PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr SOON (Banks) (12:42): It is a pleasure to support the motion of my very good friend the member for Barton and to both acknowledge the fantastic work of our early childhood education professionals and celebrate the momentous pay rise that they have just received. In my first speech to the House, I spoke about how the services people use in my electorate of Banks are the same ones I utilise personally—including the early childhood education system, which my little girl, Dorothy, is currently part of.

I'm proud to be part of a government that is making sure that we have an early childhood education system that works for our children but also for parents. Caring for and teaching young children is some of the most important work in our country. Early childhood is where children develop the skills they need not just for the rest of their education; it sets them up for the rest of their lives.

Additionally, the availability of child care and early childhood education helps parents get back into the workforce quicker. As a result of our determination to support our early childhood education workforce, we have locked in a 15 per cent pay rise for another two years, with a $3.6 billion investment in our future. Combined with our rises in minimum wages, a typical full-time educator now earns around $255 a week more than they did before.

For a full-time early childhood teacher, it is around $410 a week. Importantly, these changes come with some strings. To be eligible, centres have to meet two conditions.

The first is a cap on fees, saving the average family about $1,500 over the next two years. The second is adherence to the national safety standard. This pay rise is working as intended.

Unfortunately, some centres had yearly attrition rates north of 40 per cent prior to this change. Our early childhood teachers and educators love their work, but too many of them couldn't afford to keep on doing it. Now, we have 20,000 more workers in the sector and job vacancies are down by 31 per cent, along with a decrease in the use of casual and agency staff, making our early childhood education centres more robust for all families and communities.

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the great work of the Australian Education Union, the Independent Education Union and, particularly, the mighty United Workers Union, who have fought so hard to make this pay rise and the extension a reality. This pay rise is far from the only aspect of our agenda for early childhood education. Our cheaper child care program is supporting a million families and has delivered an average of $11,000 in benefit over the last three years.

From January this year, our three-day guarantee has given every child access to at least three days of subsidised early childhood learning and made extra hours available to 100,000 families. Our $1 billion early education fund is building new centres in the outer suburbs and regions, and our reforms are strengthening safety and making it easier to cut off funding if needed.

These changes are good for workers, good for kids and good for families, so it is no surprise that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are opposed to them. The coalition oversaw a broken bargaining system that delivered nothing for our early childhood educators and deliberately suppressed wages while also managing to let fees for families rise by nearly 50 per cent.

Not only did they make this mess, but they are actively opposing our measures to clean it up, opposing our cheaper child care program, and voting against giving more families across our country—in the regions, in the bush—the three-day guarantee for all. Only one side of this House is supporting working families and early childhood education, and it is us, on this side—this Labor government.