Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Despite the words of the member opposite, the member for Menzies, the Albanese government has made access to affordable early education a top priority in delivering real cost-of-living relief for Australian families. Since 1 July, more than 1.2 million families in Australia, including approximately 9,400 in Bennelong, are now benefiting from more affordable early childhood education and care services. This policy has brought about significant changes, including lifting the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families earning under 80 grand and increasing the CCS rates for families earning up to $530,000. Making early learning more affordable and more accessible is a triple win: it's good for children, it's good for families and it's good for the economy. Investing in the early years benefits both children and parents. It supports children's development and helps parents and carers to work, train or study, and these benefits flow directly into the Australian economy. The early years are a critical period for cognitive, social and emotional development, and children who participate in high-quality early childhood education and care tend to be better prepared for school and perform better academically.

We are all aware that child care and early education can be prohibitively expensive for many families. We know that it was expensive before the election as well. The former government spent a decade sitting on their hands while families were pushed out of integral early education programs because of financial barriers. Lowering the cost of early learning is an essential economic reform. It helps lift participation, particularly for women, and enables thousands of skilled workers to return to the workforce. I find the attacks from those opposite on our signature election policy of reducing early childhood education costs baffling. They spent nearly 10 years in government. Early childhood education costs increased by over 41 per cent on their watch. Then they come in here and make claims of prices going up, when under their watch prices increased by a whopping 41 per cent. To make matters worse, they did nothing about it.

That's where we differ. Unlike those opposite, we are tackling the issue of early childhood education costs head-on. Not only have we increased the rebates; we have implemented policies such as hourly rate caps, which help put downward pressure on fees and constrain price growth. Further, and probably most importantly, we have commissioned the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate the factors that are driving the costs up in the early childhood education sector. The interim report from this investigation has provided valuable insights into prices, supply and demand and will inform future decisions to ensure affordability and accessibility. The final report will go to the minister by the end of the year and will provide recommendations to government on how to address price challenges in the industry, because we cannot start to fix the problem until we understand why it's happening.

Importantly, we have also initiated a comprehensive Productivity Commission inquiry into the entire early childhood education and care system. This inquiry aims to chart a course towards a universal, affordable early learning system that is on par with other great Labor traditions such as universal Medicare and universal superannuation. We will not sit on our hands while Australian families continue to struggle. When we see issues, we'll take concrete steps and actions to fix them. We won't wait for the next government to come in and clean up our mess. It's why we're also making sure to provide support to early education workforces because we cannot unlock the social and economic benefits of universal access to early education without a well-paid and well-resourced workforce to do it.

Unlike those opposite, getting wages moving in female-dominated sectors like early childhood education is crucial to meeting demand. Our secure jobs, better pay bill passed last year, despite the opposition of those opposite. That is a bill that will help workers in this sector get the pay they deserve. To get more workers into care, we need to value the work they do and pay them properly to do it. The legislation we brought to the parliament that has passed will help us do that. Instead of bogus motions like today's, the Albanese government is actively collaborating with the early childhood education sector to develop practical solutions and reduce costs.

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