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

Mr GEE (Calare) (17:25): I support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026, and the reason I support it is that anything that boosts the wages and incomes of early childhood education and care workers is a good thing. Historically, I don't think as a country we have valued the work of our early childhood educators enough.

I think they have been underpaid for too long. Our early childhood education workforce performs vital work for our country and our communities. When you think about it, one of the most important jobs that you can have is giving kids a great start in life.

Being an early childhood educator is a very high calling, and we need to be paying our early childhood educators accordingly. They haven't been paid enough in the past. We haven't valued them enough in the past for the work that they do.

I often go into our early childhood education centres, and I see the wonderful things that are happening there. It's one of those jobs where you have to be 'on' all the time. There is no rest.

You have to be alert. You have to be attentive. Our early childhood educators perform such an important role in our communities that we need to not only thank them but pay them accordingly what they are worth.

I was recently at Circle Early Learning in Bathurst for Early Learning Matters Week, and we had a great catch up there with the staff and the kids. Katherine Wilson is a director and founder of Circle Early Learning, and she is a leader in early childhood education in the Central West. In fact, she is the founder of the Central West Early Childhood Awards.

We were going through some of the issues, besides working with some with some dough, playing some games with the kids, making some sculptures and making some ice creams. We also went through some serious issues that needed to be discussed with respect to early childhood education, and they included issues such as staff retention, with better pay and lighter workloads to stop high staff turnover; mental health, with more resources and support for both children and staff facing stress and trauma; training, with stronger safety training and professional learning programs for all educators; safety and regulation, with national oversight, better tracking of staff history across state lines using national registers; and facility monitoring, with clearer rules and trials for safety equipment like security cameras in centres et cetera.

These are all issues that are on the minds of parents and our early childhood educators and leaders. I just want to thank everyone across the Central West of New South Wales who is working in early childhood education and let you know how much we appreciate everything that you do. It can be a difficult and, no doubt, stressful job at times, but it is absolutely vital that your work continues.

Katherine Wilson, as I have said, is a true leader and an inspirational leader in early childhood education in the Central West. When we were at the Bathurst Circle Early Learning Centre, I also caught up with Cheree Powell, who is the centre lead, and some of the wonderful staff members who work there, like Tabitha Austin, Anila Kendra, Angelina Adams, Brooke Common, Bellanna Taylor and Tamsyn McGrath.

It was terrific to see firsthand the really positive impact that they are making on our young Australians. They are bringing on the promise of tomorrow, helping to build the future of regional Australia and our nation. Whilst this scheme is not perfect, and there are some improvements that can be made to it in terms of the administration of this program and making it easier for everyone to understand, it is really important that we support our early childhood educators and give them the remuneration that they richly deserve.

I think our community expects that they be paid for the vitally important work that they do. Whilst there is more work to be done in terms of reform in the sector and making it better for our early childhood educators and our centre operators, bills like this are really important. It is vital that our early childhood educators get the pay that they deserve.

As I've said, early childhood education is an extremely high calling, and we need to support our early childhood educators, not talk them down. We need to support them. They deserve the thanks of our communities for all of the work that they do.

For those reasons, I strongly support this bill and I strongly support the work of our early childhood educators.