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

Significant, momentous, historic, a monumental moment, a lifeboat, proof that early learning matters and life changing: these are just some of the descriptive words that early childhood education advocates and workers have used to describe this government's 15 per cent wage increase. I'm proud to stand in this chamber today alongside my colleague the Minister for Education speaking on the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024, because I know early childhood educators have long been fighting for respect, for fairness and for a world-class early childhood education system for our children.

I want to start by acknowledging all the early childhood educators and all their advocates, who, for more than a decade, have been fighting for a wage increase for this vital workforce. When I first became a member of parliament in 2016 I signed a pledge, the Big Steps pledge, to support a pay rise for early childhood educators, as did many of my parliamentary colleagues on this side of the chamber. I did that for a number of reasons. The first reason was that I, as a single mother, relied very heavily on early childhood education and care. I know I owe the educators who gave my two sons a sense of normality, a routine, the nurturing and the education they needed at a significant time in their lives and in my life a debt of gratitude that I don't think I could ever repay.

Quite recently I was at an Early Childhood Australia conference in my hometown of Perth. As I was leaving the room, at the back of the room a woman stood up and came to me. She said, 'Anne, do you remember me?' Of course I remembered her. She was the educator who looked after my two boys, Adam and Karim. There were tears on both sides as we embraced, and I said to her, 'I don't know how to thank you.' I said to her, 'You saved my life,' and I said to her, 'I don't know if you knew what was going on in my life at the time when you were educating my two sons.' She looked at me and she simply said, 'Anne, we knew; we all knew.' That is one of the reasons why I feel so passionately about recognising just how important early childhood education and care is, just how important the workers and the professionals who educate our children are and just how important their fight for respect and for wage equality has been.

The other reason that I signed that pledge was that I knew, though I did not know that I would one day be the minister, that it would take an Albanese Labor government to deliver that wage increase for early childhood educators. Here we are: a government that recognises this vital profession with this historic investment. When we first came into government we knew that the early childhood education and care system was working, but it wasn't working for everyone. It wasn't working for every child, and it wasn't working for every family. It wasn't working for every parent. So we embarked on reforming this important sector—a sector that was long due for reform, I will add.

The very first thing we did was make early childhood education and care more affordable. Latest data shows that average out-of-pocket costs decreased by more than 13 per cent from the June quarter of 2023 to the June quarter of 2024, following our government's Cheaper Child Care policy coming into effect. We also knew that cost wasn't the only barrier that families were facing in accessing early learning. And we knew, as we know today, that there is more to do. So we asked the ACCC and the Productivity Commission to each do a review, providing guidance on how we can achieve that vision of a universal early learning system, a system where every child, no matter who they are, no matter their background and no matter where they live, has access to quality early childhood education and care.

We know that to get to the Albanese government's vision of a world-class, universal early childhood education system in Australia—one that is affordable, accessible and inclusive—we need a strong foundation. That foundation is a quality and sustainable workforce.

This wage increase is important for families, for children and for the entire early childhood education and care sector across Australia. Ninety per cent of brain development occurs in the first five years. We talk about children learning to walk, to talk, to play and to share. That should be enough to tell us that, in those first five years, early childhood education is not babysitting. It's not wiping bums and noses. It's education. I want to say to the early childhood workers across Australia: the Albanese government sees you, we hear you, we acknowledge you and we know the vital and professional work that you do in helping our youngest Australians grow and thrive.

Early childhood educators are some of the lowest paid people in the workforce, and, as many have mentioned, it's a highly feminised workforce. Their pay, for far too long, just hasn't reflected the level of professionalism that they bring to their work and the heart that they put into educating children between the ages of zero and five. Anyone who's ever visited an early learning centre will tell you, just from observing the way that children interact with their educators and with each other, that there is more than just sitting and care going on here. There is a real level of professionalism reflected in those interactions that you see.

The Productivity Commission's final report confirms what the Albanese government already knew: that prioritising the early learning workforce is critical to any reform. That's why this bill is so important. The wage justice bill supports this historic 15 per cent wage increase for our early childhood education workers. It ensures that funding gets passed on to workers in full. It requires early childhood education and care services to agree to limit the increases they make in the fees they charge families, so it will help strengthen the early learning workforce without passing these costs on to families.

So, in a practical sense, what does this mean for the early childhood education and care workforce? It means that 200,000 early childhood workers right across Australia will get more than $100 more a week in their pay packets in time for Christmas, and, by the end of next year, it means more than an additional $150 in their pay packet each week. It means a livable wage. That's what it means for early childhood educators.

I want to share a little story with the chamber today. I was getting off the plane in Melbourne just last Tuesday, A young man pulled me aside and he said, 'Thank you so much for what you're doing for early childhood educators—for the pay increase.' I said to him, 'Oh, are you an early childhood educator?' He said, 'No, my wife is.' I said, 'In Melbourne or in Perth?' He said, 'In Perth.' I said, 'Whereabouts does she work?' He said, 'Goodstart Joondalup.' He shook my hand and he said: 'This means so much for us. It means so much for her, recognising her work and her professionalism, and it means so much to our family.'

Those words that that young man said to me that day were echoed by Leane, who is a 19-year veteran of the sector. She's worked in early childhood education and care for 19 years. Let me tell you, Deputy Speaker: those early childhood educators who have devoted a lifetime to a sector while earning wages that are so low are just champions. They do it because they love what they do. Leane said:

To be recognised as professionals and to have a wage that reflects that is a huge step forward, not only for educators, but for children and their families

That's what this bill means. That's what this wage increase means.

I've listened to some of the contributions here in the House, and I want to acknowledge the previous speaker, the member for Indi, for her engagement on this and her devotion to this issue. But I have heard some speakers from the Liberal-National coalition, but also some speakers from the Greens political party, denigrating or downplaying the impact of this 15 per cent wage increase. I would say to those people: Go and speak to early childhood educators. Ask them what it means for them. It is significant for them because it means that, along with this government's tax cuts, they're able to earn more. They're able to keep more of what they earn. They don't have to take a second job. They can stay in the profession that they love. They're able to earn a liveable wage. They're able to make ends meet. As one early childhood educator put to me: 'I'm able to buy real food. I'm able to pay the rent.' This is not something that is insignificant. This is really, truly meaningful to the people that it impacts most.

It means that we are on that path to building a strong, stable early learning workforce as we have more early childhood educators coming through our free-TAFE pipeline. I went and visited one TAFE in Perth recently. They've had a 400 per cent increase in the number of people doing a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care. I spoke to those young people undertaking the TAFE course, who said to me: 'I wouldn't be able to do this if it wasn't free. I wouldn't have been able to afford it.' We're building that system. We're building that workforce. That's because we know that accessible and affordable early learning is critical to supporting more people, especially women, to have a choice when it comes to undertaking study, re-entering the workforce or increasing their hours of work.

I come back to my own experience and why I say that those early childhood educators saved my life. It's because they afforded me choice. They afforded me the ability to go back to study. They afforded me the ability to go back to work and to put a roof over my head and my children's heads. They afforded me the ability to provide for my children, an ability that I would not have had had it not been for those early childhood educators.

This bill represents real cost-of-living relief for the household budgets of families struggling with the rising cost of living and it improves economic security for women. It's what the children of Australia deserve. It's what the families of Australia deserve. It's what the Albanese Labor government is delivering. It builds on a range of measures the government is delivering to support this important workforce. We've already increased the pipeline of early childhood educators, as I mentioned earlier. We've got $72 million in the early childhood education workforce package that's helping to retain the existing highly skilled early learning workforce. And now we're increasing wages, helping early childhood educators who have been struggling for so long, attracting more back into the sector and encouraging more people to take up early childhood education and care as a viable career option.

From visiting centres across the country and meeting with so many of our precious early childhood educators, I know that they love the job. But I also know that love doesn't pay the bills. We want to build an early childhood education system that works for everyone. That means that it needs to work for educators as well as for parents and, importantly, it needs to work for children. Every Australian—whether you're a parent, a grandparent, an aunty, an uncle or a great-aunty, as I have just recently become or whether you know someone who works in early childhood education or are an early childhood educator—can get behind this. Every Australian knows just how important the work of nurturing and educating our youngest Australians is. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

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