Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026

Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (13:12): Earlier this month, I had one of those gorgeous visits that I sometimes get to do to one of our early learning centres in the electorate of Macquarie. This one was to Explore & Develop in Emu Plains, and that visit was to mark Early Learning Matters Week. Owner Diane Pelle and early educator Cathy talked me through their approach to caring for, educating and developing the wellbeing of their charges.

They do that both here in my electorate and in another one of their centres, which is also in my electorate in North Richmond. As always, I donated flags for their flag poles and books for their library. Whenever I can, I love to read to the kids, but this visit was on such a glorious afternoon.

The children were spread around the outdoor area in between having their afternoon tea. They were engrossed in their play, and I was not going to be the one to interfere with their afternoon, because at that time they were engaged in learning. They were learning how to share.

They were learning how to solve differences. They were learning how to judge distance as they navigated the play equipment. They were learning how to look after each other, and some managed to refine their conversation skills by sharing news with me.

Every day early educators help children learn, grow and get ready for school. It's not always obvious when the learning is taking place, but those brains of those young children—we know that 90 per cent of brain development happens up to the age of five. Every one of those kids was engaged in something new, whether it's those motor skills, fine motor skills, cognitive skills or emotional skills.

All of that happens in these centres where we entrust our children. It is one of the most important jobs in the country, and I hope everyone in this place agrees that early educators should be paid fairly for their work. What I was really keen to hear about from Diane and Cathy was the impact of the worker retention payment on her educators, her families and her business.

She tells me all three have benefited, and that's why I'm so pleased to see this legislation, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026, which locks in the pay rise for another two years. I think it's important to reflect on how this came about in the first place. When we came to government, after nearly a decade of the Liberals being in charge, we found major issues in early education.

Workforce retention and stability, both of which are absolutely critical to quality and safety in the early learning environment, were at rock bottom. That important retention and stability of workers enables educators and children to develop consistent and stable relationships. All of us who have had kids in early education know how much a kid can become attached to at least one of their carers and look forward to seeing that person.

But, unfortunately, workers were leaving the sector. They were leaving in droves because they simply couldn't afford to do the job that they loved. Services were delaying expansion plans, closing rooms and limiting enrolments because they simply couldn't find the staff that they needed, and when they did find the staff, they couldn't hang on to them.

So, in August 2024, we took action. The Albanese government announced it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers. That has led to some enormous changes.

Since that payment was announced in 2024 and came into effect, there are around 20,000 more early childhood educators than there were back then. That's about an eight per cent increase in a little over two years. Job vacancies in the ECEC sector have decreased by almost 31 per cent, so there are 30 per cent fewer centres trying to find staff on any given day.

The percentage of services operating with a staffing waiver has fallen from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent—it has halved. Fees at centres that are receiving the payment that we put in place grew at around half the rate of centres that were not signed up. That is where it helps manage the costs of child care for families.

They grew at half the rate of centres who didn't sign up to our payment. The payment has worked to bolster the early educator workforce, and it's helped to keep costs down for families. In Macquarie, 59 centres are receiving the worker retention payment.

That means around 600 workers are receiving the additional money in their pay packet every week. I've spoken to some of the directors of centres to get their feedback. Helen Mann, who has run the Katoomba Children's Cottage for many years, said to me: The Worker Retention Payment has allowed the Management Committee to prioritise supporting the critical work of our educators and teachers, while maintaining fees at a more affordable level for families.

Early Childhood services provide educational learning environments for children while providing support to families, and maintaining the employment of qualified educators is critical to running a high quality service. The Worker Retention Payment has allowed us to build a more sustainable and consistent group of educators, who feel better recognised for their work.

Connect Child and Family Services also operates centres in the Blue Mountains, from Possum's Patch up at Mount Victoria all the way down to Lapstone Preschool and out to Bunya Early Childhood Centre in Winmalee, and not forgetting their two centres in Hazelbrook. Ann-Marie Ellot, who is the director and operator of those centres, describes it thus: The Early Childhood Retention Payment has been a fantastic step toward recognising our early childhood team.

For Connect, it has played a vital role in supporting the employment conditions of our early childhood workforce, resulting in an additional $700,000 in wages being delivered across our four eligible ECEC services in the Blue Mountains (approx. 65 staff). That's approximately 65 staff receiving that additional $700,0000 dollars. Ann-Marie says: These teams carry significant responsibility, managing increasing regulatory requirements while making a critical contribution to children's brain development and their early experiences of the world.

I really value the input from both Helen and Ann-Marie, and I acknowledge Anne Marie's comments that, while staff have really appreciated the acknowledgement and the investment, they felt some uncertainty about the continuity of the payment into the future. I also acknowledge that there was a really significant administrative burden that centres had to undertake.

That is something we'll continue working on. Ultimately, what it tells us is that the extension of this payment is vital for the sector. Those two case studies alone tell us that, and Diane at Emu Plains and North Richmond made that equally clear to me.

It is something that needs to continue, and that's why in June this year the Albanese government announced it was going to extend the benefit over the next two years and lock in that historic pay rise. What this bill does is deliver on that commitment. The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill—very catchy—gives effect to the commitment.

The funding extension will save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. At the same time as supporting our early childhood education and care workers, it's supporting families. The bill amends the act, crediting the special account with an additional $3.6 billion and extending the act's sunset date to 31 December 2029 to support the wage-funding extension.

That is peace of mind for a whole lot of workers and for families. When combined with the government's support for minimum wage rises, this extension will mean $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers compared to December 2024, when the government first implemented the pay rise. The funding will continue to be tied to a commitment from services receiving the payment to limit fee increases for families, and that's where the savings for families come.

This helps ease cost-of-living pressure while delivering better early learning for children. For the first time, employees in all Child Care Subsidy approved services will be eligible for the payment—so it will expand the eligibility—so long as they meet the other grant requirements. The bill also introduces a new object and condition of funding through the wage justice special account, building on this government's commitment to continually strengthening quality and safety in early learning.

From July next year, 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. Currently, around 95 per cent of services meet this standard, but we want that number to be higher.

We want our kids and our families to continually see improvement in quality of care. This bill works with other legislation that we have brought in in our time in government, making safety improvements and creating safer environments for every child in early education. Around the country, there are more than a million families who rely on early education.

They rely on it for a number of reasons. They know the benefits that their child receives in sharing time with other kids and with well-trained educators. I know parents also really appreciate early education because of the things that it allows them to do, whether that is to have a sanity break or whether that is to be working.

Sometimes they're the same thing. It really facilitates a healthy family environment. And it is vital that we continue to expand the availability of child care and early education to those who aren't currently able to access it.

Certainly, in electorates like mine, there are still challenges to being able to find the places that you need when you need them. Some of my areas are quite remote, and there are not a large number of children. That raises its own challenges.

A whole lot of services that look after those communities are a vital additional thing to have. But, more than anything, we know that a quality early childhood education sets kids up for lifelong learning. When you're a kindergarten teacher in a New South Wales school, knowing that all your kids had a quality early education changes the game for the first day of school.

I'm so impressed at the work that early educators in Macquarie do for that transition period and for the really strong connections between our local schools and our early education centres. I want to give a shout-out to all the early childhood education and care workers in Macquarie. They are in centres right across the Blue Mountains, the Hawkesbury and Emu Plains.

They do something that I could not do. I laugh when people say we have a tough job. Imagine doing what early educators do.

There are so many professions that I look at where I think, 'I don't have those skills.' They're really special people. They care. They deal with unpredictable emotions.

They steer children to safe ground and steady ground at any given moment in a day. I remember, as a parent, being so grateful knowing that there were people who cared about my kids almost as much as I did, that they understood their moods, their gifts, their talents and their frailties. For us, early childhood educators were almost part of our extended family.

Even now, I see them, and we do a catch-up on how my now 31- and 35-year-old children are, because they remember them when they were just a couple of years old. So I commend this bill. This is one of the things that doesn't just support our early educators now; it helps us change the future for every child that has the opportunity to be in quality early childhood education.