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) (18:59): Thank you, Senator. We value the children in families who are supported by in-home care and family day care. I was really pleased to meet a little girl called Cece and her mum Jen in regional New South Wales recently and to meet the in-home care educator who supports that family and provides great quality early childhood education and care for little Cece.

That is why we have provided sustainability support to the in-home care sector. We have provided $11 million in funding to support the operational costs of the sector. There are some unique costs associated with delivering in-home care.

We recognise that, and we acted, and we are pleased to have been able to provide operational support, which I can confirm can be dedicated to covering costs associated with providing early childhood education, which is a service reliant on a workforce of early childhood educators. The same is true for family day care, where we value the children and families who attend family day care.

We support family day care through the Commonwealth childcare subsidy, and we also support family day care through CCCF. In the latest round of CCCF, a number of family-day-care providers were successful in getting operational support, and that operational support is important for them, to cover all of the costs that they accrue. We were pleased to be able to provide $14 million of operational support to family day care through round 5 of CCCF.

In relation to the worker retention payment, the vast majority of early educators in the workforce are employees, and all employees of the providers who are eligible for Commonwealth childcare subsidy, which I outlined before, are eligible for the worker retention payment. More than 215,000 early educators are currently receiving what is a historic 15 per cent pay rise, on top of significant minimum wage rises, supported and advocated for by the government.

This is a game changer for early childhood educators. It is an extra $255 a week for the average early childhood educator. As I travel around the country and visit services on a regular basis, I make sure that I listen to the educators that I meet and hear what a difference the worker retention payment and the 15 per cent pay rise are making in their lives.

What I am hearing is that they feel valued, they feel respected, they can afford to pay their bills, and they can afford to plan for the future. That is being reflected in the retention numbers that we are seeing in the sector. It comes after a workforce crisis that we inherited after almost 10 years of coalition government refusing to invest in the workforce.

Educators were leaving the sector in droves. Turnover was as high as 30 or 35 per cent in many parts of the country. For many providers, providers were having to rely on staffing waivers rather than fully staffing their services.

Through this historic pay rise, we have seen a workforce that is now much more stable. We are seeing a workforce that is growing. We are seeing job vacancies decline and we are seeing the use of staffing waivers dramatically decline.

All of that adds up to higher quality early education for children, and that is what matters. We know that secure relationships between educators and children are what deliver quality early education in Australia. In order to have those secure relationships, we need a secure, strong and stable workforce.

That is exactly what we are delivering with this historic 15 per cent pay rise, with the worker retention payment and with all of the support that we provide to ensure high-quality early education and care for the nation's children.