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

Ms FRANCE (Dickson) (18:27): I rise to speak on the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026. It's wage justice. It's not just a wage top-up.

It's not a bonus. It's not stimulus. It's justice.

For decades, the wages that early childhood educators have been earning have not reflected the value and importance of the work that they do: educating and caring for our littlest ones. I still remember dropping my boys off at day care for the very first time. I remember the anxiety—their fears, my fears, their tears and my tears.

We leave them nervously. We trust that they are in good, safe hands and that education and socialisation is good for them in the long term. Our early childhood education system is built on that belief and that trust.

The thing that matters most in an early learning centre is not the flashiest new playground equipment, the colour of the paint on the walls or the toys—it's the people. Early childhood educators are professionals. They're qualified.

They are trusted with the first five or so years of a child's life. When we came to government, this sector was in crisis. Educators were leaving the job they loved, not because they didn't love it any more but because the wages they were being paid were so very low that they could no longer afford to stay.

They couldn't justify remaining in the role they loved if they could earn more working in the local supermarket, in retail. In some centres the rate of workers leaving annually had hit 40 per cent. That's a 40 per cent turnover annually of the workforce walking out the door.

Imagine how many other sectors would be brought to their knees by that figure. We know rooms closed and places were reduced because of a lack of staff. Now job vacancies have fallen by nearly 30 per cent as a result of wage increases.

Educators are staying in the jobs they love and train for. This bill amends the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024 to lock in the 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators that our government delivered almost two years ago. This is thanks in large part to the decades of advocacy from the mighty United Workers Union and their Big Steps campaign.

They illustrated to the Fair Work Commission what we've always known: early childhood educators have been systemically undervalued and underpaid due to gender based inequality in our workforce. This bill also commits $3.6 billion to the Early Childhood Education and Care Workers Special Account, the account used to make worker retention payment grants to providers so they can fund higher pay for eligible workers.

That is the full amount of the Commonwealth commitment credited upfront so that grant agreements can keep being made without providers having to wonder each year whether the money will be there. Importantly, we tie wage increases to a strict cap on centre fee increases so parents aren't paying more. This bill also makes child safety the centre of it all.

To receive the funding, service providers must meet the national quality standard for children's health and safety and, if that condition is breached, funding can be cut. For alternative childcare models such as in-home care, this bill means that equivalent quality and safety conditions apply instead. This bill means that no child slips through the cracks when it comes to safety.

We know about 95 per cent of providers meet that standard of child safety, but that number really should be 100 per cent. This bill aims to make that happen. All up, the Albanese Labor government is investing an extra $226 million in child safety reforms, and we've delivered a number of other child safety reforms in early education.

And we're seeing results already. Since those reforms were passed, 119 centres have been subject to compliance action. More than 1,300 unannounced visits to service providers have been conducted by government officers in the past 10 months to ensure centres are meeting the highest level of safety requirements.

We have also established the National Early Childhood Worker Register so that somebody who should not be working with children cannot simply move to the next centre or the next state. We have made child safety training mandatory for everyone in a centre—not just the educators but everybody, whether it's your first day on the job or you're all the way up the chain as the CEO.

We've also banned personal mobile phones in centres, and a national CCTV trial is under way in more than 300 centres. By making funding the incentive, this bill puts child safety front and centre, where it belongs. If you want this funding for your staff, you meet the standard for our children—it's non-negotiable.

And I know the mums and dads in Dickson would agree that that is how it should be. More than 1,000 early childhood educators and care workers in my electorate of Dickson are now getting this vital pay rise—1,000 people who are, in the majority, women. I've met many of them while visiting early childcare centres right across the electorate of Dickson over eight years of campaigning, and I also stood with them while they were waving their placards in their Big Steps campaign, begging for higher wages so they could stay in the jobs that they love.

All of the women in these feminised industries have historically been paid a lot less than men in comparable male dominated occupations. Workers in highly feminised occupations experience lower earnings. We know that—particularly in care sectors that have long been undervalued despite their importance to our economy, our communities and our loved ones.

Fair wages for early childhood educators recognises the value of care work. It addresses historical undervaluation and helps close the gender pay gap. Almost two years ago, this government delivered a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators.

When you look at this, combined with our recent increase to the minimum wage, that means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers compared to what their income looked like in December 2024. That is the difference between a much-loved educator staying in the job they love and going and getting a job in retail to pay the bills.

Pay rises are working. More than 215,000 educators at more than 11,600 centres across the country are feeling the benefits in real time. There are now 20,000 more early childhood educators working than before we made that decision.

Job vacancies, importantly, are down 31 per cent. The revolving door of early childhood educators in these centres has finally paused. It turns out that if you pay people what the job is worth, more people actually want to do the job.

When you pay people what the job is worth, they stay. They stay in their communities. They stay where their families are.

They stay in jobs that they love. Importantly, the children get to keep the early childhood educators that they love. These wage rises also result in a lot of money going back into our local economy.

When our early childhood educators are getting paid properly, they're also spending that in our local businesses. For my community, 1,000 workers getting paid a fair wage actually means, importantly, centres keeping their staff. It means our little ones will be able to keep the educators they love.

It means a parent in my electorate can go back to work on the Wednesday because the centre has the staff to open the room. I heard many stories prior to the pay rise in which parents would arrive at an early childhood education centre and be told that, unfortunately, they'd had to close the room because staff had called in sick or they didn't have enough staff, and then they had to scramble to have a sick day or a carers' day.

It was chaos. It also means a young person finishing school in Dickson can look at early childhood education and see a career, not a stopgap. In Queensland, the two most popular free TAFE courses are nursing and early childhood education.

This government values early childhood educators and education, but not all of us in this place feel the same. I was absolutely appalled to hear the comments of Senator Hanson from One Nation in her Press Club address. Why do we now expect these childcare centres to have people with some sort of degree to look after their child?

Well, as a parent, we want these people who are looking after our little ones to be trained and to be competent in the work that they are doing in looking after our kids. We put those educators in charge of our kids so that they can have the best start at life. We must value them.

We are finally offering them a wage that says, 'Stay.' That is what this bill is about—a person in a room in Dickson who has decided to stay in a job they love because they're being paid appropriately. This bill isn't just for workers; it's also for families. To receive this funding, a service must limit its fee increases.

We don't want parents having to pick up the bill for our early childhood educators being paid appropriately. The advice of the education department is that, if this legislation does not pass, childcare fees could rise by around 17 per cent, and I urge all members in this House to pass this bill. It's incredibly important for young families and for our kids.

For families in Dickson juggling a mortgage, insurance, groceries and day-to-day cost of living, 17 per cent is a lot. That is a decision about whether they can actually afford early childcare education at all. What this bill means is that the average family will save about $1,500 over the next two years.

That's a lot of money for a young family—$1,500 over two years. This bill gets a lot done in one go: workers are paid more, parents pay less, and children are safer. Achieving all three at once is what good policy looks like.

I commend this bill to the House.