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

Senator WALSH (Victoria—Minister for Early Childhood Education and Minister for Youth) (18:41): The government announced, when we announced the extension of the worker retention payment, that we would be extending the payment to employees in in-home care and in family day care. That is exactly what we are doing. We have implemented the worker retention payment thus far by requiring providers to have a workplace instrument in place that can be an individual flexibility arrangement, or it can be a collective agreement.

An enforceable instrument is a critical protection for workers. It's a critical protection for the government as well. It is essentially a safeguard to make sure that the payments that we provide go to workers.

It's a safeguard for workers, it's a safeguard for taxpayers, and we are continuing with this extension of the worker retention payment to all employees in long day care, family day care, in-home care and eligible employees in out-of-school hours care as well. We are continuing the use of requiring an enforceable instrument to ensure the integrity of the program.

In relation to the new eligibility, under the expanded worker retention program, I can advise that there are currently 215,000 early educators at services across the country who are benefiting from the pay rise, and Jobs and Skills Australia estimates that there are around 274,000 workers in early education and care, including preschools. So we are, with this expansion and extension of the worker retention payment, including employees in home-care settings and in family day care along with those employees in long day care as well.

We have seen that this pay rise of $255 a week for the average full-time educator has been a game changer. It's helped them stay in the jobs that they love, and it's helped build a strong and stable workforce, which of course is the basis for quality early childhood education and care in this country.