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

Senator WALKER (South Australia) (12:29): Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) (Extending Support and Strengthening Safety) Bill 2026 is a long title for a bill with a very straightforward purpose. It locks in higher wages for early educators for another two years, helps families with the cost of care and gives the government a stronger way to make sure public funding goes to services that keep children safe.

Every morning across Australia, parents hand over the person they care about most in the world to an early childhood educator. They often do it at 7.30 in the morning, while trying to find a missing shoe, remember a lunch box and make it to work on time. They rely on the person at the door to welcome their child, settle them in, notice when something is wrong and help them through a very big day in a very small person's life.

That educator will teach children how to share, speak up, listen, count, create, make friends and handle feelings that can be very overwhelming when you're three. They will answer a huge number of questions. They will manage tears, spills, sunscreen, stories, naps and the occasional total breakdown.

Sometimes I think these educators would be very useful here in the chamber for certain senators! That is skilled work. It carries real responsibility and, for far too long, the pay did not reflect that.

We could all see where that road was heading. Centres were delaying expansion plans because they couldn't find staff. Some were closing rooms; others were limiting enrolments.

Families could have a place on paper but still find that the room wasn't open because there weren't enough educators to run it safely. For the workers who stayed, the pressure kept building. Rosters became harder, days became more exhausting and people who loved the job began asking whether they could afford to keep doing it.

That is why the Albanese Labor government announced on 8 August 2024 that we would fund a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers. It was a direct response to a workforce problem that had been allowed to grow for years. If Australia wanted more early learning places, more reliable care and a stronger system, we needed the people who make that system run, and, if we wanted those people to stay, we had to pay them properly.

The results since that announcement paint a pretty strong picture. There are now around 20,000 more early childhood education and care workers in the sector. That is an increase of around eight per cent.

Job vacancies have fallen by almost 31 per cent. The share of services operating with a staffing waiver has dropped from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent. In practice, that means more rooms able to open, fewer centres scrambling to fill a roster, more consistency for children and more certainty for parents.

It also means children have a better chance of seeing the same familiar faces each week. That consistency is a huge part of quality early learning. Young children build trust through steady relationships.

An educator who knows a child well can tell when they're unusually quiet, when they're worried, when they're struggling to join in or when they're ready to be challenged. They know which song helps it drop off. They know that a child calling a stuffed bunny by its name is not a minor detail but an extremely important piece of personal information.

You can't build that kind of knowledge and trust with endless overturn of exhausted workers. Workforce stability supports learning, but it also supports safety. People who know the children, know the room and know their colleagues are better placed to notice risks and respond quickly.

The wage rise has also been delivered with families in mind. Services receiving the worker retention payment have had to limit fee increases. Since the payment began, fees are participating centres have grown at around half the rate of fees at centres that didn't sign up.

This goes against those who suggest a pay rise for educators would simply be handed straight on to parents through higher fees. The government designed the payment so workers could receive more without families copping it. The evidence so far shows that this approach is working.

On 14 June this year, the government announced that we would lock in the pay rise for another two years. This bill gives effect to that commitment. It credits the wage justice special account with an additional $3.6 billion and extends the act to 31 December 2029.

That gives services the backing to keep paying higher wages and gives workers greater certainty about what they will earn. For the first time, employees in every childcare subsidy approved service will be eligible for the payment. When this funding is combined with the government's support for increases to the minimum wage, a typical full-time educator will be earning $255 more each week than they were in December 2024.

For an early childhood teacher, the difference is $410 a week. That is the kind of change people feel in their household budget. It can cover groceries, power bills or a tank of petrol.

It can make rent week less stressful. It can mean a worker who has spent years caring for other people's children can keep doing the job they're trained for instead of leaving for a better paid role in another sector. Early childhood education has long been treated as work that people do because they care, as though caring deeply somehow makes fair pay optional.

The sector is overwhelmingly staffed by women, and the low value placed on the work has never been separate from that fact. We hear plenty of nice words about educators. They're thanked in speeches.

They receive handmade cards at the end of each year. Parents know exactly how much skill and patience that job requires. Many parents saw the difficulties during COVID.

But appreciation does not pay the rent and gratitude is not a workforce policy. The people teaching children in the first years of their lives deserve wages that recognise the skill, judgement and responsibility involved. This funding moves us much closer to that.

Early learning allows parents to work more hours, return after having a child or take up a new job knowing their child has somewhere safe and reliable to go. Communities benefit when local services can keep staff and children arrive at school better prepared to learn. You do not get any of those benefits without a workforce.

The extension will also save the average family around $1,500 over the next two years. The requirement to restrain fee growth will continue for services receiving the funding, so the benefit is shared: educators receive higher wages, services are better able to keep their staff and parents get some protection from rapidly rising fees. For a family already doing mental gymnastics at the supermarket, $1,500 is meaningful.

Child care is one of the largest regular bills many households face. Parents should not have to choose between an affordable place and a centre with enough qualified staff to provide good care. A decent early learning system has to deliver both.

This bill also strengthens the connection between wage funding and children's safety. From July 2027, services receiving funding through the wage justice special account will be required to meet quality area 2 of the National Quality Standard, which covers children's health and safety. If a service does not meet that standard, its funding may be reduced or suspended.

Around 95 per cent of services already meet quality area 2. That is a strong base, and it also leaves a gap that we should not wave away. When a service receives public funding intended to support its workforce, the community is entitled to expect that it meets the national standard for children's health and safety.

The purpose of this condition is practical. It gives the government another lever when a service falls short. Funding can be cut or suspended, and services have a clear financial reason to fix problems and meet the standard.

This works alongside the broader goals to strengthen quality and safety across early learning. Better pay helps retain experienced educators. Stable teams communicate better and know their children.

Clear standards tell providers what is expected. Real consequences make those expectations more than words on a website. Families should be able to drop their child off with confidence.

They should know that the service is properly staffed, that health and safety requirements are being met and that their concerns will be acted on. They should also know the educators in the room are being supported to build a long-term career. There is a habit in debates about early education of discussing every part separately.

Wages sit in one box, affordability sits in another, safety and quality get their own section and workforce shortages are treated as a separate problem again. In a real centre, these things arrive together every morning. If a service can't retain educators, it may have to close a room.

If a room closes, families lose care and parents lose work hours. If staff are constantly changing, children lose community. If fees rise too quickly, families cut back or leave.

If safety standards slip, every other claim about quality becomes fairly meaningless. This bill deals with those connections. It provides the money to continue higher wages, keeps fee restraint attached to that funding, expands eligibility across all childcare subsidy approved services and adds a clear health-and-safety condition.

The progress already made shows why continuing the payment is the sensible course. Twenty thousand more workers is progress. Vacancies down by almost a third is progress.

Staffing waivers falling from 8.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent is progress. Slower fee growth at participating services is progress. But no-one in this government is pretending the job is finished.

Families still struggle to find places in some areas. Educators still face demanding days. Services in regional and remote communities have particular hiring challenges.

Five per cent of services not meeting the relevant health-and-safety standard is five per cent too many. The answer is to build on what has worked. There is also a broader point here about what governments choose to value.

Early educators do work that shapes a child's first experience of learning outside the home. They help children become confident enough to try, curious enough to ask questions and secure enough to form relationships. Much of that work happens quietly.

There is no ribbon cutting when a shy child joins a group activity for the first time. There is no press conference when an educator helps a child learn to manage frustration. But those small moments build, and every family sees the difference.

The quality of a child's early education should not depend on whether their centre can keep enough staff, an educator's ability to stay in the profession should not depend on how long they can personally absorb being underpaid and a parent's ability to work should not collapse because a local service cannot fill its roster. Public investment can change those outcomes.

We have evidence that this investment already has. I am very pleased to support this bill. It keeps faith with early educators, gives families practical help with costs, supports more reliable services and puts a firmer expectation around children's health and safety.

Most of all, it recognises something families have understood for a long time: early educators are professionals. They carry enormous responsibility, they shape children's lives and the system only works when they are there. They deserve more than warm words; the government is putting the funding behind them.