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

Mr ROB MITCHELL (McEwen) (10:58): It's always a pleasure to follow the member for Bass and listen to her elegant words and story. It's magnificent to see her here and the work she's doing. Wage justice for early childhood education and support workers is very important, and I'm proud to support the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026.

The bill is designed to support the essential workers who show up every day and make our society better, and the benefits of a bill like this are not only for workers. Doing better for childcare workers means we are supporting young families and creating opportunities. We know that supporting young families has benefits across our economy.

The bill is not about politics or one group in society at the expense of all others. It's about justice. Early childhood educators, who contribute so much to this nation, deserve to be paid fairly.

Our government, the Albanese Labor government, is proud to support everyday Australian workers. We are committed to building an early learning system that is high in quality, more affordable and, importantly, available when families need it. The wage justice bill, at its core, is about financial freedom.

Think back to 2022. We inherited a mess. When this government was first elected, the attrition rate for workers in child care was as high as 40 per cent in some places.

These were people who loved their job, took a deep sense of fulfilment and pride in their work, but couldn't go on earning such low wages. These are the people that educate and nurture our most precious resource: children. But they were leaving in droves because they couldn't afford to keep doing it.

It was a real crisis in this sector. Two years ago, we made a very conscious decision. We delivered a 15 per cent pay rise for more than 215,000 early childhood educators at more than 11,600 centres right across the nation.

When combined with the government's support for minimum wage rises, this means $255 more per week for a typical full-time educator and $410 more per week for early childhood teachers. Job vacancies are now down 31 per cent. Job applications in some places are up 30 per cent, and there are now 20,000 more childcare workers across the nation.

I'm proud that we've committed a further $3.6 billion to extend the worker retention payment out to 30 June 2028. It's not a pie in the sky press release or a photo op to look like government doing something. It's focused attention on real Australians, compared to the empty media releases that they saw from those opposite—all Insta feeds; no deeds—over nine long years.

The coalition gave child care nothing. We even had one disingenuous Prime Minister proclaim during the pandemic that there would be free child care for everyone with a job. We all know how that went, don't we!

We all remember those words at the press conference and the photo op. But, like most announcements from that Prime Minister, it was all conference, no follow up—all pictures, no substance—and Australian workers were worse off. In fact, the most outstanding feature of that government's free childcare system was the number of people who were actually locked out of free child care.

What did that mean? It meant services had to cut opening hours. They had to cut staff, and they had to cut places just to balance their books.

It was unfair. But this government's different. We're proud to have a financially responsible system in place.

Our funding extension is directly tied to a commitment from services that they will limit fee increases for families. It means the average family will save some $1,500 over the next two years. We're not just funding more childcare employment; we're funding better standards of care.

To receive the funding, services will now also be required to meet a new range of national standards. The national quality standard was jointly developed by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to ensure that we have safety in the sector. It is a standard that services are assessed and rated against by state and territory regulatory authorities.

If you don't meet the standard, funding will be cut. About 95 per cent of services already meet the criteria, but we want that number to be higher. Since the legislation passed, the Department of Education has taken compliance actions against 119 centres.

These are the centres that have not met safety standards. It's no surprise that 55 of those centres have now suddenly fixed the problems that they refused to fix in the past. The threat of cutting off their funding has forced them to act.

As the Minister for Education put it, that's what parents have a right to expect and it's what our children deserve. The bill will also allow for equivalent conditions to apply to services that are not regulated by the National Quality Framework, such as in-home care services. The wage justice bill is providing continuity by amending the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Act 2024.

The sunset date has been adjusted to 31 December 2029. Being able to use a one-off payment is one thing, but being able to rely on proper support for your future is another, and we're proud that we have delivered both. I've been privileged to see firsthand the good work our childcare centres across McEwen do.

From recent trips to Goodstart Early Learning in Woodend and Explorers Early Learning in Wallan, what really struck me was the skill, the dedication, the patience and the responsibility that our early childhood educators bring to work every single day. They're not babysitters, as some might refer to them. They are trained professionals.

They help children learn. They help children develop and build the foundations that they need to carry to school and beyond. We know the importance of early learning in children up to five years old, and these workers deserve to be valued accordingly.

It isn't just about building wages, because, when good educators stay in a profession they love and enjoy, children benefit, families benefit and eventually our society benefits. This bill is about building and retaining a strong and experienced workforce now and going forward into the future. Both of the centres I mentioned are providing the care and education children deserve day in, day out.

These centres of early childhood educators give parents the peace of mind that they deserve in being able to leave their kids in their care. Across McEwen, there are 67 childcare centres receiving worker retention payments, supporting about 1,000 early childhood educators. I want to use this time to say thank you to the educators that we meet at these centres, and to all our educators, for the valuable work you do.

McEwen was rated as one of those areas with a childcare desert. We know that there was a shortage of child care, with a growing, exploding population—a population whose infrastructure and support were neglected for nine years but are now getting the things that they deserve in roads, in mobile phones, in doctors and in bulk-billing, and, of course, we're seeing a rise in early childhood learning centres.

With an average age of around 34, young families need to know when they come to our suburbs and our communities and become part of us that they will get the support they need. We see childcare centres popping up everywhere, and it's fantastic. We have these small, dedicated ones.

I look back to when my daughter, Rachel, was young and we would drop her off early. It was literally a converted house with a few big rooms. You know the feeling when you drop a child off.

If you don't wave goodbye to them, they get pretty angry and upset, and you don't want to see that. But now when you walk into these new early childhood learning centres you just see a warmth in the way the decor is done and the willingness of the staff to work there and be warm and friendly and helpful, and you see very quickly the rapport that children get with their educators and the fun that they have.

The range of things that they do in different learning environments is just fantastic. Quite often we might walk in there, do our bit, deliver flags and talk to them about work, but what you see is a bunch of enthusiastic people who really do value the work that they do and are very proud of their work. We should be very proud of them, and we are proud because the work they do takes a bit of patience, a lot of learning, a lot of care and a lot of effort—and I don't think I could find one person in the sector that doesn't have all of that in spades.

We want to make sure that early childhood educators give parents the peace of mind that they deserve, just to be able to leave their kids in someone else's care. When we look at these things and at the technical amendments in the bill, they make some important clarifications. Where an approved provider is not a legal person such as a partnership, the worker retention payment grant agreement can be made between the Commonwealth and a person acting on behalf of the approved provider.

This bill is a clear step in the right direction. A year and a half into this Labor government's second term, we are getting on with the job of governing for all Australians. It is in stark contrast to what we've seen in the recent past.

According to analysis, 25 per cent of early childhood learning centres suffered massive financial losses during COVID. They were losing money every day and they were operating to support the children of essential workers. My question to the coalition is simple: when you were in government, what did you do to help?

I don't mean a press release or a shiny new announcement—what did you actually do? Ours is a government of action. We acknowledged that what our early childhood educators did during COVID was so important, and we thanked them because we know it was hard work and it was painful but they did it.

They should be acknowledged for that sort of work. Ours is a government, as I said, of action, making decisions and implementing them. On 17 June this year, the PM announced an investment of $3.6 billion over the next two years to lock in this historic pay rise.

Now we're turning our promises into actions. The bill provides financial support, standards improvements and employment continuity. The Department of Education predicted that, if this legislation does not pass, childcare fees will rocket by about 17 per cent.

You would think no-one in this place would want that. Our childcare workers need to be able to keep doing the job they love and to foster our next generation of Australians. You don't need to be a childcare provider to feel the benefits.

You don't even need to be a parent. A better childcare system underpins our economy. It means more people can work and every child gets their best start.

This bill is about justice, and all Australians can get behind it. I commend this bill to the House.