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) (18:49): I'm advised that the best way to get further information about the numbers that you're interested in is to consider the entire pool of early educators—which, as I said, is 274,000, according to Jobs and Skills Australia—and then to consider the proportion of services that are family-day-care services and the proportion of services that are in-home care services.

I'm advised that around 4.8 per cent of services, of family-day-care services, provide care for around 62,000 children—about 4½ per cent of all children in CCS approved care. From some of the work that we've done recently in relation to in-home care, we know that that is a much smaller sector. From memory, there are just over 20 providers in that sector, serving around 800 families.

As we know, it's quite a small sector, and it is ultimately a decision for those providers as to whether they want to sign up for the worker retention payment. Of course, the worker retention payment is available to providers in family day care and in in-home care should they wish to transition from a contractor model to an employee model. But, again, that is essentially a matter for those providers as to whether that is something that works for them and whether that's an opportunity that they would like to take up.