Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition created a problem for me recently. As many people in my community know, people ask me, 'Why did you into politics? What do you want to achieve in your political career?' or 'If you were PM for a day, what would you do?' I used to tell them I'd do universal access for three-year-old kinder. There's a lot of nonsense in this building, particularly in recent times, but when you think about the big things, the really big things that matter to this country, when you ask yourself what will really matter over the long term—not over the news cycle, not over the electoral cycle, but over decades, generations—this is it; the evidence is in: access to universal early childhood education, high-quality early childhood education, matters. So, if a Labor government wins the next election and forms government I'll need a new answer to that question, because a Shorten Labor government, thanks to the hard work of the member for Kingston, will make this happen.

Like many of my colleagues, I'm a parent of young kids. Both of my kids are under the age of seven, and you get a PhD in parental guilt in this place! My kids share their dad with this building and more than 100,000 of my constituents. You end up worrying a lot as a dad whether you're doing everything you can to give them the best start in life, even when you can't be there. It's so important. We know that 90 per cent of children's brain development happens before the age of five. Both of my children have gone through early childhood education while I've been an MP, so I know how important high-quality early childhood education is. It helps teach kids the skills that parents can't—social skills, school-readiness skills, foundation skills for a life of learning.

That's why I am proud that Labor has committed to the biggest ever investment in early childhood education in Australia, an investment of an additional $1.75 billion into early childhood education that will deliver two years of high quality play based learning to support the most important years of a child's development, when they're three and four years old. Labor's plan will see around 700,000 three- and four-year-olds access preschool every year, including more than 2,000 three-year-old children in my electorate. The Morrison government, in contrast, has failed to extend preschool funding for four-year-olds beyond the next school year. They talk about certainty—if someone said that you had job certainty for 12 months, would you think that was giving much certainty? It's just not good enough.

They on the other side of this chamber don't get it. They don't get that investment in early childhood education is an investment in the Australian economy, in sustaining our prosperity. The European Union has found that, for every dollar invested in early childhood education for three-year-olds, $4 was returned to the economy. If you could find an infrastructure project with a four-to-one CBR, you'd be laughing all the way to the bank. Those opposite just don't get it. They don't get that investment in early childhood education would make Australia a fairer society. If you want to give all Australian kids a fair go in life, you've got to give all Australian kids access to high-quality childhood education. As a dad, I want my children to have the best possible start in life. But, as a Labor MP, I want all children in Australia to have an equal opportunity to reach their full potential. Who a child's parents are and where they are born shouldn't matter to their ability to reach their full potential.

But in Australia today that's not the case. In Australia, the influence of a parent's income on a child's adult income has actually increased in the last ten years. That means that, if the parent earns more, the child is likely to earn more as an adult. That's not a fair go. Children in less-advantaged households are less likely to be exposed to reading. The best-educated parents are twice as likely as the least-educated parents in our society to read to their children every night. Inequality manifests early and it becomes more expensive to address with age. What kids learn before the age of five is the foundation of what and how they will learn for the rest of their lives. We know how important language acquisition and vocabulary building is in these years, but the non-academic skills are even more important—relationship building, conflict resolution, self-control and focus, skills that are essential both to being a successful learner and a successful member of our society. It's far harder and more expensive to bridge the skills gap in primary school, in high school, in university or in TAFE.

If we're serious about fighting intergenerational inequality, we need to start at kinder. We need to start with kids at three and four years of age, and we need to ensure that every kid in Australia gets every opportunity to reach their full potential in life. That's the kind of country that we on this side of the chamber believe in—an egalitarian society, a society of the fair go for all. I couldn't be prouder of the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Kingston for their work in this area, and I'll fight every day till the next election to make it a reality for future generations of Australians. (Time expired)

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