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

Ms LAWRENCE (Hasluck) (17:33): I certainly welcome the Nationals' new interest in early childhood education. Earlier this week, on Early Childhood Educators' Day, I had the pleasure of visiting three early learning centres in Hasluck: Sagewood Early Learning in Dayton, Bloom Early Education in Ellenbrook and the Read 2 Grow early learning centre also in Dayton.

As often happens on these visits, I arrived expecting to spend some time discussing policy and workforce issues, and we did. But what stayed with me was the people. I met educators whose days are filled with equal measures of patience, care and professionalism.

I saw children learning, exploring and building confidence in environments that had been carefully designed to help them thrive. I spoke with staff who know every child by name and who understand that what they do each day is much more than just supervision; they are supporting learning, development, social skills, emotional wellbeing and a child's sense of belonging.

These are institutions full of love. My visits reinforced something I've long believed: early childhood educators perform some of the most important work in Australia. We all know that the first years of a child's life are critical.

Research over many decades has consistently demonstrated that the foundations for learning, language development, emotional regulation and social skills are established in those early years. High-quality early education for children has long been associated with better educational outcomes, stronger workforce participation by parents—particularly women—and the long-term social and economic benefits that of course we all then enjoy.

Those findings have been repeatedly recognised by the Productivity Commission and by governments of all political persuasions. But if we truly believe that early education for children matters, then we must also recognise, in legislation, the people who make it possible. For too long, the early childhood workforce has faced low wages and significant retention challenges.

The Productivity Commission found that many educators were paid substantially less than workers with comparable qualifications in other sectors, and that low pay was a major factor contributing to workforce shortages across the country. The commission also heard evidence that many educators struggled financially and, in some cases, relied on partners, second jobs or family support to remain in the profession.

That situation was obviously neither fair nor sustainable. When educators cannot afford to remain in the profession, the people who suffer are not just the workers themselves. Children lose experienced educators.

Services struggle to recruit staff, and the trust that comes with regularity and continuity is eroded. Institutional memory goes missing. Families face disruption and uncertainty, and communities lose an essential source of support.

That is why the Albanese government's worker retention payment was so important. The evidence now suggests that the policy is working. More than 215,000 educators across more than 11,600 services have benefited from higher wages.

Workforce vacancies have fallen. Applications for positions have increased. Thousands more workers are choosing to join, stay in or return to the profession.

This bill builds on that success. It provides a further $3.654 billion for the early childhood education and care workers special account, and it extends arrangements supporting higher wages through to 2028. Importantly, this legislation recognises that better outcomes for children require more than just investment; they require stability.

Children benefit when they are cared for by educators who know them, understand them and have built relationships with their families. I know, from meeting parents, day in, day out, within my electorate, how comfortable they feel that they can trust the person caring for their child while they are at work. Workforce retention is therefore not only an industrial issue; it is a quality issue.

Peak bodies across the sector have consistently argued that attracting and retaining educators is one of the greatest challenges facing early learning services. They have pointed to workforce shortages as a major constraint on availability and affordability. While different organisations may have varying views on implementation, there has been broad acknowledgement that improving remuneration is necessary if the sector is to build and retain the skilled workforce Australian families need.

As someone who regularly visits the childcare centres throughout Hasluck, I see the reality of that challenge firsthand. Service directors tell me they want to expand—they want to meet demand in growing communities like in Ellenbrook, Aveley and Dayton—but attracting and retaining qualified educators remains one of the biggest barriers that they face. This legislation helps address that challenge.

It also acknowledges another important reality. Much of the work undertaken in early childhood education has historically been undervalued because it is work traditionally performed by women. The Fair Work Commission found that employees covered by the Children's Services Award have experienced historical, gender based undervaluation of their work.

Its determination recognised that the skills, responsibilities and value associated with the profession had not always been appropriately reflected in wages. This bill continues the journey towards correcting that injustice. It sends a simple but important message: caring for and educating young children is skilled work.

It is valuable work, and it deserves fair recognition. The legislation before the House in National Child Protection Week is also important because it strengthens the link between government support and child safety. Families expect childcare services to provide safe environments for children.

They have every right to expect that services receiving taxpayer funding maintain appropriate standards and continuously strive for improvement. The bill therefore enables funding arrangements to include requirements associated with quality area 2 of the National Quality Standard, which relates specifically to children's health and safety. It also enables consequences where those standards are not maintained.

That reform is part of a much broader effort by the government to strengthen confidence in the early childhood sector. Recent measures have included enhanced compliance activity, mandatory child-safety training, a national worker register and additional safety investments. These reforms reflect a simple principle: every child deserves to be safe, and every parent deserves confidence in the service caring for their child.

This week I spoke with educators in Dayton and Ellenbrook, and I was reminded that public policy is ultimately about people. It is about the educator who wants to remain in a profession that they love. It is about the young family relying on child care so both parents can participate in the workforce, if they wish to do so.

It's about the service director trying to recruit and retain qualified staff. Most importantly, it is about the child, who deserves the best possible start in life. Those are the people that this bill supports.

These policies are widely supported in the community. We have a number of quotes that I want to refer to, because they do deserve to be on the record in Hansard. CEO of Early Childhood Australia, Samantha Page, said: This is a well overdue pay increase, and I am thrilled that the government has acknowledged the professionalism of our educators … Dr Erin Harper from the University of Sydney noted: It's a strong signal the federal government recognises the workforce is undervalued and underpaid.

Lisa Annese, CEO of Chief Executive Women, stated that 'decent pay for educators is key to addressing staffing shortages in early education, which flow through to workforce participation and productivity across the economy'. Specialist early childhood publication the Sector characterised the industry response as broadly supportive, with organisations welcoming long-awaited wage justice measures.

Goodstart Early Learning said about the 2024 bill: This Bill and the supporting Government investment recognises the value and essential services provided by early childhood educators for working families, employers and children—with benefits ultimately flowing to the economy and our society as a whole. Goodstart says their completed job applications have since increased by 35 per cent year on year, and expressions of interest are up 50 to 60 per cent.

The National Foundation for Australian Women commends the Albanese government's decisions on long-overdue pay rises for the ECEC educators. The Productivity Commission's early childhood inquiry found higher wages and better conditions are likely to reduce attrition rates and attract more staff to ECEC. Community Early Learning Australia CEO Michele Carnegie wrote: 'The first tranche of this 15 per cent wage increase has been highly successful.

It has delivered professional wages for over 200,000 educators and teachers, reduced vacancies and increased workforce retention in record time. It has been the driving factor in improving quality and safety for children in early education by stabilising our sector's workforce without increasing costs for families.' We've heard from all corners of society on this bill, from those who work directly in early childhood education, as well as from academics and commentators and peak women's organisations.

They have stated their strong support, because they all see the benefit of this government's approach. We haven't heard a great deal from the opposition on this legislation, though—not much at all. It's as if members opposite think there's something more important than the interests of our young children.

Now, anyone who doesn't understand what is going on with this opposition's almost deafening silence, on this and many other matters before the parliament, might think that the fix for the Liberals and Nationals is an easy one: just reorder their priorities; put a little bit more effort into a speech or two the day before parliament sits. But the malaise in the parties opposite didn't start yesterday.

In the 1970s, members in the ALP started raising the issue of gender politics and affirmative action. In the 1980s, nationally and in every state branch, the matter was debated. Through the 1990s, and over the 30 years since, the ALP has transformed itself from a party where every conference and party room was almost wall-to-wall bloke into one which now actually represents both men and women in proper proportion.

The policies of the ALP in the 48th Parliament are informed by a caucus and a cabinet where women and women's interests are properly represented. This is making a difference in every portfolio, across health and education and housing and opportunity. In the early childhood education area, where most workers are women and where women are largely the caregivers still mainly affected, policies like the legislation before us could never be expected to rise—as if by magic!—from a party that has not done the hard work to change itself.

The opposition leader said the coalition needed to change or die. He's right. But where's the change?

That's the problem with change: if you want it, you have to actually change. A good opposition doesn't just carp; it has to have a vision for the future and policies to underpin that vision. What is the vision of those opposite for our ECEC sector?

Good governments, as the PM has indicated, deal with the challenges of the present, while investing in and planning for the future. Few investments are more important than those that support our children, support families and recognise the value of the educators who help shape the next generation. I congratulate the minister—and, in fact, the former minister for this portfolio, who happens to be in the chamber today, Minister Anne Aly.

And I support the bill.