Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moncrieff for her question. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the member for Moncrieff on being appointed as the opposition shadow spokesperson on this issue and thank her for her interest in early childhood education.

We know that more needs to be done to develop and recognise the workforce. We recognise that there are serious workforce issues. As I mentioned in my last response, I and my Labor colleagues met earlier today with members from the early childhood education sector, and primarily a lot of the issues that they were raising were around workforce issues. We recognise that there is a shortage in the workforce and the workforce needed now to fill in the vacancies for early childhood education. This shortage is not just in the workforce itself; it may interest the member to know that the retention rates for early childhood educators in certificate III and in diploma are also very low and have reduced quite significantly over the last two years. But even before COVID those retention rates were very low.

To go to the member's question—before the Deputy Leader of the Opposition stands up to interject—about workforce requirements: the figures that were published earlier this week that quote, I think, around 6½ thousand vacancies are correct, and we do anticipate that those vacancies will increase not just as a result of a Labor government making it more affordable and more accessible for children to access early childhood education—

See this speech in context