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

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (18:36): I want to address the details of the amendment that the opposition is proposing that the Senate agree to today. The government first announced that family day care and in-home care will be included in the expanded scheme, and, as I said in my second reading speech, we welcome that.

I think it was good that the government was going to do that. However, the government has retained eligibility requirements that mean that many of the educators working in those sectors will remain unable to access the payment. Under the current arrangements, providers must engage their workers through a compliant workplace instrument, and this creates a significant barrier for services that rely on lawful contractor and sole-trader arrangements.

These arrangements are not unusual or incidental within home based care. Family Day Care Australia told the Senate inquiry that virtually all of Australia's approximately 8,500 family day care educators operate as self-employed sole traders and independent contractors. In-home care also relies on a mix of employee and contractor arrangements to provide flexible care to families experiencing geographic isolation, complex needs or non-standard working hours.

Forcing these services to change their entire operating model would be commercially unviable for many of these providers—that's the evidence that we heard through the inquiry process—and it would impose significant administrative costs and undermine the flexibility that allows them to meet the needs of families. Without this amendment, the government can continue to say that family day care and in-home care are included while retaining grant conditions that actually exclude much of their workforce.

This is, in fact, not genuine inclusion. This amendment prevents the terms and conditions of a worker retention payment grant from requiring a recipient to engage workers through a particular kind of workplace instrument or industrial arrangement. It also prevents the grant conditions from dictating the broader manner in which workers must be engaged.

Importantly, the amendment does not weaken workplace protections. Paragraph (c) expressly preserves the requirement that all workers be engaged in accordance with relevant Commonwealth, state or territory laws. Providers would still be required to comply with the Fair Work Act and every other applicable workplace law.

They would still be required to demonstrate that Commonwealth funding reaches eligible educators. This amendment simply ensures that access to Commonwealth funding cannot be used to force providers to abandon lawful engagement arrangements. There is already a clear precedent for a much more practical approach.

The government permits labour hire workers to receive the worker retention payment without requiring providers to prove that the labour hire agency has a compliant workplace instrument. Instead, providers must demonstrate through invoices and reporting that the funding has been passed on to eligible workers. This would be far simpler and enable these providers to receive it.

The government has not adequately explained why a similar auditable pathway cannot be used for family day-care and in-home care educators. If the purpose of this program is workforce retention, then the program should reflect the workforce that actually exists. I accept as shadow minister that the number of workers in this space is obviously much smaller compared to those working in centre based care, but, for those families that have to choose that service provision—be it family day care or in-home care—or it's just simply their preference to, then, while the numbers are not as significant for them, that individual family and that individual child, it is significant and it matters.

The system should not favour one lawful operating model over another. It should not entrench a two-tiered system in which educators and centre based services can benefit from the payment while contractors performing equally important work in other approved care settings are locked out. This amendment provides a very practical solution.

It maintains legal protections and accountability for taxpayer funding while removing an unnecessary barrier that would otherwise exclude much of the family day-care and in-home care workforce. My question is around how the government has announced that family day care and in-home care would be included in the workforce retention payment. How many additional educators does the government expect will receive the payment as a result of this change?