Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Minister for Social Services) (12:48): I want to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 because every single day, every morning, there are families right around Australia who are dropping their kids off to early childhood education and care.
They're putting those children, those precious little children, in the hands of highly professional workers who become more than just a support for those families; they become family members themselves. Those parents trust these educators to care for those children, to keep them safe, to help them learn and grow and to support them through some of the most important years of their lives.
We know just how much brain development happens before a child turns five, and making sure that that brain development is stimulated, that it is supported, is absolutely vital to preparing those children for school. That work literally holds our communities together, because, if families can't access affordable, reliable child care, parents can't participate fully in the workforce—and, of course, kids miss out too.
Early childhood education doesn't just prepare children for school; it prepares them for life. It helps them to develop confidence. It helps them make friends.
My daughter is 25, and her best friend is the best friend she met when she was 10 months old in early childhood education and care. I'm sure that's not an unusual story. Children learn how to be patient, how to take turns and how to express empathy with other children.
Early childhood education and care encourages curiosity and enhances the social skills of our children. It is an enormous responsibility, and for way too long the people who have done this critical work, mostly women, have not received the recognition or the pay that they deserve. Back in August 2024, our government announced it would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood workers through the worker retention payment.
We did that because we know that this sector was under significant strain. Services across the country were struggling to attract and retain staff and, as a result, families couldn't get the care they needed. It was hard to find workers for early childhood education and care—not because the workforce didn't love the work.
They do love the work, but, when you can earn more stacking shelves overnight at Woolies than you can caring for our nation's children, there is something wrong with that system. The worker retention payment has already made a huge difference. It's meant more educators in classrooms.
It means greater stability for children and lower costs for families. This legislation builds on that success by extending funding for these wage increases for a further two years, something that will benefit around 1,300 workers in my electorate alone. When you combine that with our support for minimum wage rises, it will see early childhood teachers earning an extra $410 a week and full-time educators earning an extra $255 a week, a substantial difference for those families and those households.
But this bill isn't just about improving wages, important as that is. It's about ensuring quality, stability and safety in the sector. Across Australia, early educators are on the front line when it comes to keeping vulnerable children safe and identifying signs of abuse or neglect.
We rely on them to understand when a child may be at risk, to make difficult judgements about their safety and to raise concerns in a timely manner. That requires experience; it requires training; it requires confidence and professional judgement; and, crucially, it requires a stable workforce, because among the things that early childhood educators are trained to look for are dramatic changes in a child's behaviour that might indicate that there's something wrong or that they might be at risk, either in the early childhood setting or at home.
That's why investment in workforce retention is so very important. When experienced educators leave the sector, we lose more than workers; we lose the relationships, knowledge, expertise and trust that keep children safe. Safety sits at the heart of this legislation.
This bill introduces a new object and condition of funding through the wage justice special account, building on the government's commitment to strengthen quality and safety in early learning. From July 2027, services that fail to meet quality area 2 of the national quality standard, relating to children's health and safety, may have their funding reduced or suspended.
Almost 95 per cent of services already meet this standard, but parents should be confident that every service receiving public funding is providing children with a safe environment where they can learn and grow. This bill strengthens that expectation and reinforces the simple principle that quality early learning and children's safety go hand in hand, and it delivers a practical and balanced package as a result.
More than that, it recognises the value of educators through better pay. It supports services to attract and retain skilled workers. It keeps costs down for families.
It strengthens safety and quality standards for children. Early childhood education matters, and the people who do this work matter. I'm proud to support the bill, and I commend it to the House.