate was 40 per cent.

That's 40 per cent of the workforce leaving the job they love in any given year, and that's a crisis. But it's now changed and it's changed for a reason: the 15 per cent pay rise that we've now delivered. If you want proof of that, 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 doing that sort of life-changing work right across the country.

In other words, it's worked. It turns out that, if you pay people more, more people want to do the job. That's why what we announced last week is so important.

It's the sort of thing that only a Labor government would do. It's good for workers, but it's also good for parents, because it's part of the deal for childcare centres to get this extra funding that they've also got to cap their fees. Over the last two years or so, that has saved parents a lot of money, and what we announced last week will save them even more.

What we announced last week will save the average family with a child in child care about $1,500 over the next two years. Again, it's the sort of thing that only a Labor government would do. The Liberal Party would never do it.

The liberal party with the orange logo up the back would never do it. It's only the Labor Party that would do this—real cost-of-living help pushing wages up and keeping costs down for parents. But we also announced something else last week.

There's nothing more important than the safety of our kids, and that's why we've set a new condition. In order for centres to get this money, they've also got to be at the national safety standard. Ninety-five per cent of centres are at the national safety standard now.

I want it to be at 100 per cent. I think parents expect it to be at 100 per cent, and that's why we're doing this. It builds on the safety reforms that we're already rolling out, it's what every parent in this country would expect and it's what every child in this country deserves.

Mr Albanese: I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.