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) (19:26): We do fund and provide support to services to help them meet standards in general. One of the ways that we'll do that with this extension of the worker retention payment is through the government's $10 million worker retention payment engagement program. Support will be provided through that mechanism.

It's important for us all to be reminded that 95 per cent of services are meeting the standard already, but, of course, all of us want that to be higher.