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

Ms COFFEY (Griffith) (12:21): Every parent knows the feeling of leaving a young child in someone else's care. There is often a quick hug at the door, a little hand held tight and a child who needs some extra reassurance. To our reassurance, an educator then kneels down, remembers their favourite book and helps them settle into their day.

As a mum, I know the trust that parents place in our early educators. We ask them to care for the people we love the most. We trust them to notice a worried face, celebrate a new word, guide a friendship and keep our children safe.

This is deeply skilled work. It asks for training, judgement, patience and care. And it deserves fair pay.

Earlier this month, Australia marked Early Learning Matters Week. This week celebrates the role of early learning in a child's life. Education starts long before the school gate.

Young children develop language, curiosity, confidence and relationships through play and close attention from skilled educators. A tower of blocks teaches shape, balance and persistence. A shared painting teaches patience and expression.

A story can help a child understand feelings that they cannot yet name. Early Learning Matters Week gives us a chance to say thank you. Respect must reach further than kind words.

Educators need wages that reflect their skill and let them build a life of their own. I have been lucky to spend time with early educators across my community of Griffith. Avenues Early Learning Centre in Camp Hill is filled with wonderful educators and delightful little people.

I was delighted to visit, joined by Kieran, to not only see how the centre creates space for children to explore but also provide the centre with a new set of flags. Its outdoor areas are filled with gardens, sandpits, herbs and vegetables. Children can dig, grow, create and learn about the world around them.

The centre also has an artist in residence. Miss Alice holds an art qualification and a diploma in art therapy. She gives children rich opportunities to extend their creative skills.

I thank Kieran for the invitation and every educator at Avenues Early Learning Centre for the care they give to little learners. I also had the pleasure of visiting Goodstart Early Learning in Hawthorn, where nature and the local environment are a wonderful part of the children's learning. During my visit, the children were delighted to discover a little bee.

They had recently been learning about bees, so there was great excitement. With the gentle guidance of their educator, the children safely relocated their tiny visitor to a nearby garden that was close to the centre's bee-drinking station. It was a lovely moment and it captured early learning at its best.

The children observed carefully, put their new knowledge into practice and showed real care for a living creature. The educator helped turn a moment of curiosity into a lesson in kindness and caring for our natural environment. At Tugulawa Early Education in Bulimba, I caught up with Karen and Lauren to discuss the workforce pressures facing the sector.

They spoke about the challenge of attracting educators, keeping experienced staff and giving children the consistency that they need. At Goodstart Early Learning's head office in Murarrie, I met Dr Ros Baxter and her wonderful team. Ros told me about the day the first government funded pay increase reached educators bank accounts.

She was with a group of educators as they checked their phones and saw the extra pay sitting there. Those educators already knew the value of their work. For the first time in far too long, their pay began to show it.

The increase gave them more room in the household budget and more confidence about staying in a job that they loved. It sent a simple message from their government: we see your skill, we respect your work and we value what you give our children. Goodstart has seen practical benefits.

Its use of agency staff fell by 69 per cent in the first year of the payment. More permanent educators stayed in their centres, and more children saw familiar faces every day. During the last campaign before my election to this place, I had the honour of welcoming the Prime Minister to our very own Morningside Panthers.

There, Labor announced the biggest investment in early childhood education and care in Australia's history. It included the $1 billion Building Early Education Fund and our three-day guarantee for subsidised child care. Labor had committed that we would build more services, expand access and give every child a fairer chance to benefit from early learning, and we were delivering on that promise.

We knew, though, that building new centres alone would not be enough. A centre needs skilled educators in every room. Those educators need wages to let them stay.

I carried a small reminder of children at the heart of that announcement with me on the stage that day. I wore handmade earrings created by two local girls Milla and Skye, which I had bought at a Christmas market at the Coorparoo Christmas carols. Their parents were delighted that their daughters' handiwork joined me on stage with the Prime Minister.

Labor came to government amid a workforce crisis in early education and care. Educators were leaving jobs that they loved. Service providers were limiting enrolments.

Some centres lost up to 40 per cent of the workforce in a single year. For these workers, the responsibility was high, but the pay was incredibly low. Many educators could earn more leaving the profession they are incredibly skilled in by taking up a job outside the sector.

In 2024, the Albanese Labor government funded a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood educators and care workers. Combined with Labor's backing for minimum wage increases, this means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for an early childhood teacher compared to December 2024 when the government first implemented the pay rise.

That extra pay changes the weekly budget. It brings relief at the checkout, helps meet the rent or mortgage and gives people another reason to stay in the careers that they love. Hieronymus, an early childhood educator from Coorparoo, told me: This pay rise has helped me be able to take early childhood education as a serious career option.

This is just the first step of changes this industry sorely needs. If you want to put children first, then you need to support their educators. Barbara, another educator from Coorparoo, described the difference in her centre: The pay rise has made such a difference to us.

Educators now feel more valued, and this has also assisted in improving the quality of care for our children. Happy educators = happy children! Fair pay gives educators a future in the profession and gives children more stable and experienced care.

More than 215,000 educators now receive the payment. The workforce has grown by about 20,000 people, and vacancies have fallen by more than 31 per cent. Those numbers mean a centre can keep a room open, a parent can accept an extra shift and a child can stay with an educator that they know and trust.

The Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account)(Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 locks in the wage increase for another two years through a further $3.6 billion investment, and the funding comes with clear rules. Services must limit fee increases for parents. That rule has been working.

Fees at centres receiving the payment have grown at around half the rate recorded at centres outside the program. The extension will save the average family about $1,500 over the next two years. For families with young children, every week brings more bills.

A $1,500 saving can cover weeks of groceries, school costs for an older child or several power bills. The bill protects educators from carrying the costs through low wages and parents from carrying it through higher fees. This is practical cost-of-living relief for workers and families.

Reliable early learning also helps parents return to work, increase their hours or study. The workforce in early education and care is overwhelmingly female. Women make up about 97 per cent of early childhood educators.

For too long, work performed mainly by women has attracted lower pay and less respect. Early educators carry qualifications, legal duties and immense responsibility for children's learning and safety. Their wages have not properly recognised that skill.

Whenever I speak about the gender pay gap on social media, the same comments appear. Someone will say that women and men doing the same job receive the same pay, so the gender pay gap cannot be real. That's true.

Equal pay for equal or comparable work is a legal requirement in Australia. Paying a woman less because she is a woman is unlawful, but equal pay and the gender pay gap are two different measures. The gender pay gap, as defined by Workplace Gender Equality Agency, is the difference between the average or median pay of women and men, expressed as a percentage of men's pay.

Put simply, you subtract women's average pay from men's average pay, divide the difference by men's average pay, and express the result as a percentage. The same calculation can use median pay, which compares the person in the middle of each group. By doing so, the measure can show where women sit across a workplace, an industry or the whole economy.

It captures who works in high paid industry, who reaches senior roles and whose professions have been historically undervalued. Another familiar comment says that men earn more because they work more paid hours. Different official measures account for hours in different ways.

WGEA converts the earnings of part-time and casual workers into annualised full-time equivalents. The ABS measure compares the weekly base salaries of full-time workers and excludes overtime. Both measures still find a gender pay gap.

Women still perform more unpaid caring and domestic work compared to men. They are more likely to work part time or take time out of the workforce. Those patterns reduce earnings, career progression and superannuation over a lifetime.

That is part of what the gender pay gap exposes. Female dominated professions play a major part. We see the same pattern across early childhood education, nursing, aged care, disability support, teaching and social work.

These professions educate our children, care for people when they are sick, and support families through some of life's hardest moments. They require qualifications, skill, patience and immense responsibility, yet work performed mainly by women has too often attracted lower wages and less recognition. The concentration of women and men in different industries and occupations is a key driver of the gender pay gap.

When women are concentrated in essential but lower paid professions, the effect appears in their weekly wages, career earnings and retirement savings. Early childhood education is a clear example. The people caring for and teaching our youngest children have carried extraordinary responsibility on wages that did not reflect the value or complexity of their work.

This government is choosing to make an investment in early childhood educators because an essential, highly feminised and underpaid workforce was in trouble. Better wages help services recruit and retain skilled educators. We limited fee growth because educators should not have to choose between fair pay and affordable care for families.

Raising wages in this sector tackles a recognised driver of the gender pay gap directly. Higher weekly pay gives educators greater independence and security. It lifts superannuation and gives women—a lot more women—a chance to remain in the profession.

Affordable and reliable care also gives mothers more freedom to return to paid work, increase their hours and build their own superannuation. The gender pay gap is worth measuring because it shows a combined effect of decisions made across our economy. It tells us whether women's work receives equal value and whether women have the same economic choices over a lifetime.

Closing it requires action in undervalued, female dominated professions, and women should not pay a financial penalty for choosing a career devoted to children. Parents have worked hard for these changes, and organisations like the Parenthood have carried their voices into the national debate. Last year, I welcomed Jess and Georgie from the Parenthood to my electorate office, where we spoke about the belief we share.

Every child deserves a strong start, and every family deserves early education and care that they can trust. Bills like this reflect the values that brought me to the Labor Party. Work deserves fair pay, and every child deserves a strong start in life.

Families deserve support during the busy and expensive years of raising children. The coalition and One Nation have described this public support as a waste of money. I find that deeply out of touch, and it shows how little value they place on the work of our amazing early childhood educators.

There is no waste in paying a skilled educator fairly, helping a family manage childcare fees or giving a young child a stable place to learn. Labor sees early education as part of public education and family support. We funded the 15 per cent wage increase, created the three-day guarantee and established the Building Early Education Fund, and, now, we are locking in the pay rise for another two years.

I think again of those educators checking their phones and seeing the pay increase land in their accounts. It meant greater security for their families, recognition for years of skilled work and a better chance to stay in the profession that they love. For Hieronymus in Coorparoo, it meant being able to see early childhood education as a sustainable career.

For Barbara in Coorparoo, it meant educators feeling more valued and children receiving better care. For parents, this bill means lower fee growth and more stable services. For children, it means familiar educators and stronger relationships.

For women, it means fairer wages, stronger superannuation and another step towards closing the gender pay gap. Early educators give so much of themselves to our children. Their work deserves more than thanks.

It deserves fair pay and a government prepared to stand beside them. The Albanese Labor government stands with early educators, children and families.