Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026
Mr THOMPSON (Herbert) (18:26): The coalition welcomes the certainty this bill provides, and we will not oppose its passage. Early childhood educators perform important work. The reason I want to stand today is to talk about how important early childhood education is in the city of Townsville, which I'm privileged to represent, and to tell a bit of a personal story.
I've got two daughters: Astin, who's now eight, and Emery, who's six. They both went to a Goodstart in Annandale, Townsville. My eldest daughter, Astin, had a bit of a speech delay.
If it wasn't for the support from early childhood educators, she wouldn't have learned how to communicate the way that she does today. The way that she communicates now—from being someone that couldn't talk at a young age to now being able to talk non-stop—is truly remarkable. But I suppose the real highlight here is my daughter Emery.
My daughter Emery has autism. She has level 3 autism. She is just this amazing young girl.
When she was going through a Goodstart she had an early childhood educator there who had something like an affinity just to help and to be there. I remember going there and seeing my daughter—who couldn't talk, who was finding it hard to play with friends—look over and talk to the educator or give the educator a little smile and a sign. The educator came back with a booklet.
Inside the booklet it had a picture of a water bottle. It had a picture of food. It had a picture of a toilet.
It had a happy face. It had a sad face. It was something that I hadn't seen before, and it was the way my young daughter started to communicate.
When she was happy she would pick up the happy sign. When she was sad, when she was hungry, when she needed to go to the toilet—this was all because of this amazing, amazing educator. My daughter, who now goes to an autism school and gets the best care and the best help—her foundation was at an early childhood education centre.
Her foundation that has allowed her to grow is because of not only her mother but also these educators. Now my daughter who has been nonverbal can say, 'I love you, Dad.' My daughter can tell me when she's hungry. She can throw teddies at me and say, 'Open them.' She can tell me when she's thirsty.
She can tell me when she's happy. She can tell me when she's sad. When her sister's sad, she'll look at me and say, 'Wah wah sad.' I half-think she's more having a joke at her sister, but she wouldn't have been able to do this without early childhood educators.
These are people that love their job. These are people that rock up to support these young people. Whether it's in parliament or around the country, we say, 'Young people are our future.' Our future only grows when good water gets poured on it.
It takes more than just parents to raise a child. It takes a community. When you have early childhood educators helping to pour that water and make sure that our young people are getting the best support that they need, it is a good thing.
I've seen it firsthand with my daughter. I've seen it firsthand with children throughout Townsville, Cairns and around the country. Even when I run into them now, they always say, 'Remember what Emery did?' or, 'Do you remember what Astin did?' I remember getting a phone call to come into the day care to speak with the manager there because Emery sat on a boy and ate his food.
She did it not out of malice but out of hunger. Without the educators there, she wouldn't have been able to grow and learn from that. I have a great belief that our early educators are a part of the foundation of how our children and our young people grow.
My six-year-old, Emery, now attends a couple of days at an autism speciality school but then a few days at a school as well, where she's integrating. I look at her, the words that she can say and the love that she has in her eyes and I know it's from the teaching that she got. Whilst I would love to believe that I taught her everything she knows, I know that it's from the community, it's from the people that surrounded her and it's from the people that love her, and they still speak highly of her.
I'm hoping that with all the early interventions, the early education and all the love that she's been shown she'll grow up, she will blossom, she will be an amazing young woman and she'll be one of the change makers that we maybe will see sitting in the gallery or sitting on the floor. It wasn't that long ago that I brought her in here. It turns out you're not allowed to have six-year-olds on the floor, but she came in, ran down, sat on the seat and was so excited.
She was wearing headphones and she was just looking at me, saying: 'Love, Dad. Love, Dad.' That happens when a community supports our young people. That happens when we have early childhood educators that are there to support our people.
We come here to work, and parents around the country work. We work to live, right? It's something that happens.
You're time poor, and things are going well one day and bad the next. But the one thing you can rely on is our early childhood educators to support our young people, as well as support from our grandparents, friends, cousins, mum, dad, sisters and everyone that's there. It's a community that raises our young people.
It's a community that stands side by side to make sure that my Emery, your Emery, gets the support that they need. Without having that early childhood educator that taught me a different way to communicate with my daughter, I would've been stuck in the same circle because it's hard to get the therapies you need. It's hard to get the support you need in regional Australia.
When you have people that have that affinity, who want to love, help and support you, it makes life easier and clearer. I tossed and turned about whether I was going to stand up and talk today. I want to make sure that, for those around the country, those listening tonight and for the parliament, it is on the record that we value our early childhood educators.
We value the people that develop and grow our young people. I'm happy that people choose that profession—and it is a profession. It's not a stopgap.
It's not a job gap. It's a profession. Early educators do an amazing job.
Early educators are the ones who go to our young people, who then go through the schooling system. It's extremely important. It's important because young people either do well or find it quite difficult.
I do think people should have choice. I want to tell you my story. Without the young educator that I had, who was very smart and very quick to let me know how to navigate a problem, I would have been worse off.
They do a great job. The only concern I have is subsequent to this. It's not actually about this bill, but it's subsequent to it.
It's around the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability guidelines. That's something I am concerned about. Smaller regional campuses are where my thoughts are.
These campuses are resource intensive to operate, but they provide critical education services to children who have autism and complex needs. In several communities, these services are limited—if there are any—to the alternative specialist education options available. Consequently, any reduction in services would have significant impacts on some of Queensland's most vulnerable students.
It might sound like this doesn't link in, but it does. It's all together, because this is about early education. For those like me who have children with special needs—my daughter has autism—it's a real thing.
I've heard, 'Oh, you've just got to do this or this.' It is a full-time process of teaching, learning and loving. I would hate to see anything be detrimental to early education and early intervention for my loved ones and your loved ones. I can tell you now that, without early intervention, my daughter wouldn't have looked at me in the eye and said, 'I love you, Dad.' Saying 'love you, Dad' is something that we take for granted.
But, when you look at your daughter, and those are some of the few words that she can say, your heart melts. Then it comes back with all this love, and all you want to do is do everything for them. My daughter is very cheeky.
She'll run away. She'll practice sad faces and angry faces, and then she'll come over and give me a kiss and a hug. My kids are my world, like they are yours, and we must do everything we can to support them.
That's why I wanted to get up tonight and say that we need to love and support our early childhood educators and our other family members that support the growth of our young people, because, without them, things get tough. Without them, things would be worse off. I can't wait to see both my young people, my daughters, grow into amazing young women, but it's because of the help that I got.