Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the awesome member for Aston for her question. Early educators up in the gallery and right across the country are some of the most important workers in this country, but you wouldn't know that from what they're paid. This morning I introduced legislation to help change that, legislation to increase what they're paid by 15 per cent: a 10 per cent pay rise from December this year and a further five per cent from December next year. We've got 30,000 more early educators in Australia today than we had two years ago when we came to office, but the truth is we need more. This 15 per cent pay rise will help everyone that does this essential work now to keep doing it but will also, hopefully, encourage people who love this job but felt like they had to leave it because they couldn't afford to keep doing it to come back and do this again.

Mr Speaker, in your electorate, Jessica, who works at Goodstart in Bellbird Park, said this morning, 'Now that this pay rise is coming through, I can actually stay and do what I love: teach children.' And that's what this is. It's not babysitting; it's education. It's teaching our children.

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