Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a real privilege to speak on this motion. I'm really pleased to hear the opposition talking about early learning and education because in government they were silent on it. They saw it as childcare, and we heard barely a peep out of them, so I'm glad it's got on their radar, but let's get some facts on the table.

We know that early education is a place where we can make some of the biggest inroads in development that flow through to society for decades to come. That's because the work of early educators is transformative for children and their families. We're working to build a universal early education and care system that's accessible for all families, no matter their circumstances or background. We've already taken some critical first steps, including to make early childhood education more affordable for over a million families through our cheaper childcare reforms. We commissioned the ACCC and the Productivity Commission to each do a review so that we'd get guidance on how we can achieve our vision of making early education affordable and available, and what we're doing is evidence based.

We've started with our policy to deliver cost-of-living relief for more than a million Australian families by cutting out-of-pocket costs, and we've seen that it's cut the cost of early learning by more than 17 per cent from when it was first introduced. An Australian family on an income of $120,000 a year, paying the average quarterly fee for 30 hours of child care a week, is approximately $2,768 better off since September 2023. This is real cost-of-living relief. It's money going back into the pockets of Australian families. By contrast in the last four years of the previous Liberal government, childcare prices went up by twice as much as the OECD average. It was double what we've seen in other places.

There is more to do on cost, but we've also had to work on building up the early education and care workforce. That's crucial. The Productivity Commission stated that we had to prioritise that workforce before any major reforms, and that's why it has been a priority. Since coming to office more than a thousand new services have commenced operating, with nearly 30 per cent outside major cities, including in Macquarie. There are 41,900 more educators. There are more than 90,000 additional places. And today there are more than 125,000 educators in the pipeline we created, because that pipeline was down to a trickle. Data released by Jobs and Skills Australia just last month showed workforce vacancy rates in the early education and care sector plummeted over the last 12 months, with internet vacancy rates down 22 per cent since December 2023. That means that there are more workers picking up jobs, that jobs are advertised for less time and that we're filling those spots. Our decision to provide a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood workers to retain and attract the workforce is as an example of what is helping many centres in my community, although I acknowledge it hasn't been the simplest way forward for some. We know there's more to do. Our three-day guarantee is one more of those steps.

When the Liberals introduced the childcare subsidy activity test in 2018 they stated that it was designed to encourage workforce participation. Well, the effect it has had, though, is to shut out many families, especially single parents, from access to subsidised care. As Thrive by Five's Jay Weatherill stated: 'The activity test was intended to encourage parents into work, but in fact it has done the opposite. It has limited choices and made it harder for parents, especially single parents, to make an income.' We believe that every child has the right to go to early education—whether you're the child of a single mum, an unemployed parent or someone who's studying—and we know that that helps make sure they don't start school behind. Every child in their first school classroom benefits from this investment, and our Labor government are going to make this possible.

Another of the missing pieces is access. We especially see this in Macquarie, with the Blue Mountains and sections of the Hawkesbury both identified as childcare deserts. That puts pressure on centres in the better served areas like Emu Plains, Windsor and surrounds. Supply is a barrier to access. That's why a re-elected Albanese Labor government will establish a $1 billion Building Early Education Fund—building and expanding more centres in areas of need, including peri-urban areas like mine. And I thank every childhood educator for the work that you continue to do.

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