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) (19:11): As you've outlined in your question, we have added a new safety requirement as part of the worker retention payment. We do require providers to meet quality area 2 under the National Quality Standard in order to be eligible for the worker retention payment. They will need to meet that standard of quality area 2, which describes child safety and wellbeing, by the middle of next year in order to be eligible for the payment.

Around 95 per cent of services already meet the national safety standard, but we do want that number to be higher. We know that that's what parents expect, and it's what children deserve. The reason we want to make compliance with quality area 2 part of the worker retention payment is to continue to drive the really important safety work that we're doing in the sector.

Last year, we passed legislation that gives the Department of Education the power to cut off funding to operators that don't meet the quality, safety or compliance requirements under the national law, and we have been using those powers. There's always more that we can do to raise quality and safety standards, and this bill is part of that effort.