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) (19:06): There are a number of different arrangements, if you want to put it that way, for labour in early childhood education and care, including where we have umbrella family day care providers and umbrella in-home care providers. They can secure the workforce that they are providing to families by using a contractor model or by using an employee model.

As I think I have explained in a number of different ways now, the worker retention payment has been extended to employees in in-home care and employees in family day care. It is a worker retention payment. It is an employee retention payment.

That is exactly how it has been characterised by the government, including in the announcement that we made to extend the payment.